I have tried vegan (whole foods only) for months, and I have real trouble with legumes, not just normal gas, and my blood work went crazy. Triglycerides shot up for one.
The healthiest I have ever felt, and the best my blood work has ever been, was eating 1.5lbs of grassfed beef every day (with lots of roots and leaves too).
I can do vegetarian pretty easily, I process eggs and dairy well, but both of those foods are designed to trigger rapid growth in young organisms. I'm not growing anymore so I tend to pack on fat with them.
My chosen middle ground is to get my protein from fish (Cobain said they don't have feelings) and dinosaurs(they had their time). I feel little kinship to cows, grew up around them, but it isn't efficient, even if I feel physically better eating them.
There are plenty of studies showing large populations of vegetarians suffering vitamin deficiencies, so thriving is quite a stretch. Here is one example: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29446340/