Being skinny, vegetarianism and a missing vitamin

What you look like, how you feel and how you perform are a direct result of what you eat. Generally speaking, when I tell people that vegetarians have a harder time achieving physique goals than omnivores, I get a shocked look and the following question.

'But aren't all vegetarians really skinny?'

No, not by a long shot. The people who you see who are 'really skinny' tend to be the kind of vegetarians who don't eat meat because they don't like the taste, or the idea of eating something which was alive.

It is my opinion that this kind of (for want of a better word) fussy attitude translates into their general food, and these type of people tend not to eat very much at all. Thus leaving them skinny and as far as I'm concerned being skinny is a bad thing.

The vast majority of vegetarians I see exist on a diet or dairy, wheat and processed foods. As a result they struggle with carrying too much fat. Not the health conscious diet with which vegetarians are usually associated with.

When you have someone on that kind of diet, the best way to reverse the effects is to increase the amount of protein and cut all starchy carbs for a while. In this time the person's sensitivity to insulin will increase and they will be able to utilise their food better. more energy for use and less energy for storage.

However with vegetarians you cannot really cut the carbs out, you can just reduce them. This means that they never get really high insulin sensitivity. Luckily there are other ways around it.

However there are some dietary staples which vegetarians just can't get enough of and one of those is vitamin B12. This essential nutrient is found in high quantities in meat, fish and eggs and there is no proven way to for vegetarians to get enough of it without taking a supplement.

Plants do not need B12 and so they store none at all. Some vegetarians suggest that you can get B12 from fermented soy products, but they are not the same thing. The substance they are referring to is similar to B12, but actually blocks the uptake of the vitamin. Meaning that even more is required.



50% of long term vegetarians are deficient in the vitamin and 80% of vegans are too.

Severe deficiency results in high levels of inflammation, chronic fatigue, cancer, male infertility, heart disease, nervous degradation and altered metabolism.

Not pretty at all, even a mild deficiency will result in an impaired nervous system and impaired gut function.

The best thing to do to combat this is to get a test from the doctor, they should be free on the NHS. Supplements are cheap and easy to come by, so there is no excuse!!!