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Can a vegan gain healthy weight? Yes they can! In this article you will discover the key components on what it takes to create a vegan meal plan for weight gain
What does a curvy vegan eat? LOTS OF GOOD PLANT BASED FOOD!
In this guide I will show you:
- basic meal plan tips for success
- essential kitchen tools you will need
- the proper way to construct a meal plan for healthy weight gain
- list of some delicious curvy vegan for breakfast, lunch, and dinner
If you want a full step by step by step daily meal plan guide, be sure to sign up to my newsletter to download your FREE 4 Day Vegan With Curves Meal Plan!
Basic Meal Planning Tips
Meal planning can often seem intimidating but it doesn’t have to be. Below I’ve listed some of my best tips in how plan out my vegan meals.
- I use the same ingredient in different recipes.
- I batch cook.
- I don’t meal plan everything
Sample Vegan Weight Gain Meal Plan
The overall purpose of this sample meal plan is not just to give you a list of recipes, but to teach you the techniques on how to construct high calorie vegan meals for yourself.
I will be showing you the difference between a typical regular vegan meal, and simple ways to bulk them up.
Breakfast
Green Smoothie
Green smoothie typically averages around 270 calories
Tips to Make it Curve Building Friendly
•Use fresh squeeze UNPASTEURIZED fruit juice. You can do this yourself OR purchase juices from your local farmer’s market or local grocery store chain. 1 cup of juice is approximately 100 calories.
•Add 1/4-1/2 of avocado. Avocado is a very calorie dense food. It will add anywhere to 60 to 120 calories to your smoothie.
Your 270 calorie green smoothie is now a 500 calorie green smoothie.
Oatmeal
Oatmeal is a complex carbohydrate. Carbs are key in building curves. Typically a serving of oatmeal is about 158 calories. Sprouted oats are always preferred. I always keep a big bag of prepared sprouted oats in the pantry. I use this brand here.
Tips to Make it Curve Building Friendly
•Add shredded nuts. A serving of nuts has 170 calories and 7 grams of protein. It is both calorie dense and contains a healthy amount of amino acids (protein) on top of the protein already in the oats.
•Add your favorite dried fruit. Dried fruit a simple carbohydrate and is calorie dense. One serving contains about 130 calories.
Your 158 calorie oatmeal is now 458 calories oatmeal.
Total Breakfast 958 calories
Snack
Nut Butter Toast On Sprouted Wheat Bread
Whether you like organic peanut butter, almond butter, cashew butter, sunflower seed butter, etc adding nut butters to your diet will give you a calorie boost for sure! Nut butters are crucial to add in a meal plan for weight gain. In the beginning of my journey I LIVED off this stuff (I still do).
•Sprouted Wheat Bread has about 60 calories per slice and 5 grams of protein
•One serving of nut butter contains about 190 calories and 7 grams of protein
Total Snack 250 calories
Lunch
Salad
Ahhh the go to salad. The thing that everyone thinks vegans live on. Yes salad can be a very healthy additional to anyone’s diet and it is a quick and easy lunch. But it can also be very boring and typically very low in calories. That is great if you are desiring to release weight; not so great if you have a desire to gain healthy weight, especially on a vegan and/or plant-based diet. A typical green salad has anywhere from to 100 to 200 calories
Tips to Make it Curve Building Friendly
•Make a Quinoa salad instead. The based of your salad DOES NOT have to always be kale or spinach or romaine lettuce. Break those salad rules! You can still add raw greens to it because a quinoa salad can be eaten warm or cold (marinated raw kale works well in this) Quinoa is rich in both protein and complex carbohydrates. A cup of quinoa is about 220 calories. You can bulk this up by adding a serving of black beans (110 calories) and 1/2 cup of cooked diced sweet potatoes (57 calories)
Related: View why quinoa should be a Curvy Vegan Pantry staple
Total Lunch 387 calories
Snack
Vegan Protein Shake
Vegan protein shakes are an EXCELLENT addition to getting an extra calorie and nutrient boost. There are so many different ways to make a vegan protein shake. You can mix different plant-based milks (100 calories) and fruits (100 calories). But the two main ingredients will be your choice of a vegan protein powder and nut butter.
•Hemp Protein Powder has 130 calories and 15 grams of protein (contains 20 amino acids)
•Nut Butters: I personally prefer either organic peanut butter or cashew butter. Cashew butter has the most neutral taste when adding them to shakes but peanut butter is the most affordable and I like the taste of peanut butter. But any nut or seed butter will do. You can add anywhere from 2 – 4 tablespoons (which is 1 -2 servings and app. 190 – 380 calories). I would recommend starting off with one serving and increasing over time based on your needs.
Total Snack 520 calories
Dinner
Vegan Spaghetti
Pasta in itself is curve friendly. I would stay clear of white pasta as much as possible. I recommend using a gluten-free or sprouted wheat pasta. Spelt pasta is also an excellent choice. One cup of pasta is approximately 200 calories. Most people who make vegan spaghetti only add veggies to their sauce (onions, peppers, mushrooms, etc). Us curvy vegans bulk it up by adding beans to it as well. I love the addition of lentils or kidney beans to my spaghetti sauce.
•Start off with a fresh green raw veggie salad (100 calories) and sprinkle a serving of hemp seeds (170 calories) on top.
•Pair your salad with a serving of vegan spaghetti and add a serving of beans! (110 calories)
Related: Read Pasta Recommendations
Total Dinner 570 calories
Total Day’s Calories 2685
As you can see, this was meal plan for weight gain shows and prove it is more than possible to get enough calories on a plant-based vegan diet without the need of soy if you choose not to consume it. Now do not let that number scare you! We have been conditioned to low-calorie this and low-calorie that. But as I stated earlier, if you want to gain weight you have to eat a surplus of calories. You want to start off with at least 2200 calories a day and increase from there if needed. Coupled with a good weight lifting program (do not just eat this amount and not strength train) and very little to no cardio (at least in the beginning phases) and you will be well on your way to building your curvy physique!
A good meal plan for weight gain will require a good calorie calculator. I recommend using a My Fitness Pal to keep track of the amount of calories you are getting in a day. I know counting calories can be a pain in the you know what, but it will be a good way to keep track of what you are eating to make sure you are getting enough calories in your diet.
IF YOU LIKE THIS ARTICLE, you will love 7 VEGAN FOODS THAT HELP YOU GAIN WEIGHT where you will learn,
- 7 top vegan curve building foods
- what properties these foods have that make them curve building friendly
- how to use these foods in recipes, their advantages and disadvantages
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© Gina Marie Hoskins. Vegan With Curves. All Rights Reserved. Unless noted otherwise, all images, recipes, & content are copyright protected and registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. My images and written content are NOT to be used without prior permission. Read full Copyright Disclosure.
© Gina Marie Hoskins. Vegan With Curves. All Rights Reserved. Unless noted otherwise, all images, recipes, & content are copyright protected and registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. My images and written content are NOT to be used without prior permission. Read full Copyright Disclosure.
Harli
Hey! I love your blog and I’m glad I came across it! I’m wanting to loose weight but also keep my curbs… is this even possible??
Nicole
Hi Gina,
I am sooo glad I found your website. There is so much information here!. I am new to the lifestyle. And also a curvy girl. Sadly,I have found that I am losing some of my curves. I will try some of the things you losted.
Also I tried getting the meal plan ans recipe guide and I am still not able. Is it possible for you to send it to me directly? Thank you
Gina Marie
Hi Nicole! I no longer offer that free guide and I am in the process of updating all of those links (which takes time unfortunately) however I will send it to you directly since you found that link directly and it has yet to be updated. My apologies for the confusion.
Kylia Conaway
So happy that I found you!! I was vegan and then I started to eat meat again because I was losing, but I really want to be vegan. Now I have a curvy figure but a bit of a belly because I had a baby 9 months ago. I want to get rid of the belly, but keep my gains. How do I do this?
Gina Marie
Hello Kylia ?
The best way to keep your gains and lose your belly is to have a slight deficiency in calories because your body is a unit so when you lose weight you lose weight all over but muscle helps reshapes your body it’s called body composition. So if you have muscle already built up and the areas where you’re curvy(not excessive fat )then you can slightly reduce your calories, not too much but just enough to start losing fat. The best way to lose fat and preserve muscle is high intensity cardio and continue strength training. Muscle naturally burns fat and it restricts your body. This is of course assuming that the curves you are primarily muscle and not excessive fat.
Tanya Williams
I am 98 lbs and 5 ft 1. I do not want to lose any more weight. Is 2200 calories ok for my petite frame?
Gina Marie
Hi Tanya. I would say start off with 2000 to 2200 calories. Even better track how much you are consuming right now. So say you are only consuming 1600 calories a day on average (you track this for about week). The next week increase that to 1800 calories and measure your progress. Did you lose weight, maintain or gain? It’s healthy to gain 1 to 2 pounds a week (any more than that is excess fat). If you didn’t gain increase it to 2000 calories the next week and so on and so forth. Everyone has what I call a “sweet spot” of the perfect about needed in surplus to gain weight. It comes with trial and error to determine how much calories you are consuming vs how much is going out. The more active you are the more calories you will need in order to have a surplus and gain the weight you desire or maintain.
Ameyo
Hi Gina Marie
I love your website, I was looking for this type of information!
I started to go vegan a couple of weeks ago, I love it. In the last 11 months, I have lost 50 pounds, with cardio and lifting weights. I am curvy, I like my shape and I’m not trying to loose my curves, exept my stomach. But it seems that even if I eat a lot since I went vegan, I still loose weight. I have lost a little weight on my thighs already.And I’m scard to loose some on my butt… How can I avoid this and still keep loosing weight on my stomach?
Thank you !
Gina Marie
Thank you for your comment and you are so welcome!
Sometimes as a new vegan your body is still detoxing. Plant based food is lighter than animal based foods in general; it’s not as dense. Your body sometimes goes through a period of removing waste that was there from your previous diet. I would give it a little more time. Allow your body to get adjusted to the new diet so that you can actually absorb what you are eating. Also tracking your calories is important in the beginning. I know even for me sometimes I think I am eating a lot but when I plug it into my fitness app I realize I am eating well below what I intended. Also with tracking calories you can measure easily. So lets say you eat 2200 one week and you see you are not gaining but losing, you can increase by 100 to 200 calories every week and keep measuring that to find your sweet spot.
As far as gaining weight without it going to your stomach a lot of that has to do with genetics. Some people in general just do not carry a lot of fat around their midsection. Outside of genetics however staying away from white processed foods (white sugar, white bread, white pasta, potato chips, etc) is crucial. My former health coach use to call that “belly fat food” and she was right. Complex carbs like oats, sweet potatoes, brown rice, etc are the ones to stick to. Continue to lift weights. Muscle burns body fat so that can help with belly fat without touching your muscle gains. Also cardio like ploymetrics and HITT helps burn fat without burning muscle. I hope this helps!
Wyatt Horkley
Thanks for the great info!
Gina Marie
You are welcome!
Tressa Eleby
I love this. I just became vegan and all about my curves. Im a comedian and also started daily tips via video on social media. Thanks for this. I will share it today!
@ComedianTresss #VeganThick
Tressa Eleby
I love this. I just became vegan and all about my curves. Im a comedian and also started daily tips via video on social media. Thanks for this. I will share it today!
@ComedianTressa #VeganThick
Gina Marie
You are very welcome!
Lianna
I subscribed but it will never let me get the free recipe building guide? Everytime I click the link it says it’s not available
Gina Marie
That is strange. My apologies i will look into that and see what the issue is. I can send it to you directly. Please email me at ginamarie@veganwithcurves.com and let me know what email you would like me to send it to.
Lianna
I subscribed but it will never let me get the free recipe building guide? Everytime I click the link it says it’s not available