5 Most Effective Tips to Living Healthy With A Vegetarian Diet
Is it true that eating only leaves will guarantee health? I’m just eating healthy meat! “, said a friend of mine when he found out that I was a vegetarian.
Well basically if you eat enough with balanced nutrition , your body must be healthy (as long as your lifestyle is also taken care of).
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Becoming a vegetarian has some additional benefits over those who are ‘all eaters’ :
- Lowers the risk of various diseases , such as heart disease and cancer. Becoming a vegetarian can also reduce bad cholesterol levels due to reduced consumption of bad fats and increased consumption of vitamins and antioxidants.
- Maintain a more ideal body weight , because the consumption of lots of vegetables and fruits that have fiber is good for your digestive tract
- Avoid the risk of poison and disease from animal meat. In addition to the possibility of parasites infecting animal flesh, eating ‘stressed’ animal meat due to slaughter can trigger adrenaline which produces stress hormones and steroids, which are toxic to us.
- Increase hormones and sexual libido . In addition, according to research, the body odor emitted by vegetarians tends to be more attractive than meat eaters.
- Makes skin healthier because of the large consumption of antioxidants and minerals that improve blood circulation and keep skin pigment healthy. It is said that it is easier for vegetarians to look younger, you know.
- It is more economical because the price of meat tends to be expensive compared to the price of vegetables and fruit. My food allowance a day can be half cheaper than my friends who are meat eaters.
Different Types of Vegetarians
there are actually many kinds of these ‘leaf eaters’.
In fact, there are still many people who do not know the difference between vegetarian and vegan.
Vegans actually belong to the vegetarian group and have stricter dietary and lifestyle restrictions than other vegetarian groups.
Well, here are some types of vegetarians that you need to know:
- Lacto Ovo Vegetarian : Does not eat any form of meat (including seafood), but still eats eggs, milk, and their derivatives such as cheese and mayonnaise. This is the most common form of vegetarianism .
- Lacto Vegetarian : Do not eat any form of meat and eggs. Still eat dairy products and their derivatives such as cheese. Usually, milk consumption needs more to cover the lack of nutrients from eggs.
- Ovo Vegetarian : Do not eat any form of meat and dairy. Still eating animal products from eggs and their derivatives. In contrast to lacto vegetarians, ovo vegetarians should consume more eggs. However, be careful in consuming egg yolks so that no more than 2 eggs per day.
- Flexitarian : There are two forms of flexitarian. First, be vegetarian only on certain days each week. Second, reduce and not eat at all the majority of types of meat (eg stop eating beef, red meat, fish, but still eat chicken)
- Pesco Vegetarian : Does not eat meat, eggs, and milk and their derivatives, but still eats fish products.
- Vegans : The strictest because they don’t eat animal products at all, even some vegans don’t eat honey (because of ‘bee products’). Vegans can also enter a lifestyle, such as not using products made from real animal skins.
How to Live a Correct Vegetarian Diet
After knowing the benefits and types of vegetarians that you might want to try, it’s time for you to know how to follow the correct vegetarian diet.
Most people who are just starting a vegetarian diet tend to quickly abandon this lifestyle because they can’t survive.
So that you can consistently apply a vegetarian diet, here are some tips you can do:
1. Set a Vegetarian Diet Goal
There are many reasons someone follows a vegetarian diet, ranging from just following friends to health reasons .
Just like saving, you need a goal or goal that you can hold on to so that the vegetarian diet you are going to do can be consistently carried out.
Usually after the goal is achieved, you will get used to living a vegetarian life so it will not be difficult to continue to practice the vegetarian lifestyle.
Examples of goals that you can cheat include: losing weight or keeping blood pressure normal (like me).
If you want to be more extreme, you can follow the self-improvement method to stay on track in your goals, for example by writing goals and printing them out loud and displaying them in your room.
2. Start by Being a Flexitarian
One of the reasons for those who have stopped following a vegetarian diet is that they are not strong enough not to eat meat anymore.
Usually this happens because your body is surprised by the absence of meat intake for a certain period of time (especially if you really enjoyed eating meat before).
For example, start by choosing 1 day per week to go on the vegetarian diet you want, then slowly increase the number of days until you finally become a vegetarian almost every day.
There is also a rather expensive alternative, namely the consumption of vegetarian meat (fake meat made from mushrooms or plant products) every .
3. Create a Daily Meal Plan
When running a vegetarian diet, a daily meal plan becomes quite important for you to think about bro.
A vegetarian can lack the nutrients he or she needs from meat so substitutes need to be considered.
Depending on the type of vege diet you are going to run, you can increase your intake of milk or eggs .
You can also replace meat with tofu and tempeh plus nuts , because the vegetable protein content is quite high bro.
You can check blogs that discuss vegetarian diet menus to find out what foods you need to eat every day, because if you discuss everything in one article, it will be too long.
4. Prepare the Fruit as a Snack
For those who like to snack on pickles, chips and spicy macaroni, let’s start reducing it.
During the day, you can replace snacks by eating bananas (or any other fruit you like).
Bananas are my favorite fruit because they can block the stomach and contain high levels of anti-oxidants.
At night, you can snack on watermelon, melon, or apples to keep your stomach full.
Oh yes, this fruit snack is better unprocessed so that the nutritional content is maintained intact.
5. Increase the portion of side dishes when eating
Do you still feel hungry easily while on a vegetarian diet?
Vegetarian foods tend to be lower in fat and calories than real meat.
Therefore, you can increase the portion of the side dishes (such as tofu and tempeh) to block the stomach without fearing that you will gain weight.
5 Most Effective Tips to Living Healthy With A Vegetarian Diet
If the shape is fried, you should replace it with baked or burnt. Oil from fried foods still stores saturated fat , so be careful if you consume too much.
Don’t forget to have healthy snacks as described earlier so that the stomach remains delicious.