So you'll lose muscle on a vegan diet?

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  • _John_
    _John_ Posts: 8,642 Member
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    nm
  • wheird
    wheird Posts: 7,963 Member
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    I also get my science from a guy that makes a living being punched in the face.
  • FitterBody
    FitterBody Posts: 367 Member
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    In to check out the links.
  • geebusuk
    geebusuk Posts: 3,348 Member
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    One of them actually does iron man competitions and she's 57 years old. (I love cheese too much to ever be a vegan.)
    Having muscle mass is detriminental to that some event - you want as little of ANY sort of mass as possible while having enough muscle for the basics of moving your body.

    Compare the thights of these two british cycling olympic gold medal winners I believe....

    Endurance athelete:
    Bradley-Wiggins-in-his-ho-008.jpg

    Sprint athlete:
    article-0-02577D6D00000578-225_468x395.jpg

    The former will be considerably less hassle to achieve on a vegan diet!
  • Kenazwa
    Kenazwa Posts: 278 Member
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    Robert Cheeke, vegan body builder and president of vegan body building and fitness, doesn't look like he has suffered from the lack of animal proteins.
    http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com/images/issue-1/vegan-curls.jpg
  • Ang108
    Ang108 Posts: 1,711 Member
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    Idiots will yap about protein all day long. Ignore the bros. They say you'll lost muscle, but they have NEVER tried it. Still waiting to lose mine. I have gained strength, not lost it.

    Gaining strength and losing or gaining muscle are not directly related. You can theoretically lose muscle ( maybe not a whole lot ) and at the same time gain strength by using the muscle you have more efficiently. Many people confuse gain in strength with muscle gain.
  • ahamm002
    ahamm002 Posts: 1,690 Member
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    The bottom line is that in general American diets have too much protein and carbs and not enough green veggies. I think we can all agree on that, right?

    No we can't. The typical American diet is probably lowish in protein. And it does tend to be high in carbs, but specifically carbs from "highly processed" foods that contain lots of sugar, refined carbs, and minimal nutrients. You're absolutely right about the green veggies part though.
  • mtnstar
    mtnstar Posts: 125 Member
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    Total chegan here. Never heard the term before, but I love it because it's exactly what I am. Just chiming in to say that I recently discovered hemp hearts, and they have been an awesome source of protein for me. I add them to my green smoothie in the morning or sprinkle them on a salad. 3 tbsp= 10 grams protein, 170 cal, 13g fat.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,622 Member
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    Robert Cheeke, vegan body builder and president of vegan body building and fitness, doesn't look like he has suffered from the lack of animal proteins.
    http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com/images/issue-1/vegan-curls.jpg
    Eating 12 tofu hot dogs a day plus 6 Clif bars and other vegan protein options admittedly left his stomach churning. Once you're there though, it doesn't take as much to sustain.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
  • Tinkerbell1988
    Tinkerbell1988 Posts: 22 Member
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    http://youtu.be/O7ijukNzlUg
  • Tffanie4712
    Tffanie4712 Posts: 115
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    sort of part-time 80/20 vegan diet
    Hmmm...no.
    vegan-police.gif

    ^Have to agree. If your a vegan, your a vegan. Not most of the time, not 80% of the time..you are or you aren't. Now you can have a primarily based vegan diet or whatnot..but that doesn't make you vegan. :laugh:


    This!!!!! Maybe you are a pescatarian.
  • amtatusko
    amtatusko Posts: 16 Member
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    It also doesn't mean to jack up protein levels as if that's what you need to do in order to be healthy. Also, I am not in this to bulk up. That may require something different.

    Nor am I vegan or advocating a total vegan diet. But it is possible to get enough nutrients to do so. Can't throw the baby out with the bath water.

    I have ditched all meat except for wild caught fish. Oh, and how can I live without a good cheese or a good ravioli. Or a little butter here and there.

    The bottom line is that in general American diets have too much protein and carbs and not enough green veggies. I think we can all agree on that, right?
    That awkward moment when most vegetables (if not all) are largely carbohydrate

    Point = missed. The average american diet contains carbs that are refined and loaded with crap we just don't need. It's cheap, sugary goodness.

    Look at the source of the food. And yes, this goes for meat and non-meat sources.

    No awkward moments here. Takes a lot more to make me feel awkward :)
  • amtatusko
    amtatusko Posts: 16 Member
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    Just a few more data-driven arguments to consider when thinking about a vegetarian diet. Allowing for a small amount of meat is a good thing even though a prudent vegetarian (or vegan) diet is possible for maintaining or even gaining muscle mass (which is all that I have been saying).

    Take these studies for what they are worth, which seems to be quite a bit.

    "We observed no significant difference between (omnivorous and vegan) groups for MM (muscle mass), total EAA (essential amino acid) intake, leucine, isoleucine, age and body mass index. However, we observed a significant difference between groups for total dietary protein intake and total energy intake. Despite significant differences in total dietary protein, the EAA intake was not different, indicating that neither the amount nor the quality of protein in these diets was a limiting factor in determining the amount of MM. Thus, each of these diet patterns appears adequate to maintain MM."
    Andrich, D. E., Filion, M., Woods, M., Dwyer, J. T., Gorbach, S. L., Goldin, B. R., & ... Aubertin-Leheudre, M. (2011). Relationship between essential amino acids and muscle mass, independent of habitual diets, in pre- and post-menopausal US women. International Journal Of Food Sciences & Nutrition, 62(7), 719-724.

    "The health benefits of vegetarian diets are not unique. Prudent plant-based dietary patterns which also allow small intakes of red meat, fish and dairy products have demonstrated significant improvements in health status as well. At this time an optimal dietary intake for health status is unknown. Plant-based diets contain a host of food and nutrients known to have independent health benefits. While vegetarian diets have not shown any adverse effects on health, restrictive and monotonous vegetarian diets may result in nutrient deficiencies with deleterious effects on health. For this reason, appropriate advice is important to ensure a vegetarian diet is nutritionally adequate especially for vulnerable groups."
    McEvoy, Claire; Temple, Norman; Woodside, Jayne V. Public Health Nutrition. 15.12(Dec 2012): 2287-94.

    "(Y)ou might think Americans were at risk for not eating enough. In fact, most of us eat more protein than we need. Protein is in many foods that we eat on a regular basis."

    "Because some vegetarians avoid eating all (or most) animal foods, they must rely on plant-based sources of protein to meet their protein needs. With some planning, a vegetarian diet can easily meet the recommended protein needs of adults and children."
    http://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/everyone/basics/protein.html
  • ahamm002
    ahamm002 Posts: 1,690 Member
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    Just a few more data-driven arguments to consider when thinking about a vegetarian diet. Allowing for a small amount of meat is a good thing even though a prudent vegetarian (or vegan) diet is possible for maintaining or even gaining muscle mass (which is all that I have been saying).

    Take these studies for what they are worth, which seems to be quite a bit.

    Wow, you're really digging deep to try and find some way to justify your pre-conceived opinions. Only one of those was a "study." The rest were just some quotes! That's not my idea of "data driven."

    And the one actual study was a joke. For one thing, the fact that the omnivores weren't getting any more leucine than the vegans only demonstrates that the "omnivores" probably weren't eating much meat anyway. And were the handful of the people in the "study" actually exercising? If so, how? Was it resistance training? Nobody here is saying that eating meat will magically make a sedentary person gain muscle.
  • raven_ous
    raven_ous Posts: 223
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    Vegans can get a adequate amount of protein in their diet, vegan, vegetarian omnivore etc as long as you are vigilant about your macros it is not impossible.

    Some research on protein...

    The current RDA for protein intake is .8g/kg of bodyweight. The real kicker here is that they claim that there is no benefit to eating more than that. I simply want to arm people with research that disputes this.

    So, here we go:

    1.4-2g of protein per kg of bodyweight is beneficial for individuals engaged in intense exercise:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20048505
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19278045
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17908291
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18500966

    2-3g/kg is beneficial for athletes:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14971434

    Older subjects lost lean mass getting the RDA protein recommendations (.8g/kg):
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11382798

    Double the RDA outperformed the RDA for individuals in a calorie deficit:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/495538
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16046715

    Triple the RDA outperformed the RDA for individuals in a calorie deficit: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19927027

    Subjects with a 1.5g/kg protein intake lost fat and gained lean mass:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10838463

    Of people that don't exercise, high protein intake causes less lean-mass loss:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17299116

    Honestly doubt certain people on this thread will read them because they seem content with anecdotal evidence.
  • tross0924
    tross0924 Posts: 909 Member
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    I agree your examples suck.

    But . . . vegetarian bodybuilders and athletes exist. You can in fact add muscle mass eating only vegetables. You can get stronger and you can get bigger and you can get ripped. It is harder though. The amount of planning that goes into getting the right nutrients eating just vegetables is staggering compared to grilling up meat.

    Eat vegetarian if you like. There's nothing wrong with it. You will not be as big and as strong as if you ate meat, but honestly, do you really care. You can get as big as you want and as strong as you want, unless you want to be Mr. Olympia or the worlds strongest man. If you don't want to be either of those things, pay attention to what you eat, try and get as much protein as you can and you'll be just fine.
  • raven_ous
    raven_ous Posts: 223
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    TO SUM UP:

    Two examples of professional athletes who switched to vegan diets have been shown as an example that you can be a vegan, still have muscle, and compete at a professional level.

    In both cases it's shown that they started to decline as athletes once they started eating vegan. One even supplemented his "healthy diet" with performance enhancing drugs to remain competitive.

    If you want to make a point, find better examples than these two. Because you've only succeeded in sending the complete opposite of your intended message.
    QFT^
    Poorly thought out threads like this are painful for vegans to read.

    Anecdotal evidence at best!

    Here is a picture of a vegan body builder...

    0j7pnv0.jpg

    Joel Kirkilis is a vegan Australian bodybuilder.

    Joel took home first prize in the ANB Victorian Championships and second prize in the NABBA/WFF Bodybuilding International etc
  • Sarauk2sf
    Sarauk2sf Posts: 28,072 Member
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    I agree your examples suck.

    But . . . vegetarian bodybuilders and athletes exist. You can in fact add muscle mass eating only vegetables. You can get stronger and you can get bigger and you can get ripped. It is harder though. The amount of planning that goes into getting the right nutrients eating just vegetables is staggering compared to grilling up meat.

    Eat vegetarian if you like. There's nothing wrong with it. You will not be as big and as strong as if you ate meat, but honestly, do you really care. You can get as big as you want and as strong as you want, unless you want to be Mr. Olympia or the worlds strongest man. If you don't want to be either of those things, pay attention to what you eat, try and get as much protein as you can and you'll be just fine.

    Vegan =/= vegetarian. It's actually pretty easy to get all the EAAs on a vegetarian diet. Milk is pretty much one of the best sources of protein.
  • Sarauk2sf
    Sarauk2sf Posts: 28,072 Member
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    TO SUM UP:

    Two examples of professional athletes who switched to vegan diets have been shown as an example that you can be a vegan, still have muscle, and compete at a professional level.

    In both cases it's shown that they started to decline as athletes once they started eating vegan. One even supplemented his "healthy diet" with performance enhancing drugs to remain competitive.

    If you want to make a point, find better examples than these two. Because you've only succeeded in sending the complete opposite of your intended message.
    QFT^
    Poorly thought out threads like this are painful for vegans to read.

    Anecdotal evidence at best!

    Here is a picture of a vegan body builder...

    0j7pnv0.jpg

    Joel Kirkilis is a vegan Australian bodybuilder.

    Joel took home first prize in the ANB Victorian Championships and second prize in the NABBA/WFF Bodybuilding International etc

    It is also misleading to use vegans as an argument that protein is not important (or is that vice versa?). Vegans who are looking to build/maintain muscle and who are performance athletes do pay attention to their protein intake.

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