Gaining Weight on a Vegetarian Diet

Is gaining weight on a vegetarian diet stressing you out? I hear from a lot of people who have dietary restrictions for religious, preference, allergy, and other reasons. They get frustrated by how difficult it can be, and often conclude that it’s impossible to gain weight and put on muscle mass without following a completely unrestricted diet. The truth is, gaining weight is difficult for skinny people no matter what. That’s the whole reason I started blogging about my journey.

There isn’t much advice for skinny people out there. The information available for restricted diets is low. There is definitely not a ton that combines the two to help with gaining weight on a vegetarian diet as a skinny person.

Full disclosure. I am not a vegetarian. However, I did find that adding more vegetables to balance my diet actually boosted my gains. Also, I am surrounded by many vegetarians and have to cook and meal prep for them. This leads me to periods of gaining weight on a vegetarian diet very often. Don’t lose faith. Stick to your goals. With the advice below, you’ll see it’s very possible to gain weight without abandoning your vegetarian diet.

The fundamentals of gaining weight stay the same

Luckily, the principles of eating to gain mass stay the same, regardless of dietary restrictions. You have to be a little creative and plan ahead to make sure you stay on track. The main concern that comes from a vegetarian diet is the potential for low protein intake, which will harm your body’s ability to build muscle and repair from intense training.

The fundamentals don’t change when you are eating to build muscle. It doesn’t matter if you are a vegetarian or not. The principles remain the same. The goal is still to increase your protein intake, and ultimately consume more calories than you use every day. Most skinny people who want to gain weight focus on training, but fail at eating enough. Don’t let that happen to you.

When they do eat, a mistake many vegetarians make is to focus on carb heavy meals, because that is viewed as the only substitute for meat. However, doing so can lead to unintended results, even if you ultimately do gain weight. Really, you don’t want to just gain weight, you are bulking to muscle. So, keep the right ratio of carbs to fats and proteins to allow for that. When you do eat carbs, maximize the health benefits by aiming for those that are made from whole grains, for example.

Vegetarian food ideas to gain weight

Here are some ideas that can help you replace the “chicken” and “steak” you’ll see online for mass building diets to gain weight. Keep in mind, this is written for vegetarians, but you can remove some of the items below that contain dairy and also use this as a starting point for vegan diets.

• Breakfast
  • Greek yogurt
  • Granola
  • Pancakes using protein mix (I like Kodiak Cakes brand for this)
  • Cereal (I really like the variety of Kashi Go)
  • Oats
  • Eggs (if you are vegetarian who eats eggs)

• Lunch
  • Protein patties (Morningstar and Gardein have a variety ranging from burgers to black bean patties to fried chicken substitutes)
  • Sandwich with whole grain bread (I personally use Dave’s Killer Bread- 21 Grains. this has a lot more flavor than plain white bread, and each slice is 120 calories.)
  • Avocado (great for healthy fats)

• Dinner
  • Tofu
  • Vegan protein (I use a lot of the Gardein plant protein products that range from ground beef replacements to fried fish style protein)
  • Vegetable based pasta (Barilla has a red lentil based pasta that is more filling than the typical flour pasta)

• Snacks
  • Bars (Kind Protein has a lot of options for great tasting bars)
  • Cashews
  • Macadamia nuts (just a serving of 12 of these packs in over 200 calories!)
  • Pumpkin seeds (look this up yourself, and you’ll be surprised by the protein content)
  • Flax or Chia seeds (these are great to add into smoothies or sprinkle on top of food)