Is reducing meat in your diet prone to be less fattening?

It depends on what you’re replacing it with.

Deep fried mozzarella sticks are vegetarian.

Not if you eat 3500 Calories a day in Carbs, like sugar and pasta.

Red meat, like beef, is more fattening than chicken or fish.

It can be, but only if you replace the meat with healthy choices.

I have a vegetarian friend who is on what I jokingly refer to as the “Cheetos diet” because lots of really un-healthy things are technically vegetarian such as potato chips, cheese, cake, candy, soda etc.

If you want to eat healthy it’s best to choose whole grains, a rainbow of fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, and low fat dairy products. You just want to make sure you don’t eat too much fat, and get the right amount of protein (too much is not good) complete amounts of protein, and plenty of fiber.

I am a vegetarian since 1990 and I’m pretty healthy and not overweight. Let me know if you need any recipes, links to nutrition and vegetarian lifestyles, or just some encouragement : )

I eat a mostly vegetarian diet, but I decline to label myself. I eat meat only about 2 or 3 times each week. Sometimes I go the whole week without meat, but I do enjoy it when I decide I want it.

For what it’s worth, the Dalai Lama eats a little meat every so often on the advice of his doctors. (I read that in one of his books. Please, don’t ask for the citation. I’ve forgotten.)

The best things that you can do for your weight-loss diet, I think, are to reduce sugar in all of its forms (including most fruit juices; plain fruit is better for you if you really want the sweetness that fruits offer; but also including honey, high-fructose corn syrup and foods – especially prepared foods – that contain those additives), and the kinds of carbohydrates to be found in most bread, rice, potatoes, pasta and foods prepared with those things – and beer.

Meat in general, including fatty meats, are less likely to add to your weight, though you will certainly need to consume foods that contain other essential nutrients.

To quote Michael Pollan and his three rules for eating:

Eat Food.
Not Too Much.
Mostly Plants.

There are a lot of overweight vegetarians who eat plenty of “vegetarian“choices that are loaded with dairy, sugars, and carbohydrates. But a mostly vegetarian diet without any processed foods and only occasional meat will get you lean in no time.

Vegitarians can have wonderful diets or horrid ones. We are omnivores and are designed to eat a little meat. I was vegetarian for a few years and you will lose weight but I’m not convinced it’s all that healthy. Eating small amounts of lean meat and mostly fresh vegetables is best for me. I eat healthy and don’t worry if it’s vegetarian or not.

Of course it depends on what else you’re eating and a lot of other things, but from personal experience I can say I have lost a lot of fat and a few kg in quite a short time by becoming vegan. I didn’t really find much of a difference when I first became vegetarian, though. I would definitely recommend cutting out dairy because that is when I found a big difference.