I hear this a lot, and I see it a lot from people who haven’t researched weight loss. I understand people who are vegetarian for ethical reasons. Hell, I even respect that. Restricting one’s diet to such a strict degree due to ethical beliefs is admirable. I have tried being a vegetarian once, and my body didn’t react well to it. I don’t want to go into it in detail because it’s not what this article is about. It’s about perception.

We’ve been brought up believing red meat and fat is bad for us while whole grains and dairy are good for us. It turns out that the exact opposite is true, but the beliefs persist because it’s hard to unlearn things. Due to this horrible nutrition advice and brainwashing via our education system, I see people turning to vegetarianism to lose weight due to a misguided belief that eating vegetables and eschewing meats will somehow give them a boost in weight loss.

This is false.

I know people who were obese as vegetarians. I know people who were unhealthy as vegetarians. I know people who struggled to lose weight as vegetarians.

If you want to lose weight, you have to get rid of added sugars, grains, beans, and soy (as a vegetarian). This restricts your diet quite a bit if you are trying to be a vegetarian and do Paleo at the same time. It’s not impossible, but it is more difficult. Eggs will likely play a large role in your diet if you try this, but otherwise, if you’re looking for losing weight utilizing a diet you can adopt for the rest of your life comfortably and (in my opinion) ethically, then Paleo is a good way to go.

I want to reiterate that I do not think that being a vegetarian is dumb. It’s not. There are people who do so for reasons important to them, and it makes sense to me, too. I have adopted the Paleo Diet not to lose weight, but to be healthy. Ethically, I prefer it, too. But to become a vegetarian because you think it will help you lose weight? That’s dumb because it’s stupid.