Jump to content

tubow

Members
  • Posts

    2
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

tubow's Achievements

Newbie

Newbie (1/14)

0

Reputation

  1. Yes, this is my concern as well. I went vegan about nine months ago, began lifting about six months ago, and began Starting Strength about five ago. I really appreciate the heavy, compound lifts and the linear program. I stalled once early on, but fixed that by eating more. Now in the past couple months I have regressed considerably due to inadequate sleep, which I am trying to address. I also stopped eating vegan a couple months ago because of frustration while chewing cups of lentils and the convenience of whole milk. But I am not ready to give up on veganism yet; I want to experience for myself a well-conducted linear progression on a vegan diet, and I've been puzzling over how to design that diet. It's certain that very fast novice gains are reality; given proper recovery conditions, it's not uncommon for a young guy to put 200lbs on his squat linearly, without drugs. Or else everyone in the SS world is colluding. So that's my picture of what should happen. When I started reading about Starting Strength, I was impressed by the no-nonsense attitude and the amount of detail and consideration that had been applied to explaining and justifying the lifts and the program. I have to admit this makes it hard to believe that there's one part it's dead wrong about, which is meat eating. Not to say that there aren't cranks who trot out some puerile bullshit on the forums. I read Brendan Brazier's Thrive, and I would like to believe much of it, but he's rather unspecific about things and many of his claims seem to come out of nowhere, with no supporting evidence or context. Sure, I could believe that eating "better quality" protein means you need less of it, but nowhere in the book does he give guidelines for how much protein to eat. It does not look anything like 1g/lb bodyweight, judging by the meal plans and other comments he makes. He considers gluten and soy, the densest vegan protein sources, allergenic. (I myself have noticed poor sleep when eating seitan.) And hemp is expensive. When Brazier posts a pic of him squatting on his Instagram, his depth is 1/2 and the plates are cropped out. The comments are kind of sad, calling him strong for having low BF%, and his thighs look pretty thin. This is discouraging, but basically useless for answering the question. Again, it's just the problem of nothing to go off of. He's not a strength athlete. Google tells me that 1 cup of cooked brown rice has 5g protein. Even if that were 100% absorbed, for me to get 200g it'd take 40 cups and 8500 calories. Boiled lentils: 18g/cup, 12 cups, 2750 calories. Maybe? But again, how much is absorbed? And I'd need to eat still more to complete the protein. And the carbs, carbs, carbs. Here's another tough question: My reasons for going vegan were mainly ethical/political. If there is a conflict between the diet and lifting, am I obligated to choose the diet, and accept slower and more limited progress?
  2. If you asked this on the Starting Strength forums, I'm confident they would tell you that you don't need an intermediate program—you need to run the Starting Strength novice program correctly. Only 45lb increase on your squats? For a male aged 18-35, something more like 100-200lb is the norm. Only 6lbs gain in body weight, to 14% body fat? Again, an underweight male aged 18-35 is expected to end the program around or above 200lbs with around 20% body fat. (If you're a woman, the expectations are different, but your problem is the same.) Your numbers, along with stalling so quickly, suggest a few common problems: you're not eating enough, not sleeping enough, or not resting enough between sets. Check out this article: http://startingstrength.com/article/the_first_three_questions If you have the Starting Strength book, I'd suggest reading the section on Nutrition and Bodyweight over again. (Also, I have to mention that Rippetoe and his associates insist that veganism will greatly limit progress in strength training. Whether or not that's true...)
×
×
  • Create New...