Is it possible for a vegan or vegetarian to have the endurance, stamina, strength, and energy of a meat-eating athlete?
As a vegetarian myself (religious reasons), I thought as long as I get enough grams of protein, I will be fine, but apparently, if plant-based sources of protein can’t be absorbed as much, will this prove to be a hindrance?
If any of you guys/girls are vegan/vegetarian, are you able to perform at an elite level or at least at the level of your peers, so long as you train as hard?
I, like I suspect 99.9% of folks round these parts, would not pretend to be ‘elite’, but I have been vegan 20+ years & I’m in pretty good shape for a 40-something with a sedentary job & kids etc.
Honestly don’t overthink it. I’ve never given a 2nd thought to bioavailability & the relative abundance/lack of certain amino acids in a plant-based diet etc. Basically just make sure you eat sufficient calories, with plenty of varied protein sources & 1 or 2 protein shakes per day if you want & you’ll be fine.
Whether i would be performing better on a non-vegan diet is a moot point as far as I’m concerned. I’m not going to compromise my ethics just on the off-chance it would benefit me in the gym.
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Look up Mike Mahler on the googles.
Don’t know what he’s up to lately, but he was pretty big on this subject the last time I looked.
Most of the elite athletes in this world eat meat. That’s a reasonable indicator that you’ll need to be smart about food choices.
Anyway, what’s the alternative? Drop your religion? I assume that isn’t happening so you need to do this anyway.
Also, I don’t know how much research into this has been done but meat doesn’t just provide protein. Consider the fat composition of the foods you eat as well. Fat profile is likely to be different between meat eaters and vegetarians/ vegans
I have not “considered” going Vegan, but I have done the thought experiment on it, and also do eat pesco/ovo/lacto vegetarian for a few stretches of the year.
The first issue I see is doing Veganism the “healthy” way and the unhealthy way. I would say that I basically eat a “Healthy Vegan” diet plus red meat, fish, eggs and milk based protein powders.
So what is meant by a healthy vegan diet?
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Fats: It can not be based on high linoleic plant oils like corn/soy, and also I think that canola is suspect. It needs to get a significant number of calores from monounsaturated and saturated plant oils. Olive, Coconut, Avocado, Macadamia, and if you are not ethically opposed, Red Palm oil, plus some plant sources of Omega 3. Even too much nut based products will put your linoleic acid levels too high. Too little saturated fat will suppress hormones and neurotransmitters and too much Omega-6 will raise inflammation, cortisol, and insulin resistance. The first “old” problem with the thought experiment was plant based foods that relied on nuts or omega-6 oils and grain starches but there has been a shift to coconut oil and potato and tapioca starch in things like Vegan cheese that have made them much healthier IMO.
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Shouldn’t be based on whole grain starches particularly wheat, corn oats, brown rice, rye, or legumes (at least for me). The proteins in those starches are basically “designed” to make them hard to digest by causing animals gut inflammation. Animals don’t eat anything but tiny traces of grains in nature and they quickly become diabetic when they do. Human civilization advanced with grains because of the ability of cultures to produce food in a small area, but humans got smaller, and had more natural health problems across the board when they moved to grain based diets. Some people seem to be better evolved to manage grains, but I believe that a lot of people who feel like they are fine with them may have allergic symptoms which they attribute to other things, but which are due to grains IMO. Potatoes, white rice, sweet potatoes, plantain, and maybe tapioca and buckwheat are virtually zero on the inflammatory scale compared to wheat.
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Can’t rely on fruit for too many calories. This is another common mistake in veganism. Now 2-4 servings of fruit a day are good, but eventually fructose load starts to affect liver insulin resistance.
So for starters, a Vegan diet based on Omega-6 oils, whole grains and lots of fruit is going to be hugely different than one based on saturated, monounsaturated and some omega-3 oils, less inflammatory starches, and less sugary fruits. Again, my “diet” is based on the second one with meat, eggs, butter, and milk protein.
So if you get the normal Vegan side of the equation right, then you can talk about how to make up for the benefits of animal protein sources-the benefits not being restricted to the protein itself. Sorry, gotta run.
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Are you advising more of a primal or paleo based approach then to diet?
I would maybe call it “non-industrial” first. The two most critical problems are due to a diet built on oils and sugars that we don’t have the biochemistry to handle in large amounts. Basically, the “foods” of the 20th century.
Grains are far more variable in their effects and starches are not fundamentally bad, they are only conditionally bad.
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