Sexiest Vegetarian!

Off Topic
81

[quote]sensless wrote:
"I maintain that, in general, healthy eating omnivores are in overall better shape than veggies. "

Given you have no evidence to support the claim, I really see no way that you can declare this and expect it to be meaningful in anyway. Perhaps this should be your hypothesis and you can begin the research to provide results.

Personally, I would hypothesize that the diets are equally healthy. One just has fewer options on what can be consumed.

Regards,

Sensless[/quote]

Well, I am looking for the evidence to support my claim. I read it in an article several years ago, Discover or Scientific American. Right now I’m searching for it, and if I find it, I’ll post all the relevant info. If not eating meat makes you feel better, than by all means go for it, leaves more for me. I do wonder what specifically it was that made you ache though.

Here is an article on Inuit and their diet. Needless to say, vegetables are hard to find when the groud is frozen almost all year round. So they eat almost all animal products. Check it out: http://www.discover.com/issues/oct-04/features/inuit-paradox/

I wonder what PETA says about them?

82

[quote]sensless wrote:
Why does anybody care what someone else eats? I’ve never really understood that.

The stereotyping that is expressed here, though comical, is nothing more than a sign of ignorance. Congratulations to those that have willingly exposed this trait.

ProteinPowda, I’m stronger than you and I’m a vegetarian. At 194 pounds I can squat about 545, bench about 315, and deadlift around 555 (all raw, PL competition form). So put that in your pipe and smoke it! he he he.

I became a veg because I discovered that it lessened the chronic joint pain that had been nearly crippling me. Is that a good enough reason for those that would question my dietary choice?

Regards,

Sensless[/quote]

Is there a vegetarian out there who has never eaten meat yet can post huge numbers and is a huge monster? And you only used vegan supplements? Does soluble B-12 only come from meat products?

Just asking!

I find it funny when somebody says that he’s big and strong and he’s vegetarian.
But he used to be a meat-eater! How do I know he did not get that big before starting a veg. lifestyle.

When some huge mother comes along and has never eaten meat, I’ll start listening!

Until then! BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!

83

steelhammer,
You are forgetting that the storage of cholesterol in the arteries is our bodies way of storing it.Our bodies also produce it just fine on their own,No need to eat any to die from it. A genetic predisposition is what causes the over storage and blockage of the arteries.
Why is lippitor so popular? Because doctors prescribe the stuff like it’s pez. Even the companies own studies show that only in the cases that it is effective is it even only moderately effective.So by reasoning, in many cases it is not effective, and even in cases where it is effective, its still not effective.
And just to be controversial, Yes open heart surgery is a product of evolution.Without the ability to learn and reason we would never have developed the technology, or technique to perform open heart surgery. So thank our meat eating, frontal cortex developing forefathers for that!
p.s. I don’t even care about the whole arguement. If you guys can succesfully build,live, or do whatever floats you boats without eating meat, great, have fun!

84

"Is there a vegetarian out there who has never eaten meat yet can post huge numbers and is a huge monster? And you only used vegan supplements? Does soluble B-12 only come from meat products?

Just asking!

I find it funny when somebody says that he’s big and strong and he’s vegetarian.
But he used to be a meat-eater! How do I know he did not get that big before starting a veg. lifestyle.

When some huge mother comes along and has never eaten meat, I’ll start listening!

Until then! BLAH! BLAH! BLAH! "

I’m certainly not trying to profess that I am big and strong. I think I am small and weak, to be honest with you. I only listed my numbers here because ProteinPowda was stating that he was the strongest vegetarian on T-Nation and I was just attempting to have a bit of fun with him. He (PP) has made a lot of progress, which he has posted on this site and I congratulate him for it. I would be interested in some friendly competition with him w/r/t to staking a claim as strongest vegetarian on this site. Though Mike Mahler, if I understand correctly, is a veg and probably stronger than both PP and myself.

As far as supplements, I really don’t use any on a regular basis. My diet is very bad, ie I don’t eat enough or supplement properly. When I do use a supplement, I use something called “Vegan Complete”, which is not made with any animal by-products, that is why it is “Vegan” (purchased from www.veganessentials.com if you’d like to look it up).

Regarding progress before and after meat eating, this is the progress I have made since making the switch.

Bench: 315 as a meat eater
Deadlift: 455 as a meat eater
Squat: 405 as a meat eater
Bodyweight: 210 as a meat eater

I went vegetarian in August of '04, so it hasn’t been very long. Since then my squat has improved to 545 and my deadlift has improved to 555. I only work bench once a month (at best) because the exercise is so boring to me, so I have done nothing but maintain that. My bodyweight dropped to the 192-197 range when I made the switch, but that is because I wanted to compete at 198 in a powerlifting meet and I stopped drinking beer everyday (also to help with the joint pain).

I am a bit unusual when it comes to weightlifting because I can abuse my body horribly and still make progress (eat 1300 calories in a day, get drunk/high, get 2 hours of sleep, then go to gym and set new PR’s while not following any set workout plan and only lifting once or twice a week). I hope to stop this foolish method of diet and training, and to this end I plan on posting some pictures on this site for critique and to request advice of the knowledgeable staff and readers to see what I can do if I follow a proper training regiment. I’m hoping that doing so will allow me to qualify for USAPL Nationals and compete RAW (the numbers I listed are all RAW, but I lift RAW because I think it is fun-and cheap-not because I have any issue with using suits/shirts for the sport of PL).

I’m not attempting to say that a vegetarian diet is better than an omnivore diet, I’m just claiming that I don’t think the diet restriction has a meaningful impact w/r/t weightlifting. I am not a vegetarian for ethical reasons, I’m not trying to switch anybody to becoming a vegetarian or anything else. I am just saying I think it is foolish for someone to make an unsubstantiated claim that not eating meat will make one weak and unhealthy, and I also think it is ridiculous that one’s dietary choices are a reason to ridicule someone. I think that a person should have first hand experience with the two types of diet and how it impacts them with weightlifting before they comment on what impact it may or may not have on another (or at least access to a QUALITY research study that has been done). Many of the negative stories I have heard end up, when researched more thoroughly, being caused by the individual following a quality diet plan when an omnivore but not following a quality diet plan when a veg.

If somebody out there could find a way for me to eat meat and not suffer from joint pain, I would be open to that. Meat is my favorite food type and I find that I eat a lot more calories in a day when I can have my favorite food (makes sense, right?). Plus, being a bachelor, it is much easier to grill up a couple burgers to push into my feeding hole than to go through all the prep that I require to make a full meal with no meat (it is only more difficult because I’m not a very good cook).

I have read on other sites about people who have never had meat and have become strong and/or large, but that is all internet heresay and I put no value in that. Beyond that, I think it is difficult to find good comparison numbers because serious weightlifters (or bodybuilders) in general are a very small portion of the population, with successful ones numbering even fewer. Vegetarians/Vegans are also a very small portion of the population. So when you look to the vegetarians/vegans for successful lifters, you have a much smaller pool of people that may participate in serious training, so you have a much lesser chance of finding an exceptional lifter/bodybuilder. Simple math provides that explanation.

Anyway, that’s my long-winded unecessary babbling on the topic. Phew, what a way to waste moments at work that I can’t really spare.

Best of luck in training to you all,

Sensless

85

"steelhmr wrote:

That statemet is completely false. Medical studies have tied cholesterol to heart disease since the 40s. Why else would doctors be concerned over high cholesterol? Why is Lipitor such a profitable drug?"

Medical studies influenced and funded by a federal health committee were inconclusive. Scientists tried and found no direct cause of high cholesterol causing heard disease. The government threw it back at them and wrote their own findings based on nothing. Your family doctors don’t know jack on cholesterol unless they are directly involved in research, otherwise they just get the email. Lipitor is profitable because no one knows better. Okinawan spinach producers would make millions more than Lipitor is the word got out that it worked better with no side effects commonly associated with Lipitor. In fact no side effects at all. Wake up young one, lipitor is another pill in the pill-popping world.

“Based on the results of the Framingham Heart Study and other research, the ideal level appears to be below 150 mg/dl. At that point, a heart attack is very unlikely. Unfortunately, the average cholesterol level in America is 205, which is not far from the average level for heart attack victims: 244”

That’s funny considering that many quadbypass surgeries of triathletes and kayakers I know have “excellent” cholesterol numbers. SO did a well-known athlete here in Hawai’i who followed the rules of nutrition to the T and still had a massive heart attack when he was out paddling in the Ala Wai.

“Perhaps their bodies are trying to tell them something.”

All I know is when my family friend croaked after getting a clean bill of health, there were skeptics doubting “proper nutrition” of low fat, high carbs, and low protein. ISn’t that the diet prescribed for a lifestyle of low cholesterol? BTW I helped carry him to his final resting place on Earth.

“I showed you the correlation between high cholesterol and heart disease that is universally agreed upon.”

You did the actual study or just an observation of stats and surveys?

“My argument was that people who don’t ingest cholesterol had significantly lower counts. If your body produced less when you ingest more then why are the non veg counts so much higher than their veg counterparts. Shouldn’t they be the same as your argument suggested? They are not. And people are directed by doctors everyday to lower this surplus by reducing their intake of cholesterol.”

Why does the body produce excess amounts of cholesterol when you do not consume cholesterol as compared to the body not making excess amounts of cholesterol when consuming cholesterol? Do you know how asian farmers got rid of surplus soybean fertilizer? They fed their families. Now they call it tofu or soy-whatever.
This is not american history, but asian history. I dunno if you have to be priviledged to argue about this, but I am asian and I know my family history.

“So it had no negative effects on animals (carnivores) but it caused death to rabbits (herbivores). Wonder what would happen if they did this study on humans?”

Keep wondering.

“That doesn’t say much about the test subjects involved. Particularly in Hawaii where meat is more prevalent in the upper class that have greater access to medical care. And who is to say that the people with falling cholesterol didn’t eat bad diets (high in sugar, etc). Can’t deny this study based on a couple of assumptions, but it is certainly not conclusive and not concurrent with recent medical studies i am aware of.”

Holy crap you’re kidding me? You actually live in Hawai’i and know that the upper class eats more meat compared to lower class? This last part of your statement shows me and any other person born, raised, and/or lived in Hawai’i for at least a fiscal school year that you are speaking out of your ass. Food stamps aren’t just for wheaties, milk, and cookies. Upper class has greater access to medical care? What hell stats have you been reading? It’s obvious you read more stats then get out of the arm chair or gym. I am taking personal offense to this because I am from Hawai’i, I am not and never was upper class, I also don’t use stats as truth. Class division is a sad excuse. People with crappy attitudes and responsibility have bad access to medical care because they choose not to. People with crappy attitudes about life (aka lazy etc) and fear of eating meat, eat less meat. Upper class people have same access to medical care as do the rest of us “lower class”. Every “lower class” party and gathering I’ve ever been to has had way too much meat that everyone has to take home at least two loaded plates of food. No rice or bread, just meat.

Man, some people are just plain ignorant. Learn how to read the studies and the research. Don’t just go by faith and stats. It’s all BS anyway.

upper class, meat, and medical care? gimmee a break you stupid haole.

86

“You are forgetting that the storage of cholesterol in the arteries is our bodies way of storing it… A genetic predisposition is what causes the over storage and blockage of the arteries.”

This is actually not true. I’m not quite sure what you mean by our bodies storing cholesterol in our arteries - do you mean in serum (blood) or lodged in vessel walls? If you mean flowing through blood plasma, you’re right, that’s perfectly healthy. If you mean lodged in the walls, you’re wrong, that is not healthy and the body does it out of desperation.

Cholesterol becomes lodged in our arteries and veins because somewhere along the way, damage was done to the vessel tissue. Cortisol and insulin are culprits here, among other things. To repair the wall, the immune system will throw just about whatever it can find in our blood into the hole to shore it up - usually, this involves cholesterol. Now that an uneven surface is present in the vessel, cholesterol and other stuff in the blood, which includes proteins and glucose, get caught on the uneven surface and develop into hunks of plaque.

Heart attacks happen when a hunk of plaque breaks off and gets stuck, clogging somewhere important, like the vessels on the heart.

HDL helps keep this from happening by acting like a scrubber of sorts - it knocks the plaque off before it can grow large enough to be a threat.

Other substances, such as vitamin C, will be used to repair vessels before the body has to panic and use cholesterol to fill the holes.

Reducing stress and controlling insulin levels is very important as well.

Dietary cholesterol has virtually no effect on about 75% of the population. Some people are sensitive to it, though, and must control their intake.

-Dan

87

what the f#@)?
Our body panicks and stuffs holes in arteries with spare cells and vitamins?
We arent fixing the roof man! Vitamin C is essential to form the colagen matrix that all of our bodies tissues are made from. It’s not stuffed in there as a stopgap solution.

But on another topic- Sensless, it sounds like you are doing something that at this point is pretty extraordinary. You have a lot to offer others that pursue the same path. Dietary restrictions or not you have definitely accomplished some things that people with no restrictions fall short of. Glad to see someone making that kind of progress.

88

[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
Ahh yes, the moral crusade. Lets not forget that all of these grains are harvested by huge machines that crush tons of animals in the way of them.

A few of my favorite commentaries on veggenism. Worth the read.

Interesting read except that he forgot one major point. The majority of grain that is made in the US is harvested to feed animals for meat not for people to consume.

89

[quote]sensless wrote:
ProteinPowda, I’m stronger than you and I’m a vegetarian. At 194 pounds I can squat about 545, bench about 315, and deadlift around 555 (all raw, PL competition form). So put that in your pipe and smoke it! he he he.

Regards,

Sensless[/quote]

But PP posts all the dead sexy pics, so he gets points for that.

Are hostess cupcakes meat? Cuz, I could live off those.

Toddy

90

You’re on for the contest once my wrist is healed…as far as when I became a vegetarian…I had just turned 12. So pretty much exactly 9 years ago.
As for my diet…I do massive eating (I just recently started being RELIGIOUS) about it again (instead of good 3 weeks bad 3 weeks which btw equals 0 progress). I subsistly largely on a cheap whey protein powder and a few other staples. I’m currently doing a slight alteration of the “Don’t Diet,” and I’ll see how it goes when Im done…and of COURSE there will before and after pics. To give some insight into my numbers
After my first year of lifting I was benching about 240, squatting about 275-300 or so
Next yer I got that figure up to about 270 or so…
I don’t recall what i was putting up on squats
Year 3’s and 4 I stayed about the same…up to 300 on bench and I coudln’t squat b/c of my knee.
Over the summer I did my first serious bulk and got my bench up to 320…squats I don’t remember…knee was still bad…
Took some time off…ate horribly…then did a 6 week cutting cycle…didn’t squat in that period b/c I useed a shit program
That was mid-december…Flash forward to now…attach Massive Eating, creatine, 2 weeks of 1-ad…and Waterbury’s Programs…
Bench…340 (on my injured wrist lol), Squatting…haven’t maxed but 315 is probably about my 5 set. Military press I did 8x3 at 140 last time.
Weight also is currently 219…down from 228 on 1-ad.
Deadlift I don’t know on…I’m still going light (225 or less) until I feel my form is good enough for me to handle more weight. As mentioned in previous threads one of my goals is to build my posterior chain…
I’ll see how it goes though…
Jason…

And the whole reason for this post was to illustrate that even if you’re a vegetarian when you get YOUR SHIT STRAIGHT, you get results.

91

[quote]malonetd wrote:
But PP posts all the dead sexy pics, so he gets points for that.

Are hostess cupcakes meat? Cuz, I could live off those.

Toddy
[/quote]

That’s true, I can’t compete with the sexy softer side pictures! ha ha ha. I’ll do my best when I post some pictures up here for critique sometime next month. If my parents dog isn’t dead, perhaps I can pose with that beast (135lb akita) to show my “softer side”.

PP,

What’s wrong with your knee that you can’t squat? Also, what part of your form on deadlifts are you concerned about? I don’t think there is an easier movement than deadlifts, you have me worried if the form on those is giving you difficulties. I’ll take a look at the massive eating diet and see if that is something for me.

Regards,

sensless

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Senseless, when I’m feeling a bit better I’ll dig up my food logs from when I was bulking and tell you the mistakes I made along the way and what I would change. As for my knee…I think I sprained a ligament playing football about 2 years ago and it took me a long time to get back my ROM (it’s about 98% or so now). It still cracks constantly…but it no longer bothers me. As for deadlifting…I’m just working on keeping my back straight, not bent. I never had anyone to teach me the movement (I dislike training partners) so I’m learning as best as I can from reading about it. But I said I DO SQUAT now. And ever sice Mr. Waterbury put out is his 10x3 system I started to enjoy squatting…I used to hate it and actually be SCARED of it and heavy weights. Now it’s as fun for me as benching!
Jason

93

Oh just to let you all know…my dog’s a vegetarian too!!!

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Just kidding :slight_smile:
And just to show you what vegetarians can do…This was me after my first year of lifting…at 17…I was veggie back then too…Hmmm For some reason I’m 60lbs heaver now and lift about 70% more…
Sincerely
Veggie Dork…

95

PP,

As far as the deadlift, I have to agree with senseless. I think the deadlift is one of the most over-analyzed lifts. Just bend over and pick it up. Don’t do anything that will hurt you and you’ll be fine.

I think the time for tweaking is when you’re not adding weight to your pull. And I’m not talking one or two workouts with no increase; I’m talking months and months with no poundage increase.

And BTW, senseless, I finally pulled 5 plates. I did 515 earlier this week. My squat’s slowly going up, too.

Wanna bite of my ham sandwich,
Toddy

96

[quote]malonetd wrote:
PP,

As far as the deadlift, I have to agree with senseless. I think the deadlift is one of the most over-analyzed lift. Just bend over and pick it up. Don’t do anything that will hurt you and you’ll be fine.

I think the time for tweaking is when you’re not adding weight to your pull. And I’m not talking one or two workouts with no increase; I’m talking months and months with no poundage increase.

And BTW, senseless, I finally pulled 5 plates. I did 515 earlier this week. My squats slowly going up, too.

Wanna bite of my ham sandwich,
Toddy[/quote]

I hope the ham is made of soy :slight_smile:

97

If you don’t have a training partner, have you tried mirrors? One in front and one behind will help keep you from having to turn your head at odd angles to check form.

98

Good job Todd! That’s a great pull, I knew you weren’t far from it. You will pass me up soon, I haven’t made any progress since October on deadlift thanks to the stupid hip injury. Though the 100 pound increase in squat in three months I have had in the meantime helps to satiate me a bit.

When it gets warmer out and we can start working out in Ryan’s garage again, you will have to come out and enjoy the new toys. Ryan’s yoke walk should be arriving in about two weeks, the log is already there, I expect we will be ordering the stone molds in another month (always seems to be another month), his replacement squat racks will be there, we can pull a vehicle up and down his alley, and of course there are always all the fun grip toys. I will be ordering an Apollon’s Axle in a month as well, thanks to work reimbursing the employees for spending money on exercising. Woot! We are getting close to having a fully equiped strongman garage gym!

Regards,

Sensless

PS I’ll give the ham to the dog and take the rest of the sandwich. Sucker!

99

I used to be a lacto-ovo vegetarian, but I didn’t know how to eat properly or train properly back then, I still made gains though.

Not to be anal, but how can someone claim to be a vegan if they use whey or creatine which both come from animal sources?

100

Is someone claiming to be Vegan that uses either of those products?

Regards,

Sensless