johnmarth's Journal, 05 February 2015

the weight loss slows down to a snails pace/1 or 2 pounds per month/ after i lost 44 pounds in 3 1/2 months. 

these plateaus can last for 3 or 4 weeks and then i suddenly lose a couple of pounds don't know why it happens like this? 

If anyone should know their body, it's you. Looking at your weight history, you've certainly told it "who's boss"! You've made tremendous progress. Congrats 

Congrats!!  

i love the support and comments from members thank you so much. as far as the mysteries of the why and when of weight loss, my advice is patience will be rewarded if you stick to your plan you must not give up or abandon your weight loss plan. 

The plateaus are just your body becoming more efficient with the diet. If you change things up a bit every once and a while it will throw it out of its groove a bit and get things moving again. 

i've changed my diet 4 times 4 months first atkins to start, then an atkins hybrid then an atkins with normal carbs lowfat then finally now a high protein/vegan diet with mostly soy/bean proteins/ carbs and still losing weight. i'm thinking that my current vegan diet is the best for long term health/ weight loss and management. 

because i've found that i can eat as much as i want do not have to count calories and still lose weight as long as the food i eat is vegan although it is very hard to decipher ingredients and foods that are or not vegan. 

i'v found that the plateaus are becoming longer in time, and the short term weight loss drops are less, the longer i'm on this weight loss journey at 44 lbs lost i still think i can lose more weight. 

make sure you're getting in your metals, Amino acids, and creatine. Meat does have a place in the human diet (though many will disagree with me) I know of some vegans in my workplace that ended up with some deficiencies. 

meat has its place in moderation or not at all. it used to be on every mealplate for me; even 3 months ago i was eating meat, and it was difficult to wean myself off of meat and dairy, but like losing weight or improving your health; you have to cut back on the things that make you sick; my suggestion is to slowly wean your self off of meat or slowly reduce the amount that you consume if you want to improve your health. the studies show eating red meat beef, pork are linked to obesity, various cancer, cardiovascular disease, foodborne illness etc. although chicken and fish are much healthier the cholesterol levels are high in all animal products so need to cut back or eliminate animal meats/ products to reduce cholesterol levels; so anything that is good for you exercise, weight loss, cutting back on red meat produces pain my take is in order to have pleasure you must have pain first. 

100% in support of the vegan lifestyle, in my last comment I wasn't saying subliminally that you should eat meat or dairy, you can get everything that I had said from vegan sources too. 

Reread my comment and realized that I sounded like I was trying to force meat on you, wasn't my intension. 

as far as metals i'm taking a multivitamin that contains all the metals, also a 1000mg vit b12 methyl cobalamin, amino acids not an issue because i use complimentary vegetable proteins, beans-rice, nuts-grains, tofu-rice, vital wheat gluten-bread, soy protein powder-cold cereals etc and it is enough protein, as far as creatine supplements for atheletes to build muscle mass i haven't used it is it effective? 

basically the reason why i cut out the meat/dairy was my doctor told me to lose weight and to cut my cholesterol levels down first she told me to stop eating animal products high in fat whole milk, cheese, butter, processed meats, pork products to reduce my high cholesterol. replace with skim milk, lowfat dairy only, lean meats etc but then found it was still difficult to curb my appetite, and lose weight; eating meat and dairy it seems to increase my appetite and bad eating behaviors like cravings for unhealthy high fat sweets etc. i'm wondering if the cholesterol in animal products wreak havoc on your hormones that regulate appetite. 

Creatine monohydrate is the most studied and proven athletic supplement on the market, however...the only reason why I mentioned Creatine is because it is an non-essential nutrient that you muscles use for hydration and ATP production. By non-essential, I'm sure you know I mean that your body is able to produce it, but it is produced from the aminos glycine and arginine. which you could get from food other than meat. However creatine itself is only found in meat. 

or the saturated fat/cholesterol, carb/sugar combination is a really difficult addiction to break because i found meat pizzas, doritos nacho cheese, ice cream, dognuts, croissants, fast food 1/2 lb hamburgers with cheese, mexican food loaded with cheese was my addiction that i was eating just 6 months ago at my highest weight of 215 lbs. 

Whatever it takes my friend, Not at all trying to talk you out of eating vegan. All I was trying to say is that some nutrients that are in meat that our body uses are very important, so just make sure that you're getting them from vegan foods so that you can be healthy! A couple of vegans that I know have become very sick at times because they were not ensuring that their bodies got everything they needed, which lead to malnourishment. Being a vegan means that you have to do a lot more than simply not consume any animal meat or bi-products.  

from what i've read vegans become deficient in vit b12 because its not easily absorbed from meat and is not absorbed or found in vegetables, and not in the right quantities in mulivitamins, aslo they can be protein deficient if they don't know the right vegan complimentary protien combinations, so if your only taking a mulitvitamin you could become a vitb12 deficient. 

i will look into creatine supplements it sounds interesting for building muscle mass.