The name means wolf from hell

I’m an American living in America who has been overweight all of my life. I’m talking from the high chair video footages of a chunky monkey baby me, falling asleep face first into a bowl of cake. I would be lucky to make 14k a year so I have to work on a low budget. I’m going to try and eat a vegan lifestyle where I rarely splurge but it’s going to be hard as hell if not impossible.

My dad has never really helped me with my diets. I have never gotten him to buy unbleached sugar or flour. I can’t get him to buy reasonable stuff. He doesn’t like to use his reading glasses, and he can’t read without them, so generally he just buys wtf ever he wants to without any concern for anything at all. He’s gone most of the time at his girlfriend’s place and when he returns he brings with him meat filled foods that are just delicious and I have a hard time not wanting to eat them.

My biggest problem with veganism is that I can’t do salads. I just don’t like dressings or other such additives and when I try to eat salads the texture and blandness of the salad activates my gag reflex. I’m autistic so certain textures and flavors create a visceral reaction.

I’m choking down the Banapple Sauce concoction I just made. I de-cored some apples and I threw them into a blender. Then I added a bit of milk to help the blender do it’s thing. Then I ripped up bananas and just chucked it into the mix. The result is banana flavored apple sauce. It’s ok, but I have to drink it slowly to prevent the gag reflexes.

If I didn’t weigh 180 and quickly approaching 200 pounds I wouldn’t be trying to enact such a radical dietary change. I don’t know any other dietary change that I can make that will suddenly make a profoundly beneficial life impact in a short time. I’ve never been to the doctor in the past 5 years. 5 years ago I went because I had dislocated a knee. I’ve never been on a prescription drug before. Don’t plan on starting. I’m showing signs of being hypoglycemic as not eating can cause me to get dizzy and want to pass out.

I need to take control of my health asap. My lunch break is only 30 minutes. I regularly have to go 4 hours till I get my first break or lunch and by then I’m light headed. I have a girlfriend but she’s just about the same weight and everything I am. She suffers from a whole range of illness’. I want to get healthy so that I can help augment what ever new habits I get into her living style.

Problem is I really don’t know many vegan recipies and the meat substitutes I’ve had were just as nasty as they were tough.

I did try going on a whole foods and organic lifestyle years ago. Really didn’t have much of a benefit and a month or 2 later I moved in with room mates that I didn’t realize weren’t going to pay their share of the rent and couldn’t really afford to buy my own food at that point.

I don’t have a whole foods or anything like that. I live in a population of 70k people roughly, we have wal-mart, target, H.E.B. and that’s just about the major markets we have for food.

Sorry for the long intro but… I’m at my wits end, I can’t do it by myself, and I have no one currently in my life to really help me start on the right track.

I’m new here too, but I’m bored and replying to way too many things.

You can eat a vegan diet and not lose weight, (this is true for me,) so you also have to eat healthy. I would heavily advise learning how to cook. I made myself very sick not knowing how as a vegan. There are lots of good recipes that you can get the stuff for from Wal-Mart, etc. I would suggest the book Simply Vegan, as it has a lot of very simple, cheap recipes. I love the tofu stew and tofu casserole, and there’s a potato-cabbage dish in there that is so tasty. I am not sure if your Wal-Mart will have tofu, however.

One thing to help is to order TVP, vital wheat gluten, and nutritional yeast from an online provider. This stuff is a main staple. TVP is a good meat substitute, vital wheat gluten makes seitan, (another meat substitute,) and you can find recipes for that online. Nutritional yeast has a cheesy flavour, and is great for adding to dishes to give them a hint of that. Since you don’t have access to these in your area, most likely, getting this will help you get the vitamins you need, and they last a long time, (especially TVP,) so you can buy these in bulk and save. After being vegan for a little while, it becomes easy to get the nutrients you need. If you can get shelf-stable rice milk or soy milk online, possibly fortified with things like B12, it will help also.

If you are worried about diabetes, (I am diabetic, actually,) there is a vegan diabetic book out there somewhere. Only one that I know of. So that can help you.

You’ll have to do your own shopping and just ignore the things your dad gets. Also, I’d advise easing into veganism, go vegetarian first. Cutting out all that stuff can be harsh all at once. Dairy can be particularly hard to give up.

I actually found it easier to be vegan for ethical reasons than health reasons. I am awful health-wise, but the moment I learned how veal was made, (I used to love it,) I decided to go vegan. It just horrified me.

Do research on being vegan for your health, people will always try to tell you you can’t get enough nutrients to survive. This is BS, I’ve been vegan for about 14 years, and after I learned how to cook, I never dealt with nutritional deficiencies.

There are so many vegan recipes online, you should never hurt for recipes, just look them up and make the ones you can. Remember, your taste buds are going to change a lot over time, so stuff that may not taste good now might later. I originally hated tempeh, but have since learned to love it.

By the way, I think most vegans are pretty much sick to death of salad. I am so tired of people thinking that is an acceptable meal substitute at restaurants. Especially ones that skimp on veggies and use iceberg lettuce.

As for your lunch break, make your meals in advance. If you don’t have access to a fridge and microwave, I’m not sure how it will work, since it sounds like no places you’ll be able to eat will have the food you need. Subway is good if you can handle a veggie sub, and the veggie patty they have, (if your area has it,) is yummy.

Definitely hang out and at least lurk if not post. The support will help you. Remember, if you mess up it’s not a big deal. Just keep at it. The first day I went vegan I forgot and had a Little Debbie oatmeal cookie. I remembered half way through and just tossed it and kept working at doing things right.