Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Hi. I'm Electric Rider. I am new to body building. It seems every time my nutritional needs change I have to find a new body building forum. Started with bodybuilding.com, then to the more natural based scoobysworkshop and now here. Why?

I started eating all fresh or frozen foods not long ago, nothing processed about the same time as I started to exercise and do some weight training. I thought I was doing well. Then I saw the documentary "Forks over Knives" and it got me thinking, perhaps I need to lose the meats and dairy too. I am interested in what folks here can teach me about some of the claims that documentary makes. I'll make a thread about that as to keep a large discussion out of the intro forum.

I love meat mostly fish and chicken, I don't eat hardly any red meat. I love eggs but don't drink milk. I could care less about killing animals for food except in the context of the animal suffering (that's not right) but do believe God put animals on this Earth for us to have dominion over and eat or use as we see fit.

Mind you, I don't "want" to become a vegan. I will however do what's best for my body once I can clear up some "facts" or at least wrap my head around them in a way in which I can become comfortable with them.

I'm called Electric Rider because I drive an Electric Bike and use an Electronic Cigarette - I quit smoking cigarettes a year ago.
And that's my intro.. looking forward to getting to know you folks... ER.

Go to this link, it has a SHORT description of the best, most reliable, authoritative sources of vegan nutrition information. If you ask for information in an internet forum about nutrition you get BS back. All of the sources listed at this site are from people with formal credentials, degrees and who keep up with research.

http://beforewisdom.com/blog/vegan-diets/

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• Vegan Mock Meats At Subway? Make It Happen!
• Finding Reliable Vegan Nutrition Information

"The plural of anecdote is not data." (Roger Brinner)

You have any idea how ironic your answer is?

Your name is beforewisdom. your a guy on an internet forum giving me advice about nutrition - You point me to what looks like your website - which you just told me not to trust. LOL

I know what you mean but I had to give you a hard time about it.. I just had to.. it was too easy.. I'll happily look at your website.

ER

Its all about asking yourself how that person knows what they claim to know.

On webboards there often isn't an answer for that, beyond someone's anecdotal account, which isn't reliable information.

The authors of many blog articles do not list their educations, do not list their credentials nor do they list how their article relates to the way they make their money.

The sources of information recommended on my site is not my information, but citations to information written by people with authoritative credentials and educations.........not self appointed diet gurus, but registered dietitians with respected reputations in their field.

So if you ask yourself if you can be sure that their nutrition advice is safe, if it is effective, you can ask yourself how they know what they know. You can look up their degrees, their publications, their reputations, etc.

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• Vegan Mock Meats At Subway? Make It Happen!
• Finding Reliable Vegan Nutrition Information

"The plural of anecdote is not data." (Roger Brinner)

Haha, that IS pretty funny!

Welcome to the forum, Electric Rider! "Forks Over Knives" really is an awesome documentary, and it has changed soooo many people's lives, as well as minds with regard to how they look at food, nutrition, and health/disease. Personally, I have a crush on Dr. Esselstyn. Haha!

Anyhow, welcome aboard. I hope you find the answers you are searching for.

Thanks kareno

I'm actually starting to find the answers looking at other threads and doing internet searches. I didn't make the thread I wanted to mentioned above yet.. I may not need to if I find all the info I need. And or perhaps it might be better for me to explore these things on a regular non body building vegan forum as it would be more active.

It turns out that Forks over knives may have misrepresented the truth abit when it comes to the facts of those studies and how they were reported. I have been reading everything I can pros and cons of being vegan and this critique of the film makes a lot of sense and shows how the data was misrepresented http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/09/22/forks- ... -critique/

http://rawfoodsos.files.wordpress.com/2 ... ponse2.pdf

http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-ch ... or-fallac/

If you read through these pages and all links associated this guy talks about the data used in the film and the China study in depth.. brings out more facts the film neglected to mention that shows how the film took parts of the studies here and there to prop up it's "meat always causes cancer" agenda. Turns out this is not what those studies from China and the rats were saying at all.

That's not to say the Vegan diet doesn't cause one to have great health gains, just that as the film suggests it may not be from abstaining from meat alone as the film would have you believe. In fact in many cases the people with animal protein has lower mortality rates than those who abstained from animal proteins all together in the cited studies. There are other things dropped from a vegan diet that also contribute to gaining health, like oils, bad fats, refined sugars, refined flours even wheat as in the case with the Norway study the film cited during WW II. It's all very interesting looked at as a whole. I believe one has to do that to be able to have all the facts one needs to make a better informed decision about health. I'm still looking into this to get to the whole truth.

Unless you are a scientist yourself you don't have the training to evaluate the validity of criticisms of the China Study. People can tell you anything and you wouldn't know if it was right. Its like one mechanic telling you another mechanic is full of bullshit. Unless you know anything about cars yourself you just have to trust one of those mechanics as telling you the truth.

No disrespect to anyone, but raw foodists are full of bullshit. Their dietary beliefs contradict basic boiler plate medicine and physiology.

I wouldn't trust any information from a raw food site or an anti=forks over knives site.

I would go check out those claims out elsewhere.

Again, ask yourself how someone knows what they know. Do they have a degree in what they talk about? Do they keep up with research in what they are talking about? What is their professional reputation like?

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• Vegan Mock Meats At Subway? Make It Happen!
• Finding Reliable Vegan Nutrition Information

"The plural of anecdote is not data." (Roger Brinner)

Hi and Welcome,
If you are looking for a study that will give you some absolute truth you won't find any. You can get info from different places but at the end the decision is yours.
There isn't even such thing an absolute truth. There are so many studies that contradict each other.
Science already came to the conclusion that all studies are affected by the beliefs of the researcher.

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I would never settle for anything less than I could be - Tony Robbins

What he said. But I will say that you can find what's "true" for you via experimentation that allows you to get to know the rhythms of your body. Everybody's different.

Baby Herc

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I agree with this, so I read everything I can, pros and cons and try something out for 6 months to see how my body reacts to it - yes, even if that includes eating some white meat or fish.

I recently joined a vegetarian/vegan forum and mentioned that I still plan to consume some fish and eggs. Other than that, I wanted to look into going vegetarian or slash vegan.. Oh no they said.. we are strict, you cannot be here - even to learn about something that might improve your health. They said I would get banned asap for making those statements. I'm like.. WTF??? That's way extreme and uncalled for.. that to me isn't a diet or philosophy that's good for you, that's a religion akin to a cult. I didn't sign up to join no religion.

I wonder if that will get me banned here too. All the labeling and nonsense is causing more harm than good and people just don't see it. Of course they told me what I wanted was to be a pescatarian but there are no good active pescatarian forums. I don't have any ethical problems with eating meat save animals should not be tortured. They didn't like that either. They wanted cookie cutter clones. For them, it's not about health as it's more about having a political and social agenda. That's a big turn off and IMO, isn't right at all.

No. You won't get banned for that. If, however, you went through the forum yelling "Y'ALL LOONIES WHO NEED TO EAT MEAT, YOU F*GS"; that would likely get you banned.

Welcome to the forum and hopefully you'll find the answers you're looking for.

Veganism is not the plant-based diet which based on your musings here you appear to think it is.

People following a plant-based diet are doing that out of ego - their choices are about what is good for them and their health. A person following a plant based diet may use some 'vegan' justifications for their diet - but more often a person on a plant-based diet will easily switch back to eating meat if they felt it would do them good or do them no harm. True, some plant based eaters do eventually switch to vegan.

Veganism is not ego-based. It is on the other side of the morality scale and leans toward altruism. (ego=concern for self, altruism=concern for others). I'm not saying ego is bad, but nor is altruism. For survival of a species there needs to be a balance and they both are part of our experience here on earth.

Veganism is a philosophy and a value system about minimizing harm to other beings. Vegans are against the exploitation of non-human animals for human-animal pleasure and gain. Vegans can feel the physical and emotional pain of the animal when they see or hear people talking about eating animals (otherwise known as empathy). It has been proven that many species feel empathy. Personally, even if you told me that I would die at an earlier age from being vegan, I would still think it is worth it since my life would STILL be a million times better than the animals who suffer through horrendous living conditions, are inflicted with a short life of degradation, abuse and torture, which is then topped off with slaughter.

Would you go to a 'peaceful parenting' site and discuss how you spank your own children and wash out their mouths with soap when they swear? And if you did, would you really expect a favorable response?

Feel free to ask questions to satisfy your curiousity here, but I would hope that in your discussions you are respectful of the values on this vegan forum.

I think based on what you are looking for you may be do better consulting a vegetarian rather than vegan site. Though you should be aware that vegetarians are against eating fish (ie. they are against killing animals for food).

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"To create suffering without recognizing it - this is the essence of unconscious living; this is being totally in the grip of the ego." Elkhart Tolle

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If it's important to you, you'll find a way. If it isn't, you'll find an excuse.

That's a really interesting and insightful comparison, stcalico. Thanks for making it, as it really highlights the point well, makes sense, and got me thinking.

You links and points are pretty interesting ... I went Vegan after watching "Forks over Knives" myself last September. I had had up to that point a pretty significant weight loss after making some major changes to my diet [things I wish I would have known to do years ago!] and had hung around at bodybuilding.com for a long while as well.

I am vegan in what I eat day to day, but maybe one day a week I might have something with dairy or egg in it during a "cheat" meal and I don't feel bad about. My interest is being vegan is totally health based, not political.

When I made the switch to being vegan one thing that tripped me out was how my energy levels shot up - I have felt like I was running on rocket fuel since I made the change. I've got quite a list of health improvements too ...

One thing too that I did when I became vegan was giving up an array of expensive supplements that I had been taking for years. I do still use green tea extract [the same thing that is in ALL of the pricey energy supps, by the way], gaga powder at night [great sleep aid and super cheap] and Tribulus - straight, no chasers. I used to be a huge fan of Animal [Universal] products, but I unplugged them and I have have lost any gains in the process.

I have dropped another 15lbs since I made the switch to vegan - I was floating around 205, but now seem to be maintaining in the low 190s and I am super happy with that. For a guy that is about ready to breech 50, I feel way better now that I did in my 30s - for sure!

While I am not one that has the capacity to analyze the differences in data, I am certainly one who believes that the awareness the documentary created of the absolute CRAP that corporate food producers are lining super market shelves with is on point.

Thanks for posting what you did bro!
Brian

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Vegan to me has nothing to do with politics, but everything to with being healthy.

Welcome to the group!

Hope you find some helpful info.

All the best and welcome aboard!

-Robert

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Check out my Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness Book on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Vegan-Bodybuildin ... 497&sr=1-1