If you've heard of the vegan diet, you've probably also heard someone say "I want to lose weight, so I'm going to become a vegan." Or "I knew a guy who was vegan once, but it can't be healthy, because he was super skinny." There are many reasons a person might choose to become a vegan, but here's one I can tell you for sure is false: being a vegan does not automatically make you thin, let alone dangerously so.
A little background: I have personally been vegan since 2000. During that time my weight has
fluctuated, but generally I have been on the overweight side of the scale. Currently, I've slipped into a pattern where I don't do any significant exercise and I've paid little or no attention to what I eat (beyond ensuring that every food I enjoy is vegan). The results? Let's look at some stats:
- weight: 170 lbs.
- height: 5' 7"
- gender: female
- age: 25
According to the WebMD Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator (
here), I have a BMI of 26.6, nearly two points outside the top end of the healthy range at 24.9 (which I would hit at 158 lbs). WebMD says that I would need to lose 12 lbs just to break into the healthy range. To reach a weight that this formula would consider unhealthily thin, I would need to weigh less than 118 lbs. That's 50+ lbs less than my current weight, and to get there I would have to drop about 30% of my body weight! So I'm proof that being a strict vegan doesn't offer any guarantees of low body weight.
In this blog I intend to share how I became an overweight vegan, and how I am now working to combine my ethical commitment to a vegan diet with a personal commitment to good health.
