Healthier Food Really Matter for Strength?

Training Powerlifting
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When I eat junk I feel lethargic, am usually bloated, and have gas. When I eat “clean” I experience none of those things. Maybe the room clearing farts are in my head, but I doubt it…

This was something I started to type out earlier. If you want to lose weight or move down a weight class it is damn near impossible to do so while eating junk food. If you are just trying to maintain your weight it’s very difficult if not impossible to hit all of your macro’s and eat junk.

I think that would depend on what you mean by “on occasion” and what else you eat. Sure, if you eat a Chick-fil-A sandwich once a week you’re probably fine, but not if you also eat a Whopper “on occasion”, Chinese takeout “on occasion”, etc etc…

I’ve got no problem with salt especially since we need iodine in our diet, but a Gatorade has about 150mg/serving of sodium and a Chick-fil-A sandwich has 1,230mg/serving. You would need to drink 8 Gatorades and crack open a 9th to match it. That’s like 100 oz of Gatorade = a single sandwich. I mean, again, there’s no comparison, IMO.

I have nothing against junk food. I would eat pizza and ice cream and Chick-fil-A and Pepsi and all sorts of other delicious foods every day if there were no adverse effects. We know there are, though.

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I think we’re getting a bit carried away, I mostly agree with what you are saying. I don’t recommend that anyone’s diet should primarily consist of fast food and I rarely eat fast food, candy, chocolate, etc. myself, mostly because I don’t really enjoy it. If I eat at McDonald’s or somewhere similar I’m only eating a burger, no fries (unless I steal a couple from my kids) and no soft drinks. For a guy like Vince who is trying to move up a weight class, it isn’t unreasonable to eat a bunch of junk for extra calories but if I was him I would try to eat more real food and more fruits and vegetables. I just don’t think that he’s putting himself in harm’s way by what he’s eating, if anything it’s what he’s not eating that is cause for concern.

As far a feeling lethargic, bloated, and having gas after eating junk, it also depends on what you define as junk. I feel lethargic and bloated after eating a large portion of pasta. Chili gives me gas. Are those junk? Most people that I hear talking about “eating clean” are eating egg whites and brown rice and plain chicken breasts, stuff like that, I would starve if my diet looked like that because I wouldn’t be able to swallow anything. Just eat the right amount of real food and you should be fine, some junk here and there won’t do any harm either.

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Lol, ya, we probably agree on about 98% of the topic…

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For people reducing/not eating meat for both health and ethical reasons, I’d encourage you to look into offal. It’s some of the most nutrient dense food on the planet, and it doesn’t drive husbandry. Cows aren’t raised for their organs, it’s a byproduct.

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09? There is plenty of research to the contrary too. If you think eating loaves of white bread and chugging vegetable oil don’t increase your heart disease risk, I can only suggest you try it and get some bloodwork done. My bloodwork says differently, maybe it doesn’t affect you.

Largely this is a case of quantity and the fact that “omega-6” is a bit of an over generalization. If someone is bulking for some limited time and throws in some snickers and fries to keep the weight going up, it’s probably not going to make a huge long term impact. If you are a heavyweight powerlifter/strongman and are eating large amounts of candy and crap meats on a daily basis to stay 300+ pounds for years on end (like Eddie Hall apparently does), you are probably shortening your life, quit possibly by a significant amount of time.

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I just finished CT Fletcher’s documentary on Netflix. At one point he talks about how people would watch him eat 4 cheeseburgers and 4 fries every single day for lunch. It helped him to become one of the strongest men in the world until he fucking died on the operating tab and had to be resuscitated 3 times.

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I’ve tried full on vegan for close to a year, and vegetarianism for ~2 years. I was mid 30’s. There are books with vegan for athlete diets (like Thrive), and I used many of those. It wasn’t really that hard to do, because I really like vegetarian food and typically eat only chicken/turkey/fish.

Here’s what I found: I felt as good and healthy as ever, but definitely lost strength. I naturally became about 5 lbs lighter. I had PR’s in 5K runs and my endurance was great, but my max lifts were definitely down across the board.

Tony Gonzalez (tight end ex-NFLer) read the China Study and went vegan during an off season. He loved the way he felt, but when he got to training camp he simply didn’t have the high strength he needed and was used to having. He wanted to retain the healthy aspects of eating clean and vegan, but added fish, chicken, and other “clean” meat (meaning, he choose sustainably caught/small farm-raised/grass-fed beef) and was able to perform at the level he needed.

To conclude, I think endurance athletes can be elite on a vegan diet. Cyclists, triathletes, etc… can be world class on these diets. But, explosive, strength athletes will need to add animal protein. Personally, I eat 1-2 servings of chicken, fish, or turkey each day but very little dairy or red meat. This allows me to feel better overall, but still have reasonable strength and muscle mass.

Here’s the thing: we’ve all seen young guys slam cheeseburgers and fries, hit the gym, and have fantastic physique. But how many guys in the their late 30’s and beyond eat fast food regularly, skip veggies, and look healthy? I wasn’t interested in healthy eating until my early 30’s, because I felt fine eating burritos, Carl’s Jr, and snickers. Can’t do that now, but because I’ve changed my eating lifestyle, I actually don’t crave junk food.

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This reminds me of one other good point that I neglected in my first post. Jay Ferruggia wrote a decent blog post awhile back about his three years going vegan; he mentioned that he loved the way he felt when he first went vegan, but has a better understanding of what happened in retrospect.

The person who “goes vegan” or “goes vegetarian” usually doesn’t just cut out meat. Often this transition means that people start eating double or triple the amount of fresh produce they were eating before while also cutting out a lot of junk food. So they often do feel better and attribute this to “going vegetarian” but what they probably should be thinking is…

Bingo! And there you have it.

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Past a certain point, bulking or maintaining your weight just isn’t healthy at all, it a trade off that some athletes make to rise to the top of certain sports. Deadlifting 1100lbs. can’t be great for you either. I’m aware of three guys (Andrey Malanichev, Benedikt Magnusson, Matt Wenning) who bulk up for a meet and cut in the offseason - probably cycle off most of their stuff too. I’m sure there are others. Being 300+lbs. at any point can’t be good for your health, but if you aren’t that size all the time then you can assume that the risks are reduced somewhat.

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And just to be completely clear. I’m not advocating or denouncing. I’m just pointing out that that sort of eating does matter long term (decades) and people should understand that those choices aren’t without consequence and that they are jeopardizing themselves.

To go even further, it probably isn’t good for you to be elite at any sort of sport. Golf, tennis, running, badminton, you name it. You by nature have to lead a pretty unbalanced life. If you want to be the best, you will end up making sacrifices.

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I agree. Although some people can get away with a lot of shit and others will get fat and sick no matter what they do.

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If strength and only strength with out the consideration of health and appearance is the only priority then I don’t think eating healthy matters.

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On a recent Supertraining powercast, Charles Poliquin said that if you got every “nutrition expert” in the world together in one room, the only, ONE, thing that they would all actually agree on is, EAT MORE VEGETABLES. Bingo.

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I am not a powerlifting, but I will tell you I feel and lift better when I eat healthy. I train for strength, but eat for health. I would tell you to try it, what’s the worse that could happen. Just make sure you get enough calories, especially if you go from eating fast food and pizza to lean meats, veggies, and clean carbs…

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So my take on it is this.

I am big guy . About a year ago my body weight ranged around 348-360 (6’5) depending on what I ate/sodium intake. I would eat out a lot and thought I needed to stay this size to remain strong. I was afraid of loosing weight because I thought I would lose strength.

In terms of my health I decieded to start eat cleaner/not eating out often. I lost 30 lbs fairly easily just by tracking what I was eating (flexible dieting, My fitness pal) Haven’t lost any strength at all.

Now I’m aware my advice wont help a lot of people because I have/had a lot of excess weight/fat to trim off.

If it’s a slow progression of weight It’s not an issue. atleast for me.

About 3 months ago I stop tracking and gained about 12-15 lbs back. I saw that it was harder to brace, I also found that my form got sloppy because of the inability to brace properly.

My thinking is that nutrition plays a much bigger role than most powerlifters wanna give it. If you put good stuff in, and eat the proper calories/macros, you’re gonna get good results.