7 ways to maintain a healthy vegetarian diet

If you're thinking of cutting out animal products from your diet, ensure you're still maintaining a healthy vegetarian diet. Here are 7 ways to get all your nutrients.

Cutting out animal products from your diet to become a vegetarian doesn't have to be difficult. If you're thinking making the dietary switch, these X ways can help you transition seamlessly and easily.

1. Fill up on fat

• Meat is one of the easiest ways to get fat, which is an essential thing your body needs to absorb vitamins and stay healthy. You can get your fill with foods like nuts, butters, oils and avocados. Just make sure to stay away from trans and saturated fats and moderate your intake of unsaturated fats.

2. Pack on the protein

• To ensure your muscles grow and keep your body strong, you need to feed them high-protein vegetarian foods like nuts, soy foods, legumes, dairy and eggs. Typically, a person needs about 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.

3. Check your calcium intake

• Just as your muscles need to be kept strong, so too do your bones. You can easily find excellent sources of calcium in foods like milk, cheese and yogurt. If you're look at plant-based sources of calcium, check out foods like broccoli, tofu, black or white beans, butternut squash or collard greens. Plant-based foods tend to have less calcium than dairy foods, so you may have to up your quantities a little bit.

4. Increase your iron

• Iron is essential for healthy blood and losing the iron found in meat sources means you have to replace it with plant-based sources. Unfortunately, your body doesn't absorb plant-based iron as well as meat-based iron, so you may have to pair it with Vitamin C to boost its absorption. A combination of foods like citrus fruits (Vitamin C) and beans, seeds, tofu, dark leafy greens and dried fruits (iron) can help.

5. Convert those carbs

• Many vegetarians find carbohydrates one of the easiest things to master when switching diets, as it's pretty easy to get your full dose of nutrients with so many foods so readily available. Foods like whole grains, such as brown rice, quinoa, bulgur and whole grain bread, are an easy way to give your brain and muscles the energy and vitamins they need.

6. Portion control

It can be difficult to know just how much of each nutrient or food group you need to maintain a healthy vegetarian lifestyle, but here are a few easy ways of remembering.

• A serving of carbohydrates should roughly equal the size of your clenched fist.
• When it comes to protein, you should be able to fill the palm of your hand with one serving.
• To ensure you're not overdoing it with fats, the butter or spread should only take up the room available in the tip of your thumb.
• Don't forget to treat yourself as well! When it comes to savoury snacks, like popcorn, allow yourself two cupped hands' worth.

7. Three square meals

• Not everyone needs or wants to eat exactly three times a day, as some of us are grazers and snackers. But over the course of a day, you should be eating the equivalent of a breakfast, lunch and dinner to ensure you get all your nutrients.

Maintaining a healthy vegetarian diet is something that only takes a bit of planning and foresight to carry off well.