I can sort of relate. When I became a vegetarian at age 13, I ate no vegetables at all. I actually didn't even eat many when I became a vegan at age 17 either (pretty much only eggplant and mushrooms). It was only after becoming a vegan I learned to love virtually every vegetable, as when I went to college there was always only one vegan option, so I either ate that or went hungry. Part of the reason I stayed vegan is because I liked my diet much more, and felt like my sense of taste became far more subtle, and I saw my older brother, once he went back to being just a vegetarian, lapse into a very cheese and carb heavy diet.

I never saw any relationship between my diet and my weight though. I was fat at 13 before and after becoming a vegetarian, lost a ton of weight at age 15, but didn't lose or gain any weight to speak of when I became a vegan at age 17. I've been roughly 10-20 pounds overweight my entire adult life.

Protein-heavy diets often work to lose weight for two reasons. One, you get dehydrated and lose water weight. Two, pure protein makes you want to gag before you eat enough to get full. I used to routinely eat nothing but plates of seitan and I felt sick after a comparably small portion. I think you'd have the same general results no matter which kind of high protein diet you ate - not that I'm saying I think you should switch of course.

An aside - you don't like fruit?!?

I've never liked it. I choke it down in juice form but something in either the seeds or the "flesh" squicks me out. Too gummy, maybe? I don't like gummy candy either, or gelatin. Which is really too bad because I love the taste of citrus, but orange/tangerine pulp sticks in my throat. It's the last major holdover from my picky eating days. But as long as I have access to juice and supplements I don't know if I care enough to try to psych myself out of it.

I definitely feel like my time as a vegetarian opened me up to new things, and also instilled a healthy disgust of fast food. Man, I used to eat fast food every day! Now I can't stand it. I also feel like my sense of taste has become more attuned now that every dish is not meatmeatmeat. So I hear you on the subtlety thing.

The way I understand it is that plant proteins have to go through another layer of breakdown before they can be fully digested by the body, whereas animal proteins are instantly digested. That is why animal proteins are recommended for people with bowel problems. The added process doesn't matter for most people though, and a vegetarian or plant-heavy diet is recommended for people with IBD when they are not going through flare-ups. I don't know if that's what was behind my weight gain or not. I know that my exercise program fell off this winter because it was so long and dreary.

Fruit is a really wide range in terms of texture though, everything from crisp (apples) to juicy (citrus, berries), to pasty (bananas). There are certain fruits which just turn my stomach though - mainly melon.

As a child I used to strain my orange juice. It was before they sold no pulp juice in the stores. Heh.