If you're vegan, plant-based, or plant-curious and trying to drop pounds, you're in the right place. 

The fundamental principles of fat-loss and weight-loss remain the same regardless of whether you eat primarily plants or not. The laws of thermodynamics can't be broken regardless of what kind of protein you're eating. 

As a rule for fat-loss: you can't outwork a 'bad' diet. 

The old adage of '80% of results come from your diet or abs are made in the kitchen' is accurate. 

However, while nutrition is important, exercise shouldn't be relegated to a measly 20% of results. 

Exercise and nutrition are 50/50. 

But what moves the needle the fastest for weight loss (specifically targeting body fat) is how much you eat. How much you eat is defined by your caloric intake. 

Calories are a unit of energy. It's how we measure the amount of energy in each food that we eat. 

For example,1 pound of raw broccoli contains 154 calories, with a macronutrient breakdown of about 65% carbohydrates, 8% fat, and 27% protein. 

On the other hand, 1 pound of peanut butter contains 2,670 calories with a macro breakdown of about 72% fat,15% carbs, and 13% protein. 

Notice the difference above. It's very easy to gain weight (body fat) when you're unconscious of your eating habits. How much you eat (calories) matters when it comes to changing your body composition. 

The solution here is straightforward: eat less than your mainteance calories to trigger your fat-loss kickstart. 

Every successful diet that has ever existed since the beginning of time is predicated off this one principle: eat below your mainteance calories. 

Yet, most diets eventually fail when you don't prepare yourself for long-term success. 

Let's cover how you can drop your next 10-30 pounds while fully or partially fueled by plants. 

Fat-loss begins when you below your mainteance calories. 

We want to target fat-loss (not weight-loss) since your weight will fluctuate greatly throughout your fitness journey. 

1 pound of body fat contains approxiamtely 3,500 k/cal. This is important because in order to drop 1 pound of body fat, you'll need to eat 500 k/cal less per day to achieve a 1 pound of body fat loss per week. 

How fast can or should you go? 

You can go as fast as you'd like (and most people do especially in the beginning)... 

But this is a recipe for long-term failure especially the higher your initial body fat percentage. 

The risks of regaining weight (body fat) get higher, the more body fat you start with and the faster you try to take it off. 

Another pitfall is losing muscle the higher your caloric deficit (caloric deficit = eating below mainteance calories). 

The faster you try to drop weight (aka the more calories you cut excessively), the higher risk you are to drop precious muscle tissue - which takes hours of training to regain. 

So, a guideline I've adopted (credit to Andy Morgan) is to aim for no faster than 0.5-1% of your bodyweight per week. The fatter you are, the closer you can push towardss 1% per week. The leaner you are, the closer you should be to 0.5% per week. 

How this looks in application: 

• I suggest most clients aim for 1-1.25 pounds of fat loss per week. 
• If a client is obsese or has a lot of weight to drop, then possibly aiming for 1.25-1.5 pounds per week can work but piggybacking back off of Morgan's work and my personal experience, most clients tend to average around the 1 poundish mark each week. 
• For clients who are smaller or lighter, it may make more sense to aim for 0.75 pounds per week. 

The numbers above may seem fast or slow to you. 

But sustainability has to be pre-built into your strategy before you start cutting fat and dropping weight. Otherwise you're setting yourself up for failure for the long haul.