Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

I wasn't planning on starting a log here till I actually started lifting, but here I am anyway.

I'm 6' 3" and went up from 154 lbs to 156 lbs since the beginning of November. I've been doing bodyweight exercises and some resistance exercises with these rubber tube thingies since then and have been making lots of progress on all exercises except for pull ups.

At the start I could barely do 4 push ups and this morning I did 25, 17, then 10 and 7 more on my knees just because. I was planning on keeping up mostly bodyweight exercises for longer but I am looking forward to lifting heavy things now xD. So, I am planning to start the StrongLifts program next week.

I've been skinny since I was ~13 and vegetarian from 15 and really only vegan for the past year and I'm tired of people assuming my being skinny is related to my not eating animals. The main goal right now is to figure out how to get massive amounts of food inside me then get big. I've been trying to up my calories for 2 months and I can't get past ~2600 calories without feeling sick all day. And, that is definitely not enough, any tips on getting more food in would be nice. I'll put what I ate today as a starting point and see what people think I should add.

1 small banana
1/2 cup oats
1 oz raw almonds
3 tbsp flax seeds
2 cups grapefruit juice
4 pieces ezekial bread with peanut butter
12 oz package of frozen broccoli
2 cups soy milk
1 can low sodium black beans
1 cup bulgur
1/2 package raw spinach

2601 calories
121g protein
78g fat

This is a pretty accurate representation of what I eat on a daily basis except usually 2 bananas and I don't generally have grapefruit juice but it was here so I had some. This is split up into 5 meals. Thanks for looking, hopefully this will keep me accountable.

Hey man, welcome.

Is there a reason you don't eat anything like rice (quinoa, couscous etc.)?

If you have a blender it'll make life real easy for you. Most days I only have 1 meal of grain/beans and everything else is blended drinks (about 5) and take in 4500kcal+. I used to have none of these or only one and I spent all day preparing/eating food. It drains your soul. It takes care of veg as well - I find veg (especially raw) can take a while to eat and a lot of space in your stomach for low calories. If you blend them into drinks it eliminates this.

High calorie foods that blend well are -
Any nuts/seeds
Oats
Omega oils

Then protein powders/fruit have a decent amount as well. For the liquid you can use fruit juice or soy milk to get extra calories or protein.


Stronglifts is a great programme and I like the look of the new format, that it now uses barbell rows instead of inverted rows, and the assistance is optional (chins or pullups/pushups or dips/crunches/bridges). While I do think these exercises are important, it gets it into your head that the squat/bench/rows/press are the ones that deserve your maximum intensity. It also teaches you that too many exercises can be bad for gains. Try and stick to the exact programme for 12 weeks (do the recommended assistance if you want but don't add anything else).

Learning a proper full body stretching routine is important, you should dedicate time to this to avoid injury - because the weight goes up fast in stronglifts. I like starting from the top, doing rear delts, triceps, upper back, chest, lats, then onto the floor for abs, lower back+glutes, groin, then back up again for hip flexors, quads, adductor, hamstrings, calves. Holding each for 20-30s - each side depending on the stretch. This can take upto 10 mins after you've learned them all but it's essential for the intense workouts. You can't lift if you're injured. Don't skip this.


Good luck

You can get past 2600 cals. if you make smoothies. You can throw a lot of food/protein powder into a smoothie, making it nutrient dense. Split up your meals into several per day if you can - I see you are at five now - some folks take another smoothie/shake before bed.

Nuts will add quick cals. - I blend them in with my smoothies.

Keep track of your food intake on fitday/other. -it will give you a good guideline of where you are daily.

As chewybaws stated, raw veggies are so filling; if I eat a lot of those it will fill me up for a long time.



Great advise - I should have followed this one last week & now I'm paying for it...I need a week or two off at this point...

I've been reading your log and it really is very inspiring but fucking hell is it long . It's cool to see that someone else has done so well in what I am trying to do now. Really man, thanks a lot for your help.

I do eat brown rice sometimes and bulgur is sort of like rice, it's a kind of cracked wheat I think. It's really cheap so I eat it a lot.

the kind i get looks like this


I get other kinds of grains randomly also, right now I have amaranth, red and white quinoa , brown rice and maybe some other things also. I would be eating quinoa mostly, but it is more than $5 a pound here and I would rather spent the extra money on more greens than a grain I don't even really like.

I do have a blender and I'm probably going to switch to mostly blended meals, or at least put all the greens into smoothies, because I'm already spending a lot of time eating and I don't really want to waste even more time on food. I just wasn't too sure it was a good idea to drink that many calories, but since it seems to work well for you I'll try that out.

Right now I've got lots of almonds and flax seeds, and I just got a bunch of pumpkin seeds and ordered some pea/rice protein. So, I'll try to get a green smoothie down in about an hour and see how that goes. I don't like the idea of using oils though because they don't really have food value, but I might get that vega 3-6-9 oil or something similar. Any thoughts on that?

I was planning to do the assistance exercises also because I like dips and I'm determined to be able to do more than 1 pullup in a set but, I will see how that goes when I start.

Also, I will look into some stretching routines tonight while I am eating. Not injuring myself is the only reason I didn't start out with weight training 2 months ago and why I am waiting till next week to start stronglifts. I'll have someone to show me how to do the lifts properly then.



The only reason I'm eating 5 times a day is that it is taking too long to eat and I don't want to go to bed stuffed. Seriously, I'm uncomfortably full most of the day as it is. I am going to try to eat ever 2 or 3 hours if I can when I am fully underway with lifting. I don't care so much about getting fat or anything because at least it's something different and I actually lost a little weight these last 2 weeks eating this way with ~1 hour of bodyweight exercises every other day, so I think I will need to get a lot more food in me to gain weight consistently.

Also, I use this CRON-o-meter software I downloaded from a link on someones blog to track my food.

It sucks that you got injured, hopefully you heal quickly. I'm going to do my best to make sure I don't backtrack because of injuries.

Thanks again.

Eating lots of food on a budget can be trying, I hear ya. I wanted to keep it at $7 per day. With 3k+ cal days though i'm close to $10. I enjoyed reading one of motives for lifting, that you're tired of others saying it's b/c you don't eat animals. Show em' what's up!!

How are you staying ~$10 a day eating so much spirulina? I'm interested in eating massive amounts of spirulina myself, but it will have to wait I think. It would be awesome to have a big barrel full of spirulina sitting in my kitchen though

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I joined a gym this week. It's a little more expensive than the one I was going to join but it's closer, better equipped and also much more weight lifting centered. The staff is also better, or at least I like them better, which leads to another change in my plans. I'm not going to be following the stronglifts program now. I'll be seeing a trainer for a little while at least, and I'll follow his plan which still focuses on heavy compound lifts with free weights, so it seems good to me.

I've mostly been goofing around this week, because that is what I do , but starting monday I am actually going to get serious about lifting. I have to now, because I've talked to some of the people at the gym about my veganism and they seemed very interested in how it is going to work out for me without eating animal products and I want to make vegans look good .

As far as food, I'm doing better than before, but I'm still not happy with my diet. I started making one smoothie/shake every day and have been able to get my calories up over 3k. I imagine I could pretty easily get over 4k if I need to now, and I think I might, because I didn't gain any weight last week. At least i didn't lose weight again though. I will stick with this for a couple weeks and see how it goes, but I think I'm going to replace at least 1 more meal with some kind of shake.

On a side note, there is a picture of a 76 year old women deadlifting 251 pounds on the wall at my gym. Apparently, she is 80 now and still trains there regularly. That's pretty intense.

That lady sounds hardcore!


I don't consume as much spirulina as I had for the documentary. I just cannot afford it. I cut it down to about 50-70g a day. It is of course cheaper in bulk. I think it's prob 10-15 bucks a day. I keep optimistic to keep on a budget.


Nice amount of calories you are getting in by the way! That's right on track.

I weigh 160.1 lbs (72.8 kg?) now . Also, I'm definitely stronger than I was last week and I think my arms and chest are getting bigger, so I'm pretty stoked.

Everything is going well except, my trainer is having me use a V-squat machine and leg press instead of regular squats, which I'm not happy about, but he seems to think it's safer to start with that then switch to regular squats after I build some muscle, so I'll go along with it for now. Any thoughts on this machine? I can't find any actual negative reviews on the internet except for some from short people having trouble getting full range of motion.

Otherwise I'm pretty excited and having fun even though I almost puked during my first leg workout on friday . That kind of sucked, but I made it through. It definitely makes me want to work even harder now.

I'm going to try to get into the habit of posting here after my workouts so that I have something to keep me interested after the novelty wears off. But, I'll see how that goes.

I don't know what a V squat machine is, but I'm going to assume that it balances the weight for you - meaning it won't do shit for improving balance OR working the stabilizing muscles. You don't need muscle to squat an empty bar so I don't really see where the logic is there. A machine is not a good intro to the squat, because you'll need to start over with balance, building small muscles up, bar position (and getting your back muscles used to holding the bar), learning where your hips and knees should be to ensure a straight bar path, the list goes on....

Nice work on the weight gain!

+1

+2

While a machine can be a fun diversion from time to time, there's going to be minimal carryover to learning how to squat properly. No machine puts a bar in your back in the place you need to hold it for squatting, no machine hits the stabilizers the same way, no machine mimics the body's natural ROM like squatting does. Even if you have to start off VERY light, it's better to squat light than build false confidence on a machine that won't carry over to squats well at all!

Thats exactly what I was thinking, which is why I'm not happy about using the V squat machine. I'm going to tell him I want to do real squats from now on.



The more I think about it, the more it seems he started me on the V squat machine specifically for false confidence. I imagine there would be more noticeable physical improvements in less time using machines, especially for legs, because I could work the larger muscles much harder without destroying the smaller muscles involved in balancing the bar properly and whatnot.

I don't necessarily think that's a bad decision on his part, because a lot of people probably give up pretty early on and he wants me to see results as quickly as possible so I stay motivated and keep paying him .

Anyway, now I'm definitely going to tell him that isn't what I want. Thanks a lot guys.

Edit: Also, I was more worried about health concerns associated with that specific machine, which I guess doesn't matter so much now that I'm not going to use it anymore. But, for future reference, it seems like a good way to work ummm.... all those muscles in the ass region if your back is not up for squatting for some reason. I imagine it would be better than just not squatting if there weren't any other reason not to use it.

How are things going?

Hope training and eating are both awesome!

Have a great weekend.

-Robert

Thanks for posting here!!!!

Eating could be better but training is going well. Last night I got busy and forgot to eat before I went to the gym and could definitely tell the difference. Everything was way more difficult than normal and I was starving by the time I left. I'm not going to let that happen again.

Goob like Rock Solid the rapper says "Type to eat everything in the fridge, LIKE SWOLE". Get your bulk on