Game Changers

davew0000
davew0000 Posts: 125 Member
in Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
Has anyone watched this? It makes a compelling case for vegan diets being better for athleticism and strength.

It is a documentary by MMA champion James Wilks.

It is perhaps guilty of bias in terms of its evidence and cases. It showcased vegan strongman Baboumian without recognising that Bjornsson eats a cow a day.

Still, Wilks going from 10 minutes to 1 hour on the battle ropes was quite a eye opener and I assume hard to fake.

It’s worth a watch. It certainly challenges the high meat protein diet view.

Replies

  • Sportertje354
    Sportertje354 Posts: 50 Member
    edited April 2021
    Disclaimer haven't watch the docu yet, but have put it in planning, but this is just my experience with similar

    Hmm, idk, remember Eddie Hall iirc saying something like that first time he tried something strongman related, he just took to it naturally and beat out anyone normal, so that there is some genetics or natural talent at play maybe

    I was vegan/vegetarian for years, but after a rough surgery had to eat differently. Ate fish and eggs, no meats for years, and that packed on muscle. I kinda figured have you seen how strong bears are, completely non scientific maybe, but you know how u can get with that stuff

    Started eating meat and chicken more recently, but I still limit it in diet, and fish too, but couldn't do without protein powder don't think

    And you have to eat a lot, when u train a lot, and things like pasta and potatoes I used to eat a ton off, besides veggies, fruits, and alternatives

    Also some meat replacements don't have to be healthy, like the amount of salt for example, tofu was a regular staple in my diet, like stir fry dishes

    Having said that I am no where the strength of some of these strong men, no delusions about that whatsoever

    So yeah there might be something too it, or maybe it is just him getting better too

    One thing you have to ask what are the long term effects too, but that goes with any food, I have come to just focus on healthy and balanced and that is hard enough for me at times

    And you have to keep things like allergies and medical condition and animal wellfare in mind too. Which iirc some vegetarian foods, by some companies are causing damage to the environment too. So eating things like biological meats and locally produced food like veggies may be more helpful, than just straight out vegan for moral reasons for example

  • davew0000
    davew0000 Posts: 125 Member
    Fair enough Ann. You’re quite right. Having Googled it (which I should’ve done before posting) I realise that it’s more than a little dodgy. He gives the impression he converted to vegan to aid his recovery from an injury but it seems he turned vegan before then.

    The science seemed flaky all along (who thinks athletes eat protein for energy!?) but the testimonials from athletes turned vegan who suddenly started making significant progress was what I found more compelling.

    If the battle ropes thing was a flat out lie, which him being vegan before his injury might suggest, well that seems straight up fraudulent.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 31,966 Member
    davew0000 wrote: »
    Fair enough Ann. You’re quite right. Having Googled it (which I should’ve done before posting) I realise that it’s more than a little dodgy. He gives the impression he converted to vegan to aid his recovery from an injury but it seems he turned vegan before then.

    The science seemed flaky all along (who thinks athletes eat protein for energy!?) but the testimonials from athletes turned vegan who suddenly started making significant progress was what I found more compelling.

    If the battle ropes thing was a flat out lie, which him being vegan before his injury might suggest, well that seems straight up fraudulent.

    No worries. People make performance improvements or athletic progress at various times for various reasons, so I wouldn't necessarily assume an outright lie. As an individual, it's pretty easy to see A happen, then B happen, and think A caused B, when the sequence was coincidence, the actual cause different.

    I do suspect better nutrition (after a little bit of time) can contribute to progress (after all, there's a reason *why* the national teams have nutrition experts advising them, eh?). Like I said, eating more plant foods would potentially benefit any people who are eating too few of them. Also, anecdotally, some people here report better workouts with better carb intake, i.e., they need certain minimum levels of carbs to perform their best. Plant-based diets usually are high-ish carb, so there could be some benefit there, for some people. (I don't think it's universal, since some people seem to do fine athletically while keto/low carb.)

    As an aside, protein can be used for energy, IMU, if the body doesn't have better purposes for it in context; but I agree that's unlikely to be the *reason* to consume it.

    Personally, I prefer to keep protein intake on the higher side, even as a veg. At non-extreme levels, can't hurt, might help. It's also fairly common for sensible mainstream sources to suggest that plant-based eaters may be better off getting slightly *more* protein grams than animal-protein eaters, for reasons of essential amino acid completeness (EAA insurance policy, sort of). For me, another warning flag that I'm looking at vegan-advocacy info (or ignorance caused by those advocates in the blogosphere) is the argument that we don't have to worry about protein levels when eating plant based, because plants are Just That Healthy. Yeah, no. (Still just my opinion, though.)

    Certainly, adequate protein (including EAA adequacy) is achievable entirely plant-based, with reasonable attention to it, so if people claim vegans can't get enough protein, or can't achieve high athletic performance, I figure I'm looking at ignorance/advocacy from the other side of the dispute. 😉
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,389 MFP Moderator
    edited April 2021
    davew0000 wrote: »
    Fair enough Ann. You’re quite right. Having Googled it (which I should’ve done before posting) I realise that it’s more than a little dodgy. He gives the impression he converted to vegan to aid his recovery from an injury but it seems he turned vegan before then.

    The science seemed flaky all along (who thinks athletes eat protein for energy!?) but the testimonials from athletes turned vegan who suddenly started making significant progress was what I found more compelling.

    If the battle ropes thing was a flat out lie, which him being vegan before his injury might suggest, well that seems straight up fraudulent.

    This is equivalent to when ketogenic first became popular. Even a few athletes switched to "improve their performance". Guess how many stayed and continue to follow the keto diet? None. You will similarly see this with those athletes following a plant based diet. Most have gone back to a conventional nutrient dense, high protein diet with meat. Why? Meat is a better source of protein, so you need less. The bioavailability of protein in plants is inferior.

    Can you be a plant based elite or keto athlete? Yes. But it's only a handful that will do it and generally only off season.

    For non elite athletes, is fine. Do what you like and push hard.

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