Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Thu 17th September 2009

Had a great day! Went hill walking with 3 mates (2 omni, 1 veggie) for 5 hours. Most of it was okay except the shortcuts where basically we ditched the path and just climbed the steep parts - which were kind of marshy which didn't make it any easier. Was fun being vegan and the biggest guy there, considering last time I saw these guys and went hill walking with them I was the skinniest! A couple of them wanted to try a bit of the thrive energy bars and they were really impressed Inbetween digs about bird food and stuff I was getting commented on my build now which was funny.





Workout #45
Fri 18th September 2009

Squats 5@45kg/55kg/65kg/72.5kg
Bench Press 5@40kg, 4@45kg, 5@55kg/52.5kg/50kg/47.5kg, 6@47.5kg
Inverted Rows (elevated) 10/7/5
Push-ups 18/9/7
Reverse Crunch 3x12 (5kg counterweight)

AHHH!!! Groin pain made a major return. I'm gonna take a rest from Squats till I'm back from holiday. Don't want to say any more about it.
Bench press sucked. 55kg felt so heavy today, so I just kept reducing the weight to try keep getting 5 reps. Don't know why.
Everything else was so-so. Crunches were good - I'm happy with my form, may reduce counter weight next time. Still hard with 5kg though!

Not been eating a great deal recently, consistently missing 2 meals a day - so only eating about 6 meals just now. It's not bothering me a great deal because I know I'm gonna aim to lose weight soon, but at the same time I should start to think of how I'm gonna maintain protein and cut the fat down (relying on nuts too much just now for protein).

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My training log

There's no food in the house! I'm gonna have to improvise today Plus i've lost a couple of lbs this week (which isn't surprising). The thing is my diet before I was getting enough protein because the sheer amount I was eating, so I'm gonna have to tweek it to make sure I'm getting enough while eating less.

I'm actually going to have walnuts as part of breakfast. I HATE walnuts.

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My training log

Week 16
Bodyweight=171lbs

Workout #46
Mon 21st September 2009

Overhead Press 5@30kg, 3@35kg, 5/4/3/3/2@40kg
Chin-ups 7/7/6 (then 10 negatives)
Deadlift 5@65kg/75kg, 4@85kg, 3@95kg, 2@105kg, 3@115kg
Prone Bridge 60s, 34s, 37s

That's the best I've done in OHP yet even though I didn't hit the 5x5. So pretty happy. Chin-ups were good, but the 2 and a half lbs I lost over the week probably helped. Deadlifts were great =] Prone Bridge sucked, but I was spent after the deads.

I ordered stuff to make thrive pizzas, but prob won't attempt till after my holiday.

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My training log

Workout #47
Wed 23rd September 2009

Bench Press 5@40kg/45kg, 5x5@52.5kg
Elevated Rows 9/8/6
Push-ups 15/11/8
Reverse Crunch 11/8/8 (with 3.75kg counterweight)

Too many failed attempts at 55kg on bench, so took it down again. Struggled but got it. Reverse crunches were good, reduced counterweight but kept strict form.
Had some back pain from monday's deadlifts. I know exactly what rep it was (last 95kg one), didn't hurt at time, but knew form was bad.

Workout #48
Fri 25th September 2009

Overhead Press 5@30kg/35kg, 4@40kg, 5/5/5/4@37.5kg
Pull-ups 3/2/2 (then 10 negatives)
Prone Bridge 60s/45s/50s

Today was pretty bad. I knew 40kg wasn't happening, so brought it down to 37.5kg for the last 4 sets. Pull-ups just had no strength whatsoever. Bridges, bad as usual.

Back pains been notable this week, so didn't do any deadlifts.

This is pretty much the end of my first training 'block'. From now on I'm gonna split the year into four 3 month blocks and work that way. Going on holiday this coming week, so after that I'll be starting my 2nd block, and will have new goals to hit by new year! (as i mentionned before).


Looking forward to this week off =] Will do some running and bodyweight exercises I think. Got a new diet kinda planned.....will go into more detail into everything when I'm back!

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My training log

Week off
Mon 28th - Sun 4th October 2009

Had a great holiday! The log cabins were awesome, spent most of the week in the hot tub

Which was okay, but the first time I jumped in I fell and hit my right knee


On Monday I switched my nutrition over to this;

Meal 1 - Porage/Fruit/Soy Milk
Meal 2 - Nuts/Thrive Energy Bar (double serving with more scoops of vega. the nuts will be replaced with a nut burger)
Meal 3 - Baked potato/Tofu (or Legumes)/Salad
Meal 4 - Protein Smoothie (scoop of hemp protein, scoop of pea protein)
Meal 5 - Pasta (will switch to Quinoa soon)/Tin of legumes/Veg
Meal 6 - Recovery Drink (scoop of hemp/pea again)

Calories ~3150kcal, Protein ~180g, 25% Protein, 25% Fat, 50% Carbs

After trying this out for a week (had no tofu - had to use legumes for meal 3), there's a bunch of tweaks I have to make. These are just random notes in no order of what I feel about this nutrition plan -

1) I really want to cut my bodyfat down (quite fast, not desparate or anything). I'm thinking about spreading the plan over 8 meals instead, so I'm eating smaller amounts and speeding metabolism. And reducing the size of my stomach
2) When I was making this plan I was reminding myself how I am a 'hard gainer', so I figured with the calories still being over 3000+ I'd still lose fat (coupled with some cardio). But now I'm starting to think how do I even know I'm a hard gainer. Before starting to put on weight at all I went straight from eating very litte, to aiming for 4000kcal. I've NEVER had to lose fat, so completely new to this. The point is if I want to drop it quickly, I think I should knock a couple of hundred calories off that plan.
3) I don't know if all the protein is necessary for me at this stage. For the meantime I think I'll reduce the size of the nut burger which is a heavy amount of calories (like 140g of almonds). I could maybe reduce the amount of pea protein as well to half scoops (even if just for one of the smoothies).
4) Need a lot more veg


On holiday I didn't do a whole load in way of exercise. Went out jogging twice, done some push-ups, crunches, squats. The car broke down beside a park with a climbing frame type thing, so I done some chin-ups/pull-ups/dips too.

My VBBF t-shirt came a couple of days before I left so I got to wear that too =]



Me and my girlfriend


Me being a geek with a purple smoothie =]



Still to set proper goals to hit before the end of the year. Will do that by the end of the weekend.

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My training log

Glad you had a good time on your vacation. I really like that Popeye shirt!

If after a week of ingesting a certain number of calories you find you are not losing weight, you could always reduce it from that. I guess what I'm saying is start on the high end of the spectrum and not the low end. I used to try and lose weight on 1500/day, but then my body got used to that and I had to reduce further, etc. and then I was on really low calories. You can only reduce so far. If I was smart (what I'm doing now) I would start losing weight on 1800-1900/day (based on my weight/activity level/etc).

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vegan for the win!

11/5 - 11/11? Is that post from the future or yr now about to take a week off? Yeah you're not as hardgainer as me. I'm consistently hitting 4k cal and still bouncing between slow gain and maintenance. Gonna try giving up coffee for a week and see if that helps (fffuuuu). So eating less, you still sticking with stronglifts + some cardio? Hope you can keep yr lifts going up, but then I don't know nothin' bout cuttin Best of luck

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training//log

Thanks! Since Monday I've lost 0.4lbs, but that was with missing a few meals. So I'm gonna reduce it by a few hundred calories and see how that goes - prob more realistic to what I've ate this week anyway. And it's time to get that cardio going! Going out for a run before breakfast just now.



Haha sorted the dates cheers. I've added way too much bodyfat, need to cut it down. My torso looks ridiculous just now. I never really stuck at any cardio before, so this is me just starting properly really, and hoping to do quite a bit.

I need to work on my bench a lot, I've plateaued at 52.5kg 5x5 for way too long. Everytime I go to 55kg I either fail on the first set (like last night - was messing about) or the second set.

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My training log

love that pic of the popeye shirt with the smoothie!

i agree with lobster about the calories...

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Radical simply means "grasping things at the root." - Angela Davis

Haha cheers!

On Saturday morning I went for a run. I started off just walking for 5 mins to warm up a bit then ran for 10 mins (at a slow pace), for the last couple of mins before getting home I walked to cool down a bit, down a few stretches and went in the house. Straightaway my right foot hurt.

Back at the end of April when I tried doing some calf raises at the edge of a stair, my right foot hurt so much after I could barely walk on it - it didn't happen straight away, took a day or 2 to get really bad. It was like I couldn't walk with that foot straight, had to put it out to the side. I couldn't bend my shin forward in front of my foot much, it was like the joint between them wasn't working right. Took about 2 weeks to clearup properly...

Anyway back to now, I have equal problems in both knees. It's making anything as simple as walking up and down stairs difficult. My left knee always gave me problems when squatting, and since hitting my right knee a week ago, I haven't really been able to tense up my leg completely without it hurting a bit.

Gonna stay off the lower body stuff for a week - which sucks because I was ready to hit everything hard again =[

I really need to get a pair of running shoes, I've been using astro-turf trainers that I've had since school to jog - I don't think they're doing me any favours.


I've created a diet based on the thrive diet, with very little changes to up the protein. Hopefully the food I've ordered will come by Wednesday. The calories are pretty low, but I've been eating a tiny bit less each day recently, so I should be ready for it when it comes!

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My training log

Week 18
Bodyweight=169.8lbs

Workout #49
Mon 5th October 2009

Bench Press 5@40kg/45kg/50kg, 5/4/3/3/3@55kg
Inverted Rows (elevated) 11/10/7
Dips 5/5/4
Reverse Crunch 3x12 (5kg counterweight)

Obviously no Squats because of my knees just now, it's depressing (cause I can't really do cardio just now either).

Bench press I should really have went for 52.5kg instead, but I done okay considering.

Started doing dips today, found a solution. My amp cabinet has a big handle at the back, sat this beside my power rack and used one of the safety bars as the other pole.

Didn't eat much yesterday hence the low bodyweight =[

I just want to get started my new diet, need stuff to arrive

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My training log

Definitely invest in a good pair of running shoes. They can make all the difference in the world. Is there a running store near you where they can watch you run and recommend a shoe for you? That helped me a lot...I was getting knee pain when I first started jogging. With the right shoes it pretty much went away.

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vegan for the win!

There's none local really, I ordered a pair from an online vegan store. If they don't feel right I'll send them back, but after reading this that might have been a stupid choice I made


Yesterday I had a friend round who wanted a workout so I was messing about doing some stuff, some light bench press, done some inverted rows, a set of pull-ups.
I figured I would avoid hurting my knees with some really light deadlifts, done 15x65kg, then 7x65kg or something. Then done a few push-ups.

Of course I've woke up today and my left knee actually feels worse (my right knee seems fine which is good), I'm just an idiot.

I don't know what to do today, I'd usually do Overhead Press but don't want to risk it with my knees. I briefly done pull-ups yesterday so that'd effect chins/pull-ups today. Squats/deadlift out the question really. Then prone bridge which I guess I could do lol...

Maybe I should just rest up till my knees are better I dunno.

On the good side, my food's coming today so I can get the Thrive Diet going

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My training log

Workout #50
Wed 7th October 2009

Seated Dumbbell Press (for shoulders) 9/10@9kg (each shoulder), 8@10kg (each shoulder)
Pull-ups 6/3/2 (then 10 negatives)
Prone Bridge 3x60s

What a terrible way to mark my 50th workout! Didn't want to do any standing exercises with my knee condition, so blew the dust off my dumbbells and done seated shoulder presses. Just alternated shoulders each rep instead of pressing both at once. I actually had a bit of fun doing these, exercise didn't last that long though.

PB on pull-ups but that's just because I'm getting lighter. Prob why I managed the prone bridges as well.

Food should be arriving shortly. To be honest since I knew I was going to try reducing bodyfat (2-3 weeks ago), I've been eating less before getting my diet sorted out. Lost the motivation to keep eating as much, but it wasn't working because I was only just getting enough protein if I ate ALL the meals for the day (I wouldn't be so concerned except the protein quality of the foods isn't great - only nuts/soy).


I'm feeling kinda weird at the moment..I want to cut down my bodyfat and get rid of my stomach, but at the same time I'm missing the size in my arms and stuff (even if it was fat). Just gotta stick it out and see what happens.

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My training log

Workout #51
Fri 9th October 2009

Bench Press 5@40kg/47.5kg, 5/5/5/4/3@52.5kg
Inverted Rows 15/9/9
Dips 7/8/7
Reverse Crunch 3x12 (3.75kg counterweight)

Kinda disapointed with bench press, reduced the weight and still couldn't get it. Prob cause I was messing about on Tuesday as well. Still I worked REALLY hard at the last rep of each set so it wasn't a total loss.

I'm happy with inverted rows, not because the numbers (that's only because i'm losing weight), but because I feel I'm getting a better workout. Biceps were pumping.

Dips were better, last time was my first, and was spending too much time in the down position making sure my elbows/shoulders were in line. Both bars are sitting at a slightly different height, so I've been swapping sides each set. I don't think this should affect things too much.

Reverse crunch was good! End of last set BURNED Prob stick with this weight again next time then reduce it again.


Started Thrive Diet! Going well so far, the biggest problem I have is making things on time and actually having the food there. It's an insane amount of veg you go through! Since I don't drive I can't just pop out and get something if it's missing. Still it's only been a few days, I'll get used to it after a month or so.

My knees are in pretty shit condition just now. I haven't had much of a chance to rest them, and I've got a weekend of work ahead of me which won't help. From monday I'm gonna have to rest as much as possible till it heals.


Today I was thinking about maybe switching up my workouts a bit. Maybe instead of 3 workouts/week, try working out every 2nd day (which is close to what I'm doing just now), and do a light workout/heavy workout. On the light workout do supersets to really burn out. The reason being my workouts just now just seem to lack intensity. It's prob a lot to do with not being able to Squat, and also the fact I've hit a plateau on a bunch of exercises. Need to change it up to keep the work rate up!

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My training log