Vegan macros for fat loss / muscle gain

crevtion

I've been doing 80/10/10 for a long time but now I've decided to focus more on fat loss and gaining muscle. I workout regularly alternating between doing interval cardio style hiit training and training with free weights. Both at home. I am a 20yo female and I'm wondering what macro split would be good for me as a vegan. What foods would you recommend to me? Any replies welcome other than those bashing my life's, thanks.

janejellyroll

Our physical needs as vegans are the same as non-vegans when it comes to sufficient protein and fat. I started with MFP's basic default macro goals and then adjusted based on my personal preferences and how I felt. I did find that I consume more carbohydrates than some non-vegans on MFP (but there are some non-vegans who eat as much as I do).

I shoot for a range and I'm generally 50-60% carbohydrates, 20-30% fat, and 15-20% protein. If muscle gains are a goal for you, you probably will want to really focus on the protein.

For specific foods, that depends on if there are specific macronutrients you're trying to increase. For fat, I like coconut, avocado, vegan mayo, plant oils, and chocolate. For protein, I like tofu, tempeh, seitan, and beans.

jflongo

If you are trying to build muscle make sure you hit your protein macros. Shoot for 0.6 - 1 gram per lb of body weight. Then after that, the mix of fat and carbs is really up to you. I would shoot for at least 20% fat or higher and then the rest carbs. You could split the two evenly if you want.

AnnPT77

jflongo wrote: »

If you are trying to build muscle make sure you hit your protein macros. Shoot for 0.6 - 1 gram per lb of body weight. Then after that, the mix of fat and carbs is really up to you. I would shoot for at least 20% fat or higher and then the rest carbs. You could split the two evenly if you want.

If someone is still materially overweight, I'd encourage using healthy goal weight as a basis for calculating protein and fats via gram formulas.

I've seen too many 5'4" 250+ pound women here struggling to fit 250g of protein (or some such) into a modest calorie goal. That's just not necessary: We don't need extra protein to maintain our fat mass; it's for maintaining lean body tissue.

ETA: +1 to what Jane said about nutritional requirements being the same whether vegan, vegetarian (which I am), or omnivore. At 5'5", as an active (and older) woman, for a weight in the 120s, I eat 100g protein daily, trying to get much of it as practical from high-quality (complete in essential amino acids) sources/combinations. I'm in maintenance now; it was a little lower when losing weight but not by much.

Aaron_K123

You aren't going to be able to gain muscle while losing fat. They have opposite requirements, one requires a caloric deficit the other requires a caloric excess. Sure it is possible to do a "Recomp" where you hover right around maintenance and slowly build muscle while slowly losing fat but its far from ideal if you have a considerable amount of fat to lose or a considerable amount of muscle to gain. In most cases you are much better off eating at a slight caloric excess with plenty of protein and focus on the muscle gain for a 6 months to a year or so and then after that go to slight caloric deficit to remove fat and uncover the muscle without losing it.

In terms of macro split if you want to gain muscle then its a good idea to have plenty of protein in your diet, something on the order of a gram per pound of body weight. Whether you are a carnivore or a vegan doesn't make any difference to the macro split, only to what foods you eat to get there.

I'm a meat eater so I'm far from an expert in what would be good for you to eat but I'd imagine things like beans and lentils and nuts would be a good start.