John Coleman wrote:
> "Gary Leighton" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>Hi folks.
>>
>>I've recently gone vegan and I'm trying to figure out how I should get my
>>calories. Can someone check my thinking here...
>>
>>My target weight is about 10 stone, and according to an online BMI
>>calculator this means I need about 2000 calories per day to maintain that
>>weight.
>
> 2000kcal is a reasonable objective - our bodies tend to maintain energy
> balance homeostatically,

You've no idea what you just wrote.

> so there is no need to count calories,

Bullshit.

> it is more a
> question of getting the food choices and quantity about right

Which is... ensuring one gets the right amount of calories. You twit.

> (Stephen Walsh has a great book on doing cooked Vegan diets well)

Doing? *Doing*? One *eats* food. One doesn't *do* food, unless one is a
pervert.

>>The book called The Optimum Nutrition Bilbe says I should get 70% of these
>>calories from carbohydrates (and 15% from fat and 15% from protein).
>
> Not a bad plan,

Very bad plan.

> although I go more for the 80/10/10 idea.

Because you're an orthorexic boob.

>>carbohydrates give me 4 calories per gram, that means I need about 350
>>grams of carbohydrates per day. Looking at my carbohydrate counter book, it
>>looks as though vegetables contain maybe one sixth carbohydrate by mass (using
>>potatoes as an example). So that means that I need to eat about 2.1 kg of
>>vegetables (or potatoes at least) every day.
>
> Your observation is correct. Leaf/root vegetable matter is generally not a
> complete food for humans as it is energy deficient.

But meat is, isn't it.

> Most vegans choose to
> obtain much of their calorie intake with starchy grain foods, raw foodists

You mean raw FADDISTS.

> like me get higher calorie density from fruit as we have found this
> healthier than starch foods.

Found through anecdote, not science.

>>In fact, it looks to me like
>>most vegetables are much less than one sixth carbohydrate by mass so I
>>would need a lot more than 2.1kg if I had a varied diet.
>
> This is actually not a bad objective, around 2kg of food daily, in fact
> higher is more realistic.

Not if one has a life, a job, and other responsibilities.

> For many people it would be a dream to be able to
> eat that much each day and not get fat and unhealthy, yet a well planned
> vegan diet can easily offer this.

Your diet isn't well-planned. It's the extreme of the extreme.

>>That seems like a heck of a lot of veg to me. I doubt I could eat that
>>much.
>
> To eat 2kg of tough vegetable matter is a little excessive for humans,
> however 2kg of fruit daily is easily attainable. A few portions of grains is
> also achievable.

So are nuts, which are even more calorically dense because of their fat
content. Oh wait a second, you shoot for only 10% from fat. Nix your
nuts and your brain as well. Looks like you've already nixed both.

>>So I think my maths must have gone wrong somewhere. Can anyone tell me
>>where I've gone wrong?
>
> Limiting your choice of plant intake to low calorie plant foods.

No, limiting your diet on the basis of pseudoscience and fringe
political activism.