A low fat vegan diet is almost guaranteed to help you lose weight, as long as it’s a healthy one!  After all, you could eat nothing but potato chips and eat a vegan diet (depending on the chips), but it certainly wouldn’t be healthy, would it?

 

To eat a truly healthy diet for life, focus on the 4 main food groups – fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes.  The “4 food groups” designation was developed by doctors and dieticians at Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM).  See http://www.pcrm.org/search/?cid=302 for more information and a visual of the chart.  This chart shows that each group gets an equal space in the circle.

 

Notice that the groups are all whole plants.  Some doctors and dieticians say no added fats (oils) of any kind – we can get any fat we  need from eating nuts and avocados in limited amounts.  Other docs and dieticians say that certain oils in small amounts are acceptable.  If you want to lose weight, then be very wary about the amount of added fat that you eat.  If you eat from these four groups and eat whole (not processed) foods, you will not need to count calories and the weight is likely to fall off easily.