If you're following a vegetarian diet, it helps to have good information. For while giving up meat is easy, figuring out what you can actually eat on a vegetarian diet can be a little bit harder.

People follow a vegetarian diet for a number of different reasons - some because they think it's wrong to kill animals, others for ecological reasons, some because they feel it is a healthier way to eat.

Because it is in general a low fat way of eating, many people assume that they will automatically lose weight when they switch to a vegetarian diet, but this is not always so.

Other factors that need to be considered include the actual quantity that you eat - you can still over-eat following this type of plan - and the mix of carbohydrates, protein and fat.

With recent research showing that increasing the quantity of protein you eat can help in losing weight, it can be a challenge for those who have given up animal products to avoid eating a lot of carbohydrates. While there are plenty of non-meat based sources of protein, it is a little harder to include them in every meal.

Consulting any of the various books in this section can be an effective way of learning how to get a good balance in your eating, whatever your goal - indeed, you'll find several that tackle the low carbs issue.