Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

I figured I could post a journal here, maybe someone will pop up and help me a bit..

Today is my 4th week of my new vegan lifestyle, and the 4th week of eating a lot more then I used to eat. Today I looked at my weight, finding out it's 2.1 kilograms more! 2.1 kilograms in 2 weeks.. O_O i was pretty amazed .. my boyfriend also checked his own weight to make sure the thing wasn't broken or something, but it was fine, his weight was still normal so it's no error.

In total, it means I gained 2.5 kilograms in this first month / 4 weeks hope that's not unhealthy tho =/

I'm eating yoghurt right now, just soy yoghurt with banana, various nuts, some coconut-stuff, some raisins, well actually just finished it a minute ago, but in 30 minutes or such I'm going to lift some weights I think, just some regular bicep training I suppose? *clueless* .. I have no idea if I'm doing it right, even though I've (tried to) read so many things =P .. think I'm doing okay tho, saw a couple of videos once I think.. can't find them anymore..

anyhow here's my food schedule; viewtopic.php?f=6&t=28618 .. I'm still hoping someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong and right and what can be improved and .. everything really .. I'm a very nervous person and I'm always trying to find reassuring things or advice or tips etc etc .. my apologies if I'm extremely annoying with all of this .. just dunno what else to do honestly ^_^'' ..

but.. 2.5 kilograms in 4 weeks is hopefully a good sign, Ï really hope it's not unhealthy, I'll just make sure to keep eating like this, I feel my appetite is growing too so sometimes i eat more then I usually do, and ill make sure to keep working out a bit every day and I'm slowly starting with lifting weights ever 2/3 days.

What I do with lifting weights btw is.. I sit on my chair, my legs spread, I hold one hand on my knee, the other hand is holding the weight, it's just a bit above the ground and my elbow is kinda against my inner-knee or such, then I slowly lift the weight towards me, usually untill I can touch my chin, then slowly down again, I pay attention to my breathing when I do this too.

it's hard to explain.. I'm sure this excersize has a name but I wouldn't know what it is.. wikipedia is also pretty confusing with these things, so I can't find anything there, and then there's a lot of bodybuilding things with all kinds of terms and words that I never heard before, plus the fact that I'm dutch I guess, it's all very confusing and overwhelming for me =P

Check out other forum members journals to see what they are eating and what exercises they are doing in their workout routines. They have been very helpful for me in finding new ideas, having a better approach both in diet and exercise, motivation, and just keeping it interesting by trying new things.

-Dylan

I've been looking at a lot of things on the forums but sadly I don't understand most of it =( .. Lots of terms and names that I don't understand and I have a hard time finding them on google, like some kind of vegetables I look up on google but I have no idea what they are, then when I try latin names I get in a lot of vegetable-family-groups on wikipedia and it just gets so confusing =P .. Also, in dutch, the names are different, not all of them luckily! but a lot still are.. like.. flaxseed, I only just found out today what that is in dutch xD

I have been experimenting with food tho, and I also have a blender now. Gonna make a bunch of nice things to drink, well i hope theyre nice! gonna blend veggies and fruit and such, maybe mix things with milk (not cowmilk obviously) make a nice veggie/fruit milkshake! I could throw in a lot of coconut to make it even tastier.

oh thats another thing, im using more coconut too! still prolly not VERY much but like.. maybe 25% more then before?

so yeah.. if someone could point out whats good or bad about my current diet, that would be great, I'm reading things every day but I'm very very slow with this, also because I don't spend hours reading of course, tho lately it's been really hot here so i don't do much, so reading works out then =P .. tho it hurts my eyes to read xD .. oh well! like I said, if someone could comment on my diet that would be great :3

I have been eating a bit more lately, mostly at dinner and sometimes I grab extra sandwiches and such lately too.

if there is a dutch person around who could give me tips on food and such, that would be awesome, it's probably easier if I get some help from a dutch person because of all the names and such like I said ^_^ and again, im a person who really depends a lot on reasuring comments, i always feel the need for that for some reason ^^'' probably because I'm so insecure!

PS: I QUIT SMOKING WOO! .. awesome right? :3 .. it's been around a week now ^^ feeling pretty good, though still often get the 'want to smoke!' feeling which isn't very nice of course :3

Recipe time!

this has prolly already been done before by someone here, but i just did some stuff and it turned out great =D

it's real simple;

12 strawberries
1 banana
3 spoons of oatmeal
1 spoon of rasped coconut
300ml ricemilk (we got one with extra calcium, vitamin D2 and B12)

got some pics too!

Two books will be of help for you. Very easy to understand and put into action, Robert Cheeke's book and Any of Brendan Braziers books. Robert's book has workouts listed, recipes, meal plans, exercise routines. Also if you go to the main page there was a video on exercises you can do anywhere, its short, easy and effective. One more thing if you look at the 12 days for vegan fitness thread there are some good exercise routines to get started with.

hope that helps,

-Dylan

thanks Dylan you're very helpful and I really appreciate it! I'm going to order Roberts book at least, found it at bol.com where I always order my stuff, was kinda suprised to see it there most of the time I can't find a lot of foreign books on something that isn't mainstream. But i think the site has expanded a lot in the last few years so i guess im not that suprised .. gonna see if i have enough money to also buy one of Brendan Braziers books, was thinking of getting ''thrive'' because it seems to be a nice easy book for beginners and such

also saw the video, looks fun! and I read the 12 days stuff but it was kinda confusing to me, so I'll try and read it later when im more relaxed

right now I'm pretty stressed.. having a bad day again I guess.. been having a lot of bad days lately.. also because I get angry and sad really fast.. especially when it comes to my physique or things involving animal cruelty or meat stuff.. like.. i got pretty angry the other day because at my parents place, they have a regular store, much like any other store, only there was no vegan mock-meat anymore, they sometimes have this 1 kind of mock-meat, think its just from soy, and it's really tasty, but this time they didn't have it.. so i got angry cus they always have 20 different kinds of dirty meat in plenty but never a vegan replacer for meat.. we use that soy stuff (we just call them vega-bits ) in a couple of our dishes to make it a bit nicer then just a big pile of veggies xD ..

anyhow thanks again .. ill order the books today, or at least Robert's book and then it should be delivered to me within 5 or 7 days according to the website ^_^

I also read some of the people's bio like this one; http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/?page=bio_richard for example theyre all very inspiring to me ^^ and hopefully at some point I can be a inspiration to people too!

now imma go for a little walk.. got a tummyache from stress.. i think..

so far, my day today looks like this;

got out of bed around 8:00 this morning, we (me and my boyfriend) made some oatmeal, I only ate half of my oatmeal.. I never manage to eat a lot in the morning.. and I got pretty stressed over it today too, which added up to the stress I already had =( .. after that I worked out a little, just some stretching, a quick five push-ups, fooled around with some tiny weights while punching air and stretched a bit more, then I had two sandwiches with banana and rasped coconut and a mug of green tea which I just finished. It's 10:50 now and im going for a walk, hopefully I will feel better after

EDIT;

It's 12:10 now and after the walk i feel a lot better. we did the dishes and im eating 4 sandwiches with 'tartex' and lettuce now. it's super tasty and oh so simple.. I have corn bread btw, its awesome in taste <3

I feel a bit more positive now and me and my boyfriend talked a bit about the physical progress that im making etc. we also found out my right arm (bicep) has grown 0.5 centimeters around (width? dunno the word) (didnt flex, just .. kept my arm loose) in 4 weeks or such, so thats pretty good my biceps also look a bit better when i flex them anyway, maybe thats just because i actually work out enough now, i never really did that before ofcourse

anyhow just felt like sharing o.o feel kinda awkward now xD oh well!

oh and I have like these uuh.. veggie snacks? theyre like.. baked cookie-ish things.. it's seen a lot with chinese food.. only these are healthy and without those little sea bugs/animals (really forgot the name.. tiny.. creatures?).. I have no idea what this is, should look at the package more next time, but they're very healthy apparantly and just a nice healthy snack, my boyfriend assured me anyway.

oh! aand.. more updates.. last night we had red rice for dinner.. it wasnt very special, just tasted like brown rice to me, maybe my boyfriends mom didn't cook it right .. anyhow think thats all for today!

alrighty, today has been a good day for me it's nice to have good days ^^

I woke up around 8 in the morning like usual, had my oatmeal, almost finished it all this time! only left like.. 2 spoons.. it got all cold and yuck.. should have just finished it all I suppose, next time I probably will! It really varies, some days I can finish it all, some days I can't even finish half of it. Really depends on my mood, sometimes I feel way to down for it.

Had two walks today, so that's really good, it's just very very hard for me to be outside, I feel bad when I go outside and I'm just extremely insecure. But I go out there anyway, especially because right now I'm spending two weeks at my boyfriends mothers house. She's quite a stress factor for me, a very bossy, pushy and controlling woman, but I try to ignore her wild behaviour and I luckily don't have to deal with her every minute.

Was thinking of putting together some sort of food/training schedule, a good one, because my other one, I didn't even look at it anymore since like.. a few weeks now! I still eat almost every hour, or at least every two hours, eat a lot of sandwiches. Still trying to vary, trying to eat more veggies and more fruit, though fruit is limited because it's quite expensive

Also doing my best to read a lot of things, there's so much information out there! it's very overwhelming and often confusing.

Anyhow, felt like sharing! They say sharing helps, it sure helps me to deal with things like depression, feeling nervous and insecure, my paranoia, fears, etc etc!

Just read through your posts. Looks like you are doing good on the food end, and it's VERY good that you have stopped smoking.

As far as your emotions go, a book that has helped me is called "A Guide to the Good Life." I have linked to Amazon below, so hopefully you can find it somewhere near you.

http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic/dp/0195374614

_________________
Learning how to be compassionate, gain wisdom, and love life.

Thanks Fallen_Horse your comment is very much appreciated ^^ .. Though I'll let things run its course for now, things seem to slowly become better and better for me and I feel as if the chance of falling back down in old patterns is a lot lower then it used to be

still haven't smoked, it's really awesome to be rid of that, though I'm still scared of starting again xD I quit before, lasted 3 months and then I started again sadly, that wasn't very long ago actually.

anyhow thanks again! I might order that book at some point, though not now, already buying three other books ^^'' .. So it'll be on my wishlist for now =D

Little update ^^

I've been experimenting with food patterns a little, it's not really working out for me haha xD ..

I don't follow any schedule anymore at this point, but I'm going to make a nice new schedule next week .. Lately I've been trying to fool around with breakfast ideas, because the oatmeal that I ate, I just got tired of that, I really didn't like eating it and I'm never able to finish it =( ..

So lately I've been blending fruits with oat, tried banana and oranges yesterday but it didn't really work out for me, so this morning I simply ate two bananas. After that I had a 30 minute walk or such, could have been 20 minutes, unsure. Then I had two slices of bread with some herb tartex ('ll try and find a link to some info about tartex soon, cus i dunno if people outside europe know what it is), a sliced carrot and some lettuce on it, and not to long ago I had some peanutbutter sandwiches with some raisins

I'm trying to add a lot more fruit and veggies! I've been kinda slacking on peanutbutter sandwiches lately tho, and I realised that and I was like zomggg O_O need more peanutbutter! .. since I wanna gain weight, peanutbutter is a great option!

Also, I've been having pain in my sides lately.. not sure why.. it's always in the morning, when I wake up, it kinda goes away after my second meal so I think it might simply be from hunger.. but I'm also kinda paranoid that I'm missing something important in my diet.. but it's probably just me being paranoid! ^^'' ..

You haven't posted in a while. How have things been going for you? Still working at it? Still experimenting with new foods?

-Dylan