My husband and I have cut back on meat consumption significantly in recent months, and I'm tossing around the idea of trying to do a full vegetarian diet for the month of March as a trial run for potentially going vegetarian full-time.

I've searched around and there's a lot of conflicting information out there on the topic of vegetarianism, as well as the reality that a significant amount of nutritional information online is sketchy at best. I know we have lots of vegetarian/vegan users here, and I'm wondering if there's any significant need-to-know health concerns or things that need to be addressed. Do I need to supplement any particular nutrients? Do I need to measure my protein intake? Any other must-know information or do's/don't's I should be aware of?

Have you ever really looked at what you eat? If you have, you may notice one common ingredient present in everything from vegan sauces to certain ketogenic foods. Taking those specific diets into consideration, the widely accepted figure for keto is <100 grams, and similar in the vegan sphere as well(Often times you'll see a quoted 30 grams, but the kicker always comes in the comments where someone says fruit based sugars don't count towards this. They do, very much so, count towards it). This is far, far, far too much sugar for any one human to be taking in a day. The FDA has no recommended figure for their DV scale of food labels, but other groups certainly do. The World Health Organisation recommends no more than 5% of daily calories be from sugar of all types. This is equivalent to 25 grams for a 2000 calorie diet. The American Heart Association recommends the same figures.

Now, you may be asking yourself, why would the AHA bother themselves with sugar? Certainly that's more for a diabetes association to study than a heart disease one? Well, it's because sugar is heavily linked to heart disease. From the source:

participants who took in 25% or more of their daily calories as sugar were more than twice as likely to die from heart disease as those whose diets included less than 10% added sugar

So, not only are you at risk for heart disease, but there are new studies that suggest alzheimer's is nothing more than a 3rd form of diabetes.

I'm not hoping for much in posting this, except that someone somewhere looks at their diet and resists the stranglehold sugar has on our present society.

Hey everyone. I keep a pretty rigorous watch on my calories and I am a vegetarian, so a lot of my meals consist of just vegetables. I am mostly healthy, but I have the hardest time kicking my only real vice: soda. I love it, and I may even be addicted. I gave it up last year for lent, but after my 40 days I immediately started drinking it again. I'm trying to cut back my sugar intake, and I keep finding ways to rationalize drinking it. Anyone out there with tips on how I can kick it for good?

So I'm a teen and am starting a new school next year. I get a 12 week break so would really like to try and get in shape, mainly to boost self confidence. What types of exercise / diet would people recommend?

I don't think I'd ever get skinny but I'd I could swap out some fat for muscle that would be fantastic!