21-Day Vegan Kickstart / a Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) site

After recently watching the documentary forks over knives on netflix, I decided to go vegan for both weight and health issues. My previous habits consisted of a lot of steak, a lot of cheese, and a lot of junk. I thought the switch to vegan would be hard but surprisingly it has been very easy. The food has been great. I have found substitues for things I never thought I could live without.

Unfortunately, I expected I would be loosing weight, but it almost seems like I am gaining weight. This dumbfounds me. No I am not eating 100% frsh food...I still have my veggie burgers, veggie cheese, and veggienase. These things have helped make the transition a lot easier for me. But even with those processed foods, I thought my diet has improved 100% from the porterhouses, cheetos, and buttery grilled cheeses. So why am I not loosing any weight? It has been two weeks. Should I make even more drastic changes and ditch the substitues I've been eatin? Also I've taken a real liking to tempeh and have been eating it almost every night but I just read in another forum that it is full of fat and calories. This makes me sad =(

I have noticed improvements in my skin and energy level but I was really hoping to see some weight come off. I'm really not sure what my expectations should be.

Calories are still calories. So, if you're eating 500 calories of veg cheese instead of 500 calories of dairy cheese, that's still 500 calories. Better calories in some ways but still the bottom line is that if you haven't changed what is going in OR changed what is going out (that is, move more, expend more energy), weight isn't going to change. As someone else noted, the sodium content on many of those 'transition foods' can lead to water retention. Have you tried any of the fresh veggie, fruit, whole grain, beans/legumes meals on the kickstart at all? Maybe spend the next week of the kickstart (two weeks down, one to go - you've already made it this far!) reducing the transition foods to once a day instead of multiple meals/servings per day. Maybe it's time, now that you've tried some things, to change the focus from finding new ways to keep old habits (burgers, cheese, low-nutrition snacks) to exploring new habits (fruits, veggies, whole grains, legumes). It is totally possible to be a "junk food vegan" and be almost as unhealthy as a "junk food omnivore".

On another note, it sometimes takes two full weeks on the kickstart to switch over your metabolism and the weight doesn't move until into the third week (that seems to be a trend I've seen on previous kickstarts as well).