Over the years the thing I hear from most bodybuilders is “Soy is for girls.” Soy is said to have properties that can cause a raise in estrogen levels and regular cow’s milk is a much better choice.
I have also noticed, however, that I have never once seen a pro bodybuilder state anywhere that he drinks milk. It is on no diet plans and I never see it in their fridge on videos. From the time I was a kid I have had a diet that includes milk every day, sometimes as much as one gallon.
For the last few years I have drank about 1/2 gallon (2Liters) every day. The older I get the less my body is tolerating it. I am starting to get indigestion, cramping, bloating, etc. I want to eat less and I just feel awful and fat sometimes.
Articles on bodybuilding.com and other places say if you have this problem to get lactaid tablets but don’t stop on the milk because it’s too important in one’s diet. I am really starting to raise the bullshit flag on this one, as I believe it’s become a bad choice for me.
No doubt a lot of my gains over the years have been due to milk, but I just can’t tolerate it any more. The other problem is that my shakes that consist of bananas, oatmeal, eggs, etc… taste absolutely horrible with just water. I can’t stand them.
I like the taste of soy milk but worry about the possible estrogenic effect while I’m juicin’. Is this just bullshit? Why does Lee Haney recommend soy so highly? He claimed in one article I read that all of his shakes contained soy milk because it provides a better blend of proteins along with whey (lactose free). Soy is also said to stimulate certain hormones and help fight cancer and illness. Why does soy have such a bad rap among bodybuilders then?
Does anyone on this forum drink soy regularly? Anyone else lactose intolerant? What do you do?
I was always under the impression soy lowered testosterone. I used to boycott soy religiously. Then I tried a new protein powder that does have soy in it. Well, I don’t like it nearly as much as pure whey or whey/casein mixes.
A google search provides some indirect data on my above mentioned belief but not an overwhelming mountain of “evidence”.
Still, once I use of this crap I’m going to find a new soy free protein.
Also theoretically on cycle the massive amounts of extra Test should be enough so that the evil effect of soy is not a factor. Still, I won’t use soy ever again and see no good reason for any man to.
[quote]sapasion wrote:
I was always under the impression soy lowered testosterone. I used to boycott soy religiously. Then I tried a new protein powder that does have soy in it. Well, I don’t like it nearly as much as pure whey or whey/casein mixes.
A google search provides some indirect data on my above mentioned belief but not an overwhelming mountain of “evidence”.
Still, once I use of this crap I’m going to find a new soy free protein.
Also theoretically on cycle the massive amounts of extra Test should be enough so that the evil effect of soy is not a factor. Still, I won’t use soy ever again and see no good reason for any man to.[/quote]
I used to boycott soy as well. The people I talk to that are big soy proponents are usually weak and frail looking. That is why I’m asking on this board instead of a vegan activist site. The problem is I just can’t tolerate that much milk anymore. I guess I could massively lower my intake but shakes are a staple of my nutrition. Would you use it if you were getting gut rot from regular milk?
[quote]sapasion wrote:
Like yourself, I used to drink milk like a cow but in recent years I barely touch the stuff. I even mix my protein shakes in water these days.[/quote]
Is that just out of personal preference? Today I mixed my post workout shake with a banana, honey, instant oatmeal, etc… like I always do, but the milk was soy instead of cow’s milk. I found I digested it about 10 times faster and didn’t get the bloated gut I get from regular milk usually.
Not sure if this link works. Cy Wilson wrote an article called “The Evils of Soy” a long time ago. There are probably a lot more articles talking about how crappy soy is.
[quote]lattimus wrote:
Not sure if this link works. Cy Wilson wrote an article called “The Evils of Soy” a long time ago. There are probably a lot more articles talking about how crappy soy is.
Animal research suggests some great advantages of using soy protein isolate as a bodybuilding supplement. Research has shown that the isoflavone daidzein found in soy-protein isolate might have a gender specific normalizing effect on sex-hormone production. Lab animals experienced testosterone and growth hormone excretion as well as muscle growth in males, while the female animals experienced a decrease in these hormones and fat loss.
Daidzein is a key isoflavone found in soy that acts as a potent phyto-estrogen. It is structurally a very weak “pseudo-estrogen” (about 1000 times weaker than the body’s primary estrogen estradiol). This is good news to the bodybuilder because weak estrogens like daidzein will compete with stronger estrogens like estradiol for available receptor sites to “bind” to. By binding to the receptor sites daidzein then “blocks” the stronger estrogens from binding to and activating receptor sites. With the daidzein isolflavone attached, estrogen receptor sites remain inactive. This inactivity further minimizes the negative effects of estrogen in the body. Many researchers believe this effect is the reason soy protein is linked to a reduction in the risk for many forms of breast, endometrial, and prostate cancer. This mechanism works similarly to the prescription drug Nolvadex (tamoxifen citrate)–an anti-estrogen staple in the bodybuilding community.
Yo H, stay away from the soy, and me being a few years older than you, I used to drink about the same amount of milk as you. Now, I just use it to take the bitterness out of my coffee. I used to get letters from companies spouting about the benefits of soy, but usually it leads to maintaining estrgen levels in women.
The last Vitamin Shoppe I managed was 2 miles from Miami Dolphins Stadium, and the male consumers of soy milk that we sold to weren’t, uh, very manly. The bulk of our customers were BIG bodybuilders, PL’ers, and the like, and I never saw one that drank soy milk, bought soy protein powders, etc.
Another “unscientific” thing I have noticed, you ever think that all the soy based fast foods out there over the past 40-50 years has led to males being more, not being bigoted, but more feminine? I think what the mothers eat, drink, and take while they are pregnant gives the male fetus an over load of female estrogens, which could lead me to believe that may lead to the male child to be more estrogen producing.
I have a cousin that his mom was a McDonald’s junkie, and he was gay from age 1! We all new, just by the limp wrists and female type whining! Now this isn’t scientific, but look around, and it may make some sense. Dman, I know I’m gonna piss some people off with this one…
If you want to avoid the lactose, you can get milk in which the lactose has been converted to other sugars. Alternatively, use a mixture of cream and water.
[quote]sharetrader wrote:
If you want to avoid the lactose, you can get milk in which the lactose has been converted to other sugars. Alternatively, use a mixture of cream and water.[/quote]
I am in China so the milk here sucks to begin with, I don’t think the lactose free will work, but the cream advice is great! Thanks, I never even thought of that before. I guess I just thought cream would have a good deal of lactase as well.
I actually read in an article from last year’s issue of IRON MAN that during a study they found that if you mix soy with another type of protein it is more beneficial for you.
Also, the only evidence of soy increasing ones estrogen levels is only found in rats. There have been no actual evidence in Men that this occurs. The month of the magazine was either september or october. I cant quite remember.
There is a reason why you have digestion problems with milk, that reason is because you are not a calve. Cows producer milk for their calves, not for humans. There is actually a study that shows “goats” milk is more benificial for humans as its similar to human milk.
I personally don’t drink milk any more only in coffee, because i have a heavy stomache after making a protein shake with milk.
One glass a day is ok, and i’m sure that its beneficial to your bones, but i also believe that our digestion system works alittle bit harder when its procesing “Cows milk”.
believe it or not, you get calcium from other things such as nuts and nori strips and other stuff.
i am no expert, this is my opinion.
As for soy, stay away from it because its not worth it. If the majority of men say its bad for test levels, then avoid it. Look at the chinese, they’re tiny and they eat lots of soy, so fuck soy. ( the women are sexy though)
even if you seen a study showing that soy is actually good for test levels, you still wouldn’t be sure, and its not worth the worry.
Just eat good and forget about it in my opinion.
I noticed your in china, what are the women like over there? I heard that chinese women are ridiculously shy. They’re also hot as fuck
i love asian women[/quote]
H-Train:
Cease and desist with the milk. Every time you drink it you are hurting yourself. You have an allergic reaction, and while you may be muscling up on the stuff, you are decreasing your own health span. You are interrupting the digestive process with this reaction, you have undigested nutrients causing you this discomfort and your stomach will most likely burn out far sooner than it would if you were to avoid milk. You most likely will also end up with nasty calcified joints.
Your doctor will find these calcium deposits and tell you there is “a growth” and schedule you for a biopsy. You will lose tons of sleep and be caused a large amount of stress (ultimately resulting in catabolism – kind of contrary to the reason you got yourself in this mess in the first place).
Looking at your picture, it seems that you’ve done some great growing off of milk, now it’s time to gracefully bow out from that option and look elsewhere (but not with soy. As a recovered vegan, I can honestly say that I felt different on my animal-friendly diet.).
Irish – Yeah, cow’s milk wasn’t meant for us. It was meant for calves. Very true. We were never supposed to drink it and I’m sure that if cows weren’t so god-damn stupid, they wouldn’t care too much for the idea of the mass-production of their milk.
However, if people can drink it, do some great growin’ and benefit from the impressive nutritional value of the stuff, then why the hell shouldn’t they?
[quote]Puny@138 wrote:
H-Train:
Cease and desist with the milk. Every time you drink it you are hurting yourself. You have an allergic reaction, and while you may be muscling up on the stuff, you are decreasing your own health span. You are interrupting the digestive process with this reaction, you have undigested nutrients causing you this discomfort and your stomach will most likely burn out far sooner than it would if you were to avoid milk. You most likely will also end up with nasty calcified joints.
Your doctor will find these calcium deposits and tell you there is “a growth” and schedule you for a biopsy. You will lose tons of sleep and be caused a large amount of stress (ultimately resulting in catabolism – kind of contrary to the reason you got yourself in this mess in the first place).
Looking at your picture, it seems that you’ve done some great growing off of milk, now it’s time to gracefully bow out from that option and look elsewhere (but not with soy. As a recovered vegan, I can honestly say that I felt different on my animal-friendly diet.).
Irish – Yeah, cow’s milk wasn’t meant for us. It was meant for calves. Very true. We were never supposed to drink it and I’m sure that if cows weren’t so god-damn stupid, they wouldn’t care too much for the idea of the mass-production of their milk.
However, if people can drink it, do some great growin’ and benefit from the impressive nutritional value of the stuff, then why the hell shouldn’t they?[/quote]
I’m sure the gear would more then compensate for any ill effects of soy, but being the anti-soyite that i am let me share a parable with you.
My dad was on a soy trip because the docotor recomended it to my sister to normalize her “time of the month”. He was going on about replacing all of our milk intake with soy milk becuase of its “low fat”, low…
I simply said: the doctor recomended soy to my sister because it raised her estrogen. Soy was never mentioned again.