Vegan lifestyle for strength and size
 

Hey.
I'm a Vegan (no animal products), and I'm hoping to use your knowledge to improve my diet. A couple of quick points about myself. I'm a vegan because I feel that raising and killing smart, feeling animals in terrible conditions is morally wrong. I can't support this industry anymore, so no going back. I agree that, evolutionarily, humans are omnivores are a best suited to a diet of Veggies, fruit, Seeds and, yes, meat. But just because thats what we did doesn't mean its right now.

Anyway, I'm male, weigh 102kg (about 220 pounds) at around 20% body fat (calculated from tape measurements). I have a 160kg squat, 180kg dead, 65kg OH press, 75ish bench. Also a 9.6 shuttle run and a 78 second 400m.

I want to increase my numbers in all those lifts, play around with lifting stones, and generally look muscular.

I try to stick to whole foods, but its not a hard and fast rule. My breakfast is normally 100 grams of oats, cooked with coconut milk and 20 grams of LSA (Linseed, sunflower and almond meal). Also a soy milk shake with 40 grams of brown rice protein and ~8 grams of EAA powder.

Lunch is normally reheated dinner from the night before.

Dinner is normally bean based, something like burritos, or spaghetti sauce. I also like Falafel's with Hummus and home made veggie burgers.

Does anyone have suggestions to improve my diet? Meal ideas? Comments?

Learn to hunt.

Do you really believe this?

Go to your local CSA / Co-op and get grass fed meat

I don't think any of us here support vegetarian or veganism in any form. It's not physiologically sound.... so why harm your body to prove a point especially when there is some forms of ethically raised meat (grass fed from local farmers for example)

Sure. Just because its what humans did in the past doesn't mean we can't, in some circumstances, choose not to. The human body is pretty remarkable and can cope with dietary changes. There are both people who eat purely meat and people who eat purely raw fruit. Both seem to survive.

Ethics is a personal judgement. I feel that raising animals for meat is unethical.

I don't think it's as physiologically screwy as some make it out to be. Work on the blue zones indicates a relatively low amount of meat consumption in the longest living societies. It also shows a high level of low intensity activity, low stress, sense of community etc. Just not eating meat, or much of it, doesn't equal long life. Looks to be a package deal.

Either way, go to Mike Mahler's website and look into what he's got on veganism.

He's strong with KBs, pretty strong with barbells and doesn't ingest any animal products.

Aggressive Strength or something like that is the name of his E-Mag.

edit:
Don't raise it then. Learn to shoot, or learn to use a bow, and get a hunting license. Or learn to fish. Or don't.

There's no reason why vegetarian/vegan athletes can't achieve similar levels of size and strength to non-vegans providing they train hard and eat enough to support training and growth.

Vegan Weightlifting: What Does the Science Say?

Position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada: Vegetarian diets.

www.veganfitness.net

SHocker but I was vegan for 15 years and then vegetarian...I did macrobiotics, raw food, the works. And ya know what got me back to eating REAL food? WHen I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and elevated cholesterol from eating a diet high in grains etc. The "top" US nutritionist said I wasnt eating enough grains. WTH? That is all I was eating along with soy this and and bean that.

I switched gradually...first fish, then chicken, then meats, etc. I am far healthier and stronger now.

The reason vegan/vegetarian is hard to take seriously is that they *require* supplemenation of omega-3s and B vitamins especially B12 to even do remotely well on the diet.

Any other diet (with meat) you don't have to supplement with anything.

Even though we recommend supplementations like fish oil, vitamin D, whatever else all these things can easily be eliminated by getting out in the sun more or eating more high quality foods like grass fed meat with the fat.

However, something the REQUIRES supplementation (e.g. that which has only cropped up post 1950s) which vege/veganism has isn't exactly comforting to relative health given our past evolutionary history. Especially since meat literally made us human.

I don't buy any argument except maybe religion for not eating meat. And then I don't agree with religious reasons either.

Why do you need to go completely vegan then? I have seen very happy chickens and dairy cows happily laying eggs and producing milk. What about small fish and shellfish? I can understand how people have ethical issues with raising a cow just to eat it, but sardines, shrimp or clams don't really fit the description of "smart, feeling animals". Bivalves barely have any nervous system at all and even crustaceans don't have true brains. Crustaceans are little different from insects and spiders, if you can swat a fly without remorse you should be able to eat a shrimp. Speaking of insects, there's another great source of animal protein that is completely free of ethical hangups. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...340020728.html