New Memeber

Hi everyone,

I have recently decided to change to a vegan diet. I am a 16 year old female and I body build. Any tips as to how I can get enough protein in my diet? Also, I am looking for a good protein bar that is vegan and natural or organic. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Hey Megaorange;

The best tip I can give you is to read this SHORT sticky post:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=13710

Congratulations on becoming a vegan and welcome to VBB!

Hi everyone,

I have recently decided to change to a vegan diet. I am a 16 year old female and I body build. Any tips as to how I can get enough protein in my diet? Also, I am looking for a good protein bar that is vegan and natural or organic. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Welcome. As long as you are eating whole plant food in amounts enough to satisfy hunger, you will get plenty of protein.

It is vital to educate yourself - a great starting point is the free McDougall program. Just read through the free program to get a great overview of nutrition. And that website contains tons of great myth-busting info:

http://www.drmcdougall.com/free.html

Here is another good overview of the basics:

http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/vsk/index.html

Suffice it to say that you want to eat lots of whole plant foods, minus the oil and refine sugars as much as you can. Then if you want to gain weight you simply must eat more and exercise more.

Welcome! Eat well and exercise and you can become an ambassador for veganism - we unfortunately have to deal with stereotypes of the thin, pallid, anemic veg*n.

Those links are great. There's a lot of info. Take your time exploring the possibilities. When I first went veg, I found it helpful to take things one step at a time - finding a new recipe to replace an old one, etc. It can be tough to switch everything at once, so if you find yourself overwhelmed, my advice would be to start by phasing out the least healthy or more animal product-dependent meals in your diet and replacing them with vegan ones as you find things that you like to eat. If you can handle a sudden switch, don't be discouraged by my advice - that's great! But I think some people try to change suddenly and end up being scared away. Do whatever works for you.

As with any healthy diet, variety is key - if you rely on a single food as your source of protein (say, kidney beans), you can run into problems. You don't generally have to worry about missing any essential amino acids so long as you balance legumes and grains along with the fruits, veggies, nuts, etc that you eat.

If you're looking for a protein bar specifically, the Clif Builder's Bars are quite common. I've never tried them, but I've been a fan of the regular Clif bars for a long time. It's a cool company.

Welcome!

As with any healthy diet, variety is key - if you rely on a single food as your source of protein (say, kidney beans), you can run into problems. You don't generally have to worry about missing any essential amino acids so long as you balance legumes and grains along with the fruits, veggies, nuts, etc that you eat.

Well, I don't think the evidence supports this - even a diet of only 1500 kcal of kidney beans would maintain muscle stores! Protein-Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF) studies show it takes a mere 4 grams of protein per hour to maintain protein balance for the average man (this is with Zero carbs and Zero fat). For further example people in Papa, New Guinea thrive on a diet of 95% sweet potatoes. And case studies on people deriving their protein needs exclusively from 1 plant food (potato, wheat) - have found excellent health - all that was required was for them to eat enough kcal to maintain weight, and protein needs were easily accounted for. The big lie about plant proteins is the phrase "plants are incomplete proteins" which is 100% false. All plants contain all the esential amino acids - if they didn't they would never have lived. The difference is in the "limiting" amino acid - for example corn has relatively low levels of lysine, thus it is called "incomplete" despite the fact that it contains all essential amino acids, and if you ate enough corn kcal to meet energy balance you would get plenty of protein (and the large carb influx would elevate insulin, which would then push protein into storage). One study I have used a mere 3% protein diet, very low in fat but very high in carbohydrates, and @ 3000 kcal Nitrogen balance was met. Yes that's a mere 25 grams of protein per day - & the study was on men - female needs would certainly be met. McDougall has some articles about this - the point is a vegan who eats whole plant foods with enough kcal to maintain energy balance will by definition meet needs, because the body is designed via millions of years of evolution to meet such needs: we are herbivores (links are in my other posts). There is simply paltry evidence that protein-combining is needed, that was popularized in the 70s, but it was not true then nor now. I've read studies on growing children, comparing poor kids on a 95% white bread diet versus other "better fed" kids who had more "variety" - there was little difference between groups, they all developed normally. Protein deficiency is called "protein-calorie malnutrition" for good reason - it is always are accompanied by starvation - in other words it is lack of total food energy, not poor quality food, that causes the problems. Just as grass can grow a huge herbivorous mammal like a cow, even single unrefined plant foods can support humans quite well.

I say all this because many new vegans are frightened by the supposed "inadequacy" of their diet, which is entirely fictional IMO, unless you are talking about a vegan diet solely consisting of coca cola and licorice. In fact when scientists have studied protein deficiency - they had to physically remove all protein from food to make a labratory diet that would produce deficiency - because if they fed a single plant food the deficiency would never appear. The human body is that good at nitrogen retention on a high carbohydrate diet!

I'm not trying to discourage variety - but even the simplest vegan eater need not worry about protein deficiency, unless they are anorexic/starving. I understand the pressure organizations are under public pressure to be conservative about what they say about vegan food - but if you go straight from the evidence, the data are clear. Anyway, that's one nutrition nerd's opinion after 11 years of reading & thinking about nutrition. I suppose one reason I've become so vocal about it is that I've immersed myself in metabolism science - where it quickly becomes clear just how well the body is designed to preserve protein stores via high carb diets. It's the same reason I discuss high carb/low fat as being optimal for body recomposition - it pushes protein into storage, and in starch overfeeding studies the efficiency can reach 70% - meaning over 60 grams of net protein are deposited out of the 90 grams eaten in the diet (that's more than 1/2 of LBM per day).

Welcome aboard!

Hi everyone,

I have recently decided to change to a vegan diet. I am a 16 year old female and I body build. Any tips as to how I can get enough protein in my diet? Also, I am looking for a good protein bar that is vegan and natural or organic. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Good Luck on your new lifestyle! I too just recently became a Vegan after being a vegetarian for over a year. Never have I felt so healthy until changing.

veganmaster,

I've read your posts and they are inspiring! I'm interested in learning more about the low fat and higher carb diets with moderate levels of protein. I've felt that the protein amounts, often recommended, were way off and plain incorrect. In particular, whey protein powder upset my stomach years ago and even when just mentioning this to other people, they would act so surprised to hear that! Yet, now I do understand why it happened.

Btw, I'm currently eating about 2400 calories daily. About 22% fat, 67% carbs and 11% protein. I am eating about 500 calories less than my maintenance levels so this should yield about 1lbs per week of fat loss. However, I'm losing 3-4 lbs per week of mostly fat! I believe what you wrote about the ratio of cabs to fat and I'm attempting to lower my fat intake down to 16%, instead of 22%. Perhaps, I will need to adjust my carbs upward also, like adding in an extra slice of rye toast?

I also fast all morning and my first real meal (raw salad) is at 3pm. (except for some organic pineapple juice for breakfast and that's it.) I eat dinner at 6pm.

Best,

Stevie

Welcome!

Just take nuts, seeds and beans. No problem getting enough protein.

Veganmaster,

I was mainly concerned about essential amino acids when I talked about variety - if you have just one real protein source, and it isn't complete (soy is complete, for the record), you can have serious problems. An extreme example is pellagra, the disease caused by tryptophan deficiency (which was widespread historically in people who relied almost entirely on corn for their diet). That's why people often recommend complementing legumes with grains - while neither is typically a complete protein (soy being an exception among the legumes), by combining them, you cover all the essential AAs.

Welcome!

Great to have you here.

All the best and enjoy the forum!

Welcome aboard!

Thanks for all the help everyone! The links and all the advice will definitely help me succeed as a vegan:) Thanks!

Welcome to the boards!

Greetings. I've heard Vega is good, but it's expensive http://www.veganessentials.com/catalog/vega-whole-food-raw-energy-bar.htm I think Robert sells them too

Hey Megaorange;

Vega Bars are good they have a good source of protein. I recommend the natural or berry flavor

Contact Vegan Essentials http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/phpBB2/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=162

VE is one of our best people to help out with Bodybuilding if you have any questions.

Or Visit this site http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4431&start=195

If you're looking more then 10 gms of protein in a bar

Robert Cheeke eats these http://www.clifbar.com/food/products_builders/ There's 20grams of protein in each bar

His favorite kind is Peanut Butter.

Welcome and have fun here.

Welcome

Judging by your 2 page welcom thread, I would imagine you've gotten help on protein supplement info. So instead, i'd just like to say welcome! Great to hear your bodybuilding and stepping into veganism at such an early age, love to hear it and i'm sure once I get more active on the threads again (been very busy lately), i'll hear about it....

see ya on the forum