This Woman Lost 43 Pounds On A Vegan Diet

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While scrolling through YouTube, I found this inspiring weight loss journey of Fransesca (@plantifullybased). In 2019, after a breakup, she found herself to be the heaviest she had ever been. The fact that she’s a food blogger (and constantly makes delicious food) didn’t help that, either.

With a lot of patience, self-love, and consistency, she lost 43 pounds over two years. That’s a very sustainable pace at which to lose weight, and how she talks about her journey in the video was something I admired and therefore wanted to share.

How Did She Do It?

She starts by saying her transformation is thanks to three key factors: patience, calorie deficit, and consistent workout.

Honestly, this is solid advice. It’s also how I knew immediately that I wanted to share this video. When it comes to weight loss, there’s so much misinformation and hype out there that it can be difficult to figure out what is true and what is not.

The truth is, the formula for weight loss is simple. If you eat less than you burn (calorie deficit) and you work out consistently (which means you burn even more calories without starving yourself), you’ll lose weight if you have enough patience.

Fun fact: one pound of body fat contains 3500 calories. This means you need to eat 500 calories per day less than you burn (3500 calories / 7 days) to lose one pound of fat per week.

Did Veganism Help Her Lose Weight?

What I also thought was interesting about this video is that she clarified she gained all the weight while she was vegan. She explains that she doesn’t think veganism has anything to do with her weight gain and weight loss.

Personally, I think that’s another excellent statement. In the world of weight loss, too much emphasis is put on the kind of diet that people are eating (e.g., ”eat this vegan diet”, ”eat this keto diet”, ”eat this carnivore diet” etc.).

The thing with this is that people that place emphasis on the diet you’re eating are often times trying to sell you on something. They’re trying to sell you a weight loss plan based on this miracle diet.

Has veganism been linked to lower body weight? Yes, several studies have shown this. However, that has nothing to do with the vegan diet. This is only because, when you’re eating healthy whole foods, it’s much more difficult to get many calories in. Also, vegan diets are higher in fiber, which makes you full for longer.

However, at the end of the day, you can gain weight or lose weight on any diet. It truly boils down to the number of calories you’re eating compared to what you’re burning.

Three Things That Helped Her The Most

In the video, she goes on to explain the three key things that helped her the most on her journey.

Mindset

She starts off the list with mindset (I guess being patient is part of the mindset as well). I thought this was an interesting start but a good one nevertheless.

You see, when people want to change something about their body (lose weight, build muscle, get stronger, be more flexible) they’re often doing it from a point of self-punishment. They’re unhappy and wish their body was different.

While there is nothing wrong with trying to improve yourself, she explains that you have to do it from a point of self-love! That’s because this is a long journey, you’re never going to make it by being negative towards yourself. On top of that, what’s the point of reaching your goals but hating yourself more and more every day?

Francesca is also a big fan of speaking her goals into existence. For her, this makes them real, and she becomes accountable for them. Besides, as she puts it herself, if I can’t keep promises to myself, then how can I expect others to do that?

Managing Your Food

She spends a big part of the video talking about food and how she managed to reduce her caloric intake sustainably. I’ve decided to put this section into bullet points because that gives you a proper and quick overview of her lessons.

• Use a calorie calculator to find out how many calories you burn daily and eat 400–500 calories less than that a day.
• Weigh your food (I think this is a bit too much, personally I trust what the packaging says) and track your calories (definitely do that part though). Figure out what works for you.
• Always a fruit or veggie with every meal.
• Around 80–100 grams of protein per day. I think that’s solid advice, to adjust this to your personal needs, aim to eat around 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight.
• Carbs are great, but there’s a difference between carbs from sweet potatoes and sodas.
• A couple of food swaps can go a long way. For example, she changed regular pasta for healthier chickpea pasta.
• She eats ice cream every day but accounts for it in her daily caloric intake.

If you take anything away from this section, it’s to know what your caloric deficit should be, and make sure you’re hitting that goal every day. Besides that, be nice to yourself and figure out what works for you.

Exercise

Fransesca explains she has always been very active and this has helped her a lot (she currently does some exercise 5–6 times per week). She does everything from tennis, kickboxing and walking to strength training.

Personally, I think it’s a great idea to combine strength training with aerobic exercises. If you are going to pick one over the other, research does suggest people lose more weight strength training than when doing cardio (yes, that’s surprising!).

You can read more about that in this article I wrote earlier: 5 Overlooked Benefits Of Strength Training As A Vegan Adult.

Also, if you’re not an active person and don’t love the idea of exercise, I recommend starting with 2-3 solid workouts per week.

There’s a high likelihood that you’ll burn yourself out quickly if you start exercising 5–6 times per week. Remember, like Fransesca says, this is a long journey and consistency over years is what you’re aiming for.

Extra Tips

She finished the videos by sharing some extra tips that have helped her throughout her journey. These are mainly mindset tips but very valid nonetheless.

First, keep in mind that you’ll plateau from time to time. It’s important to stay consistent during this period, and you’ll start to lose weight eventually again. I have to agree with this advice, however, if you’re stuck at a plateau for a month, maybe it’s time to do some more exercise or drop the calories a slight bit.

The scale will fluctuate, take measurements and progress pictures: 100% agree with this. The scale only tells a partial story. For example, if you gain muscle but lose fat, the scale will stay the same. Instead, taking progress pictures and measurements will tell a much more accurate story.

Give yourself at least three months before making major changes. Also, great advice, your body may take some time to adjust to your new lifestyle, and it may be a bit confused. If after three months you’re not seeing progress, evaluate if you really are eating in a caloric deficit and if your tracking is 100% correct.

Stefan K.

Stefan has been vegan since 2019 and has been regularly working on his strength since the beginning of 2023. He’s on a mission to help other vegans get stronger and have all of them achieve the quality of life they deserve.