do vegans burn more calories?

March 15, 2012

lea michele

What do these slender celebs have in common? A souped- up metabolism, apparently.

Vegans are stereotypically skinny. But according to Neal Barnard, MD and his research team, it may not be because their diets are nutritionally skimpy. Vegan bodies may just learn to burn calories faster. According to one of his studies,  transitioning a group of individuals with chronic weight problems into vegans caused their metabolisms to soar!

“We found that not only did their calorie-burning speed jump up after a meal—but that extra burn was significantly higher than it had been when the study started,” Dr. Barnard

To find out why this had happened, Dr. Barnard peeked inside some muscle cells and came up with this theory:

Insulin escorts sugar and protein from your bloodstream into your cells, where calorie-burning mitochondria metabolize (or burn) fat.

But in people with high-fat, meaty diets, tiny fat droplets crowd the cell and inhibit the insulin’s ability to shoot the nutrients in. It’s like the 6 train during rush hour: the commuters are fat droplets, and you, the insulin, are just trying to fit inside the car so that you can get to work.

If the sugar can’t get into the cells, your body can’t convert it into energy fast enough, and it starts storing it. This is what happens if a cheeseburger is your go-to snack.

Vegans eat mostly plants, grains, and legumes, which are just generally way lower in fat than animal products. So, their cells are clear of metabolism-slowing fat globules. A vegan’s mitochondria burn fat at the speed of the Acela train.

So is it worth changing your diet (rather than your personal trainer)? It will certainly be less painful than upping your burpee reps – or maybe not?. “You could pretty comfortably assume that if you change from a high-fat diet to a low-fat diet full of plant-based whole-foods, right away your cells are going to be able to function better,” says Levin.

And high-functioning cells equal a  humming metabolism; your cells will be burning broccoli at lightning speeds.

This information came from THIS ARTICLE.  What a great case for eating GREEN!

What do you think? Do you have any experiences with this?

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  • http://twitter.com/Improvinista The Improvinista

    Great post, Mary. I keep revisiting a book on my shelf that talks about the energy and information our body’s cells take in from the food we eat, just like the foods we eat take information in from the sun. When we add in processed foods, our cells are trying to metabolize foreign products — which creates a toxic environment within the cell….causing things like slower metabolisms and bloating. Learning how the human body works so intriguing!

  • http://mygreendiet.com/ Mary Roslyn

    That sounds really interesting. It’s amazing how much there is to learn! Would you share what the book is?

  • Akm98

    Changing your diet to include more vegetables is very important. As a vegan I can say that I understand how great a plant-based diet is. However, people should not eliminate physical activity. But we also shouldn’t be eating or exercising to achieve a “certain look” or become thinner. We need to do these things in the mind set that we want to be health and happy. People should still continue to exercise if they are vegans to strengthen their heart and lungs and to achieve longevity.  

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