How to Lose Weight without Trying

Stop eating meat

The simplest way to do this is to date a vegetarian. By proxy, you’ll begin eating more vegetarian meals and less meat. If you want to lose weight, then stop eating meat. This is the answer that no one wants to hear, but it’s true. I stopped eating meat and lost 30 pounds without trying.

My girlfriend is a vegetarian so by default I eat a lot of vegetarian meals. We cook together frequently and it’s easier to eat vegetarian than cooking separate meals each time or cooking the meat on the side (sometimes I do this).

Good things about being Vegetarian

There are many benefits from eating a vegetarian diet for one’s own health as well as the world. A short list of benefits: More affordable, Cancer prevention, improved cholesterol levels, lower cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, decreased asthma symptoms, and help the environment. This is a well documented subject, so I won’t go into all the positives of eating vegetarian, but if you are interested you can read this article by the Harvard Medical School.

The good thing about eating a vegetarian diet is you lose weight, a lot of weight. I lost around 30 lbs (14kg) over around 6 months (without trying). During this time, I reduced my meat consumption to nearly zero. What also helped me eat less meat was learning about the lack of codes the FDA enforces on animal products (compared to Europe) and how livestock are treated during their life. If you want a shock, look up pink pools, or over 25% of pig farms in America are Chinese owned, and this chicken farmer that is fed up with the system. Here are some engaging documentaries to watch on Netflix that I enjoyed: You are what you eat: a twin experiment, Poisoned: The Dirty Truth About Your Food, Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones.

Eating meat is a high contributor to too much visceral fat, if you are unfamiliar with visceral fat, it is the deep tissue fat that is found around your organs. It is harder to get rid of and too much is bad for your overall health (leading to stroke, diabetes, heart disease…).

How to get your Protein

Don’t eat meat alternatives eat protein alternatives. In general, anything trying to rip off the original won’t be as good, just go with the original. Meat alternatives are also often highly processed and contain less than healthy ingredients. If you are trying to be healthier, this defeats the purpose.

Eat lentils, chickpeas, and beans. These are great sources of protein that you can get cheap and easily. Whenever you cook rice throw in some lentils in the pot with it (they need to be the fast-cooking lentils). This easy trick adds color to your rice and protein to your meal. Each of these protein sources doesn’t have a lot of flavors, but they add great health benefits to your meals. On occasion, I also eat tofu, but this is far less frequent and I always cook it in a pan so that it has a crispy outside and flavorful inside.

What my Diet looks like now

After a considerable amount of time without meat and learning a lot about food safety and livestock well being I have decided on my ideal diet. I still eat meat, but I have severely reduced my meat consumption from what it was 2 years ago. It wasn’t my intent to lose so much weight, but I believe it has helped me get Certain health benefits are gained from eating meat, but I think if your goal is to lose weight I would eliminate meat from your diet entirely. My ideal diet that I currently eat is lots of organic fruits and vegetables with protein alternatives (like chickpeas, beans, and lentils) and good sources of meat only a few times a week. This diet is easy to maintain, extremely healthy, and cost efficient.

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Photo is The Reading by Fantin-Latour. I first saw this painting in the app DailyArt, this app is a great way to learn more about different types of art from around the world. This was the first piece I saw in real life after learning about it on the app, what a great experience!

The Reading is on display at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, Portugal. This is an awesome museum that displays his massive collection of artifacts, paintings and sculptures. Bonus tip, if you go after 2pm on Sundays you get free admission.