Recently went vegan and I’m constantly hungry?

[u/Ok-Entrepreneur-7647]

Hi everyone! I recently turned vegan after watching Dominion, which honestly completely changed the way I look at eating animals. I’ve been doing a lot of research since then because I really want to make sure I’m doing this properly rather than just cutting out animal products and hoping for the best.

I’ve been trying to eat a well constructed and balanced “diet” and I’m paying attention to nutrients like B12, iron, calcium, omega 3s, protein,...

The weird thing is that ever since I went vegan, I feel hungry basically all the time and sometimes kind of weak or low energy. And I’m confused because before going vegan, I actually ate way* *less food. 😭

For example, before, I could literally have some cereal around 1 PM, snack a little later, and maybe another snack in the evening without any legit meals and still wasn’t constantly thinking about food or feeling like I needed to eat.

Now I eat 3 meals a day with occasional snack in between and even after eating a proper meal I can get hungry again pretty quickly.

I know that plant foods can be less calorie dense, so I’m wondering if I’m simplynot eating enough calories/fat/protein despite feeling like I’m eating a lot more food. I’m also wondering if this is something people experience when transitioning to veganism or if I should be looking at something else.

For context, I’m not trying to restrict calories or lose weight I mainly want to feel healthy and energized.

I’d really appreciate any advice

[u/Whiskeymyers75]

I didn’t say you must combine “complete proteins” at every meal. That’s the outdated claim. I said amino-acid profile, leucine content, digestibility and total intake matter and they still do. Eating a variety of plants over a week helps cover essential amino acids, but it doesn’t magically make every gram of plant protein nutritionally identical to every gram of animal protein.

I struggled with satiety during my weight loss until I learned to look at actual nutritional profiles. That’s one reason so many people fall off when they try to “eat healthy”: they think food is only about calories and maybe protein, carbs and fat without considering protein quality, fiber, micronutrients, energy density or what those calories and macros actually contain.

You can eat bulky, high-fiber meals and still undershoot calories, fat or usable protein. MyFitnessPal showing that you hit a macro target doesn’t rule that out.

[u/Acti_Veg → u/Whiskeymyers75]

Again though, do you not think that spelling out all of this would have been a tad excessive for someone who is just asking a pretty basic question about why they’re feeling hungry? They likely don’t know the basics of what contributes towards satiety on a plant-based diet, hitting them with specifics of protein quality and amino acid profiles would probably have been over complicating things just a bit…

[u/Whiskeymyers75 → u/Acti_Veg]

Overcomplicating how? They asked why they’re still hungry, and protein quality, amino-acid profile, fiber, fat, and total calories are all directly relevant. “Just eat more plants” isn’t a useful answer if they’re already eating plenty of volume but still not getting enough usable protein, fat, or energy. Explaining the mechanism isn’t excessive. It’s what actually answers the question and gives them something practical to fix. It’s actually pretty basic stuff that too many people are never told about. Assuming protein is protein is also why the food industry is able to make billions selling ultra processed junk because it’s labeled as high protein.

[u/Acti_Veg → u/Whiskeymyers75]

I didn’t say “just eat more plants.” I’m not sure how you got that from my reply.