Eating Meat after 17 Years of being Vegetarian to Build Muscle - Good Decision?

After 46 years vegetarian, I figure I may have to start eating meat in a decade or two when I move to assisted living (I'm 65 now), because they probably won't provide that great of nutrition for a vegetarian. Until then, I don't seem to have any major difficulty getting what I think is adequate protein (eating in a way I enjoy).

I'm a subscriber to the idea of 0.6-0.8g protein per pound of healthy goal weight, around 1g per pound of lean mass, and I meet or exceed that daily (without protein powder, protein bars, fake meat, and that sort of thing - not because there's anything wrong with those, but because I personally don't find them tasty).

If that doesn't work out for you, I don't see anything wrong with stopping being vegetarian, in the abstract. You know your own goals and ethics best. Certainly, I don't think being vegetarian is "healthier". I would expect the meats and fish to taste kind of weird for a while, and it might take some time (few weeks, maybe?) for gut microbiome to adapt. (I don't have the cite handy, but there was a small crossover study that looked it this - it happened faster than the researchers expected, IIRC there were material changes in a couple of weeks.)

Personally, I don't worry about how many carbs I eat, as long as I get enough protein, enough healthy fats, and plenty of veggies/fruits, within a sensible calorie goal; and I can do that fine. (I eat 100g minimum protein (usually exceed it), 50g minimum fat, 5 minimum (ideally 10+) veggie/fruit servings, and usually end up with 200-250g carbs daily, but I don't target the carbs, that's just where they end up.)

FWIW, I'm not a bodybuilder or even a serious weight trainer, but I don't seem to have any difficulty in increasing strength or muscle. YMMV. 🤷‍♀️ I think my bodyfat and fitness are OK-ish enough for a woman my age, but maybe my standards are lower than yours.

I don't think this is a question anyone else can answer for you: Eating styles are about principles, tastes, practicality, satiation, and that sort of thing . . . all of which are pretty individualized.

globalc00 wrote: »

I'm not a vegetarian, but I get over 100g of protien in my typical diet. Majority of the 100g comming from 600g egg white, 500g broccoli, and 50g edamame. So it is definitly doable if you dont mind eating that much egg white.

Uh, that does not sound enjoyable at all to be honest. Also, TO is a woman and has likely a much smaller calorie goal, which means eating food with 100g of protein might take up a substantial amount of her daily calories.

lizrod2014 wrote: »

Hey guys!

I've been vegetarian for 17 years and usually pretty fit for the most part. After tracking my protein intake for the past 2 weeks, I've realized it's hard to meet my protein requirement without eating tubs of greek yogurt, so much egg/egg whites, and putting protein powder in everything. (Okay I'm exaggerating, but truthfully it's been challenging).

Yes, we can get tons of protein from quinoa, beans, legumes but they are also high in carbs so my macros is off. I realized I could get twice the amount of protein with chicken and seafood with much less carbs and smaller amounts.

So I decided to eat meat after 17 years. I decided overnight and knew I wanted to just take the plunge. Never imagined myself making this decision.

It's Day 2 and I've eaten salmon and chicken but the texture and taste are so weird to me. I hope I can get used to this.

Anyone else make this drastic change? How did it go? Also, did you notice a change in muscle mass? My goal is to lose fat and gain muscle

Any feedback or tips are appreciated, thanks!

The biggest driver for muscle gains will be your lifting program. Are you following a structured lifting program? If not, the below link is good.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p1

Adding meat/fish/seafood/eggs/dairy into your diet will make it easier to get adequate levels of high quality protein. But you don't have be all or nothing. You can certainly consume both animal and plant based proteins. From a lifting perspective, the key is really protein. Your fats and carbs are relative to your workout and personal preference.

kshama2001 wrote: »

Are you using the default 50% carbs macro? @AnnPT77 @janejellyroll - what macros do you hit? (The former is a long time vegetarian and the latter is vegan.)

Warning: I'm going to answer, but rattle on in much more detail about protein sources and adequacy of vegetarianism for active people, with some eating philosophy thrown in. Stop reading now if that's uncongenial.

I don't do it by percent, I do it by grams. I just set MFP close, eat to my gram goals, and pretend it's Christmas when my MFP totals are a mix of red/green. And, as I said, I literally don't pay attention to carbs, just protein, fats, veggies/fruits (occasional spot check of specific micros).

That said, looking it up because you asked, over the last couple of months, the lowest week was 43% carbs, highest 49%

I was at 125.4 pounds this AM (at 5'5"), and my BIA scale claims 23.3% bodyfat (I don't believe that because I'm not gullible, but I'm guessing mid-20s percent somewhere is fairly realistic). For convenient math, if I use that 23.3%, 1g protein per pound of lean mass would be 95.875 grams. I use 100g as a minimum because it's easier to remember. Over the last few weeks, lowest daily average was 108g daily, highest 124g (for a fully logged week, as I skip a day here and there fairly often in maintenance).

globalc00 wrote: »

I'm not a vegetarian, but I get over 100g of protien in my typical diet. Majority of the 100g comming from 600g egg white, 500g broccoli, and 50g edamame. So it is definitly doable if you dont mind eating that much egg white.

That sounds grim to me, too, frankly. I like variety in my eating too much to do that. Life is too short to eat in ways I don't enjoy. (I'm not saying you don't enjoy that, just that I wouldn't.)

Here are my protein sources (all of them), for a full day, with gram amounts, though they vary a lot by day:

Nonfat milk 12g
Oatmeal 4g
Walnuts 2g
Flax seed 3g
Hemp seed 3g
Nonfat Greek yogurt 18g
Cauliflower mac'n'cheese (own recipe, also has beans/chickpea pasta) 20g
String cheese 7g
Pea chips 6g
Cabbage 2g
Avocado 1g
Black beans 16g
Mixed cheese 7g
Puppodums 2g

If I didn't make a typo, that's 106g, though the total from MFP probably includes some fractional amounts from small other amounts of nuts, veggies, etc.). Some of those listed (especially the tiny ones) are not great sources in an essential amino acid sense, but they're quite varied (helps to compensate), and many of them are good sources (I looooove dairy!). It's unusual for me to have a day without a major soy food(s) in there (can be various types tofu, tempeh, edamame noodles, etc.)

This day wasn't cherry picked to be exemplary, it's just my most recent full day of logging. If anyone cares, it was 2,143 calories, 1,848 net, which is ultra-slow-loss calories for me (maybe a couple hundred under maintenance). If that seems like a high TDEE so you're dismissing the practicality, you can back out my 250 calories of beer that night, and call it 1893 gross, 1598 net.

From my perspective, if someone is trying to be vegetarian, the "shape" of meals will benefit from a re-think. Omnivores, IME, often think of a meal as one big protein. ("What's for dinner?" "Chicken." "Pork chops". "Salmon". "Burgers". ) As I vegetarian, I still try to include some major protein source(s) in each meal (maybe a couple of different ones combined). On top of that, I try to get a little bit of protein from nearly everything I eat, while still eating in a way I enjoy.

When I first started calorie counting, so needing to get adequate nutrition on reduced calories, I made it a habit to review my diary often, looking for items that had a high calorie "cost", but little protein. Unless those were important to me for other reasons (satiation, nutrition, enjoyment), I would reduce or eliminate those, replacing the freed-up calories with some other food I enjoy that contributed at least a bit of protein. This was easy. I figure a food (single item, not dish) with 1g reasonably-EAA-complete protein per 10 calories is a really good vegetarian protein source, and 20-30 calories per gram is decent for whole dishes/compound products.

For me, reaching my goals, this thread was helpful (once I scrolled past the meaty/fishy stuff at the top of the spreadsheet):

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10247171/carbs-and-fats-are-cheap-heres-a-guide-to-getting-your-proteins-worth-fiber-also

In terms of maintaining fitness, I seem to be doing OK, I think. I'm routinely active, not completely devoid of muscle (substantially more muscular at age 65 than the average li'l ol' lady, among my acquaintance - that's me in my profile photo, so you can decide if I'm deluded). It makes me laugh at the absurdity of the estimate, but Garmin estimates my fitness age at 36, and says my estimated VO2max is in the top 10% for my age group. The point is not to brag. I'm no kind of stellar athlete, but I've been quite active for 17+ years (even while obese); I don't spend multi hours daily training or anything like that. My point is that whatever I'm doing, my way of eating doesn't seem to have some dire and deleterious effect on my health or fitness.

People should adopt whatever nutritionally adequate diet they enjoy. Vegetarian can be healthy, fully plant based can be healthy, omnivory can be healthy (actually that's probably the *easiest* one). There's no special health magic in any of those, as long as nutrition is reasonable, and calories appropriate. The special health magic is the proper nutrition and calorie level, IMO.

janejellyroll wrote: »

psuLemon wrote: »

kshama2001 wrote: »

I just learned that tennis champions Serena and Venus Williams eat mostly plant based, and they certainly are fit and have plenty of muscle.

The following doesn't seem like enough calories for an elite athlete, but I suppose it would depend on portion size:

https://thebeet.com/venus-williams-follows-a-mostly-vegan-diet-and-here-is-exactly-what-she-eats/

It should be noted that what an elite athlete eats in terms of calories, tends to be much higher than a normal person. And they became elite athletes following a different diet. You see this in the body building world. Most didn't get there from following a ketogenic diet but it has made it easier to sustain their physique.

This also doesn't get into the amount of athletes who tried going plant based, only to switch back after performance issues arose.

But to circle back to the subject of the OP, we're discussing whether protein needs for non-elite athletes can be met on a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet, and I think it's pretty clear that the answer is "yes."

This doesn't mean that individuals aren't going to choose to add meat back to their diet for pleasure or convenience, it's just that it's not mandatory in order to meet an average person's fitness or body composition goals (I don't think you're necessarily arguing that).

Yea, I don't disagree. That is why it's important to understand goals. If a goal is muscle gains, animal based proteins make it "easier" to get all amino acids and stimulate muscle protein synthesis the most, but it can be achieved with plant based diets, but will often require more protein in comparison to an animal based diet due to lower levels of L-Luecine in plant based proteins.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

psuLemon wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

psuLemon wrote: »

kshama2001 wrote: »

I just learned that tennis champions Serena and Venus Williams eat mostly plant based, and they certainly are fit and have plenty of muscle.

The following doesn't seem like enough calories for an elite athlete, but I suppose it would depend on portion size:

https://thebeet.com/venus-williams-follows-a-mostly-vegan-diet-and-here-is-exactly-what-she-eats/

It should be noted that what an elite athlete eats in terms of calories, tends to be much higher than a normal person. And they became elite athletes following a different diet. You see this in the body building world. Most didn't get there from following a ketogenic diet but it has made it easier to sustain their physique.

This also doesn't get into the amount of athletes who tried going plant based, only to switch back after performance issues arose.

But to circle back to the subject of the OP, we're discussing whether protein needs for non-elite athletes can be met on a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet, and I think it's pretty clear that the answer is "yes."

This doesn't mean that individuals aren't going to choose to add meat back to their diet for pleasure or convenience, it's just that it's not mandatory in order to meet an average person's fitness or body composition goals (I don't think you're necessarily arguing that).

Yea, I don't disagree. That is why it's important to understand goals. If a goal is muscle gains, animal based proteins make it "easier" to get all amino acids and stimulate muscle protein synthesis the most, but it can be achieved with plant based diets, but will often require more protein in comparison to an animal based diet due to lower levels of L-Luecine in plant based proteins.

True. There's a persistent myth out in the extremes of the advocacy blogosphere that plant-based eaters require *less* protein than omnivores, besides . . . though I've never seen any even remotely rational explanation of why that would be so. (Greger 🙄 even argues that leucine is The Worst!)

IMO, getting a bit *more* protein, as a plant-based eater, is IMO a more reasonable strategy, especially if one has athletic goals. One can also make it a point to give some thought to EAAs - some plant foods have higher leucine levels than others, of course.

Wait, what? I never heard of him saying this so I Googled and . . . oh man.

"To reach the leucine intake provided by dairy or meat, we’d have to eat nine pounds of cabbage . . . "

He says this like I wouldn't!

"Based on personal research, which I might be wrong but I am always open to learning, moderate carb intake is important when trying to lose fat as opposed to high carb intake"

Sorry but you are wrong, calories matter for weight loss - not carbs and certainly not the proportion of carbs.
Don't make decisions based on poor information.

If carbs were crowding out your protein (and fat) and stopping you getting sufficient amounts that would be a valid argument but the amount of carbs themselves are an irrelevance for weight loss as long as you are achieving a calorie deficit.

misslizzierod wrote: »

Thank you to everyone for sharing your personal experiences. I forgot to mention one important thing - I have been intermittent fasting for a long time (just recently started tracking my macros). I also have a 30+ BMI since giving birth a few years back which is why my short term goal is fat loss (long term goal - body recomposition). Based on personal research, which I might be wrong but I am always open to learning, moderate carb intake is important when trying to lose fat as opposed to high carb intake. I am not on a low carb diet but after tracking my macros, the data I received demonstrated that carbs where taking up a much higher amount than my protein in my diet.

Most importantly, my daily eating window of 8 hours is 7am-3pm. In order for me to meet my 105 grams of protein within that window, I had to eat larger amounts of vegetarian protein rich foods and I was feeling so full. I felt like I was entering an eating contest trying to meet my macros by 3pmish which didn't feel natural nor sustainable. I'm sure if I wasn't intermittent fasting, splitting up my protein intake between meals through plant-based sources would be less challenging for me.

Due to this and after researching, I realized chicken and seafood has a higher protein amount through way smaller portions so I decided to try this for convenience. I respect vegan and vegetarian lifestyles and have benefitted from them regardless and plan on still incorporating plant-based.

Also, in case this might help anyone making a transition or thinking about it, today is Day 3 as an omnivore and my body reacted quite well. I haven't felt sick, sluggish, or queasy. My digestion has been the same to be honest. The taste and texture are still not enjoyable but I am that will change in time. So far, I've had salmon and chicken. I can always go back to plant-based if omnivore diet is not for me.

Thanks you everyone for taking the time to provide and share your personal experiences.

People can lose fat on a high, moderate, or low carbohdyrate diet. There are many people who find that eating low carbohydrate either lowers their appetite or helps control cravings - if you're in this group and you find you enjoy it, these are good reasons to limit your carbohydrates. But otherwise, there is no particular need to do so. I lost all my weight while getting about 60% of my calories from carbohydrates and I was very happy with my body composition at the end (which I attribute to resistance training, keeping a moderate deficit so I didn't lose weight too quickly, and making sure to get enough protein).

Also, if IF is making it hard to meet your nutritional goals while eating how you like, maybe it's the IF that needs to be changed -- not the foods you're choosing. Just something to consider. IF is just a tool to help control calorie intake. Like any tool, it isn't going to be the perfect fit for every situation.

Not saying this to tell you that you HAVE to stop eating meat, but just throwing some more potential solutions out there.