
I'm new to this forum but thought I'd sign up as I've enjoyed looking through some of the threads on here.
I've lived a vegan lifestyle for just over two and a half years now. My starting weight is 68.5kg and I am 5ft 8.5inches tall.
I started kung fu a couple of months ago and I am loving it. I train in Five Ancestors Fist and we also do Shoalin Five Animals. I currently train 3 times per week which equates to 5.5hrs per week. 1.5hrs on Monday night, 2hrs Wednesday night and 2hrs on Saturday lunch time. I haven't been doing this for long but it is already starting to tone up my body and I am feeling stronger. The training consists of about 50% body conditioning and 50% in pairs practicing moves/ forms etc. We do lots of practical self defence and are told to put real force behind our strikes to make our practice realistic. We don't do much of the big graceful moves, it's all practical and combat orientated.
I have found that between workouts all I want to do is rest and I am sleeping much more than before. I'm not quite sure if this is normal or if I should be eating more calories maybe? It's not that I'm just feeling a bit tired, I feel completely wiped out of energy. But I am feeling my body changing and toning up so I guess it needs to rest to rebuild itself.
I'm not quite sure if my diet is completely balanced. I would probably prefer to simplify my diet and keep it more routine. Like oats, nuts and dried fruit for breakfast. Fresh fruit for lunch and maybe a couple of whole meal bagels with humous or peanut butter on. Then a big starchy dinner plate of rice, beans etc. But I'd love any tips or advice anyone may have.
I am not a huge eater but I realise that if I want to bulk up I need to eat more. My aim isn't so much to grow big like a body builder. I think this might hinder my movement and speed a bit and my aim is to get better at kung fu. My aim is more to get stronger, faster and chunk up a bit to help make my stances and strikes more stable and powerful.
This turned out to be quite a long post so sorry for boring you. I just want to train and eat right and I'm not really sure what is the best way to go about it. I do use Chronometer to help track nutrition but I'm not really sure what my target levels of calories, protein, fats etc should be. Currently I aim for 3000 calories per day but I don't think I'm hitting that target.