that worked, but I didn't lose any weight...probably because I wasn't exercising at the time.
Vegans tend to replace healthy animal fats and proteins with unnatural, refined fats (corn, rapeseed, etc) and sugars. The interesting thing about a vegan diet is that if you skip refined foods, getting 2000kcal into yourself is... difficult. Force yourself to eat locally and it because EXTREMELY difficult for anyone living north of southern California. Vegetables have an extremely low calorie density. To eat 2000kcal of broccoli you need to consume ~13 lbs of it.
evidence seems to be stacking up that eating a lot of meat isn't much good for us
Not really, most of the studies that say meat is bad for people are very poorly conducted.
Honestly, right now, it's pretty much impossible to do decent clinical studies about what people eat and how it affects them. People lie about what they eat, they can't keep to a strict clinical diet (which is what would be required). Medical thinking from the 90s has completely distorted population behavior to the point of making statistical analysis all but useless. Yes, people who eat lots of meat may be statistically less healthy... but is that because meat is unhealthy, or is it because people who are proactive (physically active, interested in the quality of their food, etc) have been told to not eat meat, while people who eat meat tend to disregard other aspects of their health?
(I've lost 130lb eating meat and cutting sugar from my diet)