Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

I'm debating creatine....I read it gives you a bunch of extra energy - which seems great except I have anxiety problems which can occasionally lead to violent episodes or panic attacks where I harm myself intentionally or have extreme craving to self harm. (I have been in depression relapse for 6 years - unmedicated becasue antidepressants are animal tested and I feel that's not in line with my vegan values...its wrong for something else to suffer for me)

I recently started on L-Glutaimine. Started at 1/4 the daily dosage and then when I went to 50% I noticed I was really anxious and suicidal and having arm smashing cravings within a couple hrs of taking the pills and I can't think of any other thing that might have caused it. It was only for the first few days and I seem ok now. I'm nervous to increase the L Glutamine even more...

Can some of you folks that have taken creatine tell me whether it gave you anxiety or affected energy negatively? Was it to much energy to deal with? What are the best vegan brands of creatine?

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My experience with creatine is that its totally adjacent to your energy levels unless you are in the middle of doing something.. in other words it will help you pull more reps off but you wont notice it otherwise. Maybe thats just me. Make sure you drink a crapload of water though or you can hurt yourself. It puts all the water in your body into your muscles... can dehydrate your brain. So drink lots of water when you take it. Dont go without available water near you for a few hours.

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Yeah, I don't believe anyone I've known who has taken creatine has ever experienced "energy" in a similar way to taking stimulants such as caffeine (if that were the case, I wouldn't still be drinking 2 big coffees to keep going each day!), moreso that you'll feel the extra endurance (which many may mistakenly be referring to as "energy") during your training. I've taken creatine for probably 2 full years of my life over the last 15 years between all the cycles where I've used it, and not once has it made me feel more energetic or stimulated. You may notice not getting worn out in the gym as much, but no worries about feeling overly stimulated, it just doesn't work in that way.

But, getting to one of your notes from above, I wouldn't avoid necessary medications that may have been animal tested years and years ago if it means you have to suffer daily. I used to think like that, but now I have to take an animal-tested drug to keep from going blind, and I've realized that by NOT taking such medications, I'm neither bringing back any animals lost to testing nor am I doing any good for the movement by suffering and losing my basic abilities. And, I have taken anti-depressants (years of extreme depression/suicidal thoughts) before as well while vegan, and many other vegans do take them as well. Since we can never really be 100% vegan in all aspects of living, there are certain times when it may be for the best to not scrutinze everything completely if it means we have to suffer each day by avoiding something that could vastly improve our lives. If things that are as inocuous as L-Glutamine could trigger thoughts of self-harm, then I would strongly suggest that this is a case where dwelling on the ethical implications of animal testing done on something such as, say, Prozac done 20 years ago is not as important as considering something that can make life bearable and less painful each day.

Just wanted to share this opinion from one person who has been in situations where I could have either made myself miserable and lost health over an ethical hurdle, but chose instead to make a minor concession to do more for the movement than dealing with crippling illness because I didn't want to partake in something that may likely have involved animal cruelty at some point years ago. Nobody in the movement should crucify someone for doing what is needed to exist, and if anyone does, then they obiviously haven't been in your shoes and couldn't begin to understand what you have to go through. Those same people aren't going to build a shrine in your honor if something happens to you simply because you avoided a medication, so do what you must to be able to live your life in a way that isn't miserable for your mental and/or physical well-being.

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"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

I kind of feel a bit of a buzz as soon as i drink my creatine, but im not sure if im just imagining it.

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Darth Vader from Sandlot once said, "Heroes get remembered, but legends never die." Then he later died.
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Thanks for the comments....I guess I will try it...

On the topic of animal tested antidepressants:
I don't consider happiness an essential part of life and its not something I pursue. I don't value my life more than any rat that was experimented on. We have equal ability to feel physical and emotional pain. I don't deserve happiness any more than the rat does and I will not steal it from an innocent creature.
I took antidepressants as a teen - and the guilt knowing something else suffered for me filled me with the most horrific gut wrenching guilt. Maybe now I want to die all the time...but I have a clear conscience and that is worth more to me than happiness.
Why is the date of the suffering important? The pain felt 20 years ago was just as hideous to the sufferer as it would be if it happened today. I don't care when the happiness was stolen...I won't support the companies that stole it.

now I wonder what animal testing has been done with creatine...

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Find me on facebook: Deborah Nasmyth

This is an interesting debate. I personally definitely won't take any medication with gelatin as the capsule...

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Darth Vader from Sandlot once said, "Heroes get remembered, but legends never die." Then he later died.
https://www.facebook.com/BigMeeeeech

I had a very long reply earlier, but deleted it. I'll summarize down to a moderately-long reply instead:

I can do MUCH more good for the vegan movement when I'm not curled into the fetal position, wishing my life would terminate instantly due to crippling depression. I can do much more good when I can see the world around me and won't need someone to guide my blind self through simple daily movements. Both of those things require me to make concessions to trying to be 100% pure in my veganism, and I'm okay with that, as are a great deal of people in the vegan community. I'm not saying EVERYONE needs to do as I do, but my point being, how much more could one do for the greater good of reducing animal suffering if they felt like they could take on the world vs. being mired in issues that negatively affect their mental/physical health each and every day?

Considering that we're all flawed vegans who can never achieve 100% purity, I don't see any issue with taking medications that leave only one way to solve a problem that can destroy your well-being when uncontrolled (providing vegan, natural options have not offered success - I tried many and none worked for me). I wouldn't go out and eat gelatin candy because it sounds good, but if I have to take a medication to be able to get out of bed and it has a gelatin capsule, that's what I will do, and I won't spend my life self-flagellating over it. It doesn't make me any less vegan or any more pro-cruelty to do so in doing something out of self-preservation rather than sheer entertainment/pleasure/gluttony/etc. I simply don't want my life to be miserable and be an ineffectual person who cannot do more good due to drowning in a personal ethical quagmire that would keep me feeling ill or worse. Everyone can make their own decisions, and again, they don't have to do as I do, but understand that you hold the key to your own release from suffering. I know I made the right choice for myself in not wanting to call my life over and done by making sure to take what I've needed in order to keep the abilities to push ahead to make the world better.

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"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

I totally respect that. I was just saying what my personal experience has been. I'm young and haven't had to ever really rely on medication, but that could change.

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Darth Vader from Sandlot once said, "Heroes get remembered, but legends never die." Then he later died.
https://www.facebook.com/BigMeeeeech

Didn't mean to make you think I was saying anything directly to you, jungleinthefrunk - just making a general statement to those who have the perception that martyring yourself in the name of veganism is actually a better choice than living a fulfilling life free of misery. It's scary to think, but I've encountered a good deal of people like that who have said "I don't care if I have cancer, I wouldn't take conventional treatments and would rely on my diet and ethics to save me", which is pretty frightening to ponder and only makes the movement look a bit off kilter as far as how we do things. My point is simply to let those who think the "Vegan Police" will kick them out of the movement for doing what they need to do for proper health or survival by medicating, know that we all have to do what we have to do, and nobody can fault us for caring about our own health!

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"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

yes i understand and i appreciate ur thoughtout replies and u make excellent points. i also think pharm companies mainly want to make money so that where a lot of my feelings come from.

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Darth Vader from Sandlot once said, "Heroes get remembered, but legends never die." Then he later died.
https://www.facebook.com/BigMeeeeech

Believe me, I'm not big on pharmaceuticals unless absolutely necessary (I'm one of those guys who tends to get every side effect possible, so I only use what is required and nothing extra). While it would be nice to put that money in the pocket of someone else vs. a billion-dollar corporation, it's the only option for some of us, and when the natural remedies fall flat (as they have done for me, I spent a full year trying everything to slow my degenerative vision disorder and nothing helped), there's not much else to go with. So, I only suggest taking prescription stuff when there's no other alternative, that's for sure - the permanent double-vision and slower skin healing I've had to adapt to from my treatments is testament enough to why I WISH there was a better way, just that there's nothing out there that can help me other than such medications...yet!

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"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

I am HIV+

After 2 years, my levels were bad, so my doctors thought it was the right time to start the drugs. Those products are tested on animals: monkeys, dogs, rats,... and once you start, it's for life and there are no ways around.

- If I don't take the pills, my life would be shortened, painful & miserable.
- If I take them I support companies that test on animals and will keep doing so. But I wouldn't experience what is cited right above.

...
So the balance for me was to take them, it's selfish, but not to take them is also selfish. If my goal is to try to bring something positive for the animals, I had to get better.
If I can't function to my best, how could I bring a change for the animals?

They can't defend themselves, we have to be there for them so we have a responsibility. This is (to me) much more important than a list of "ingredients" or companies to boycott. The boycott has it's limits, we have to understand and ask ourselves why we boycott, what impact does it have for the animals and for veganism because ultimately, it's not about what I put in my body (that's easy) but what people do to animal's body that matters.

Veganism should be the norm, and it has to come within the limits of our non-vegan world.


I can't stop animal testing, even if I boycott those companies it will not change anything for the animals. I can however have much more impact on people if I am well-rounded, healthy, fit, happy & social person (which half of them I am still working on)... nobody wants to share the ethic (and lifestyle) of a pale, depressed, sick and miserable person. Even if that person is right.

Sorry to hear about your situation, Petitpois But, it is nice to know another vegan who understands that suffering in misery or dying early by avoiding necessary medications isn't showing anyone that veganism is anything they'd seriously want to consider being a part of. Nor does it reverse an ounce of animal suffering to take on additional self-suffering by letting things run their course without concern for self-preservation. I've had people say to me "Is veganism like a religious cult? I hear you vegans won't take medications even if you're sick!", which is sad to hear that people think we're all that way, which is very off-putting to those who might otherwise consider going vegan themselves one day.

You said it well with this:



Lead by example, feel as best you can while doing it, and do as much good as you can while you're here. We can't do much more than that, can we?

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"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

Vegan Essentials, I always appreciate the detail and effort you put into your responses on all the topics you write on...

I wondered how long I'd be part of this website before I started this debate... I made it about 2 weeks.
I'm prepared to suffer (and die) for what I beleive in ...that's the difference...other people draw the line at the idea that they might actually suffer themselves and justify reasons they shouldn't have to.
Imagine your own child being experimented on - tortured and killed - so that you could take a medicine. Really imagine seeing that happening to your son/daughter and hearing the sounds they make and seeing their terror and pain...I love animals like my children and they have equal ability to suffer. I have PTSD from childhood trauma involving mutilated animals. I see and hear those animals 24/7 now. Most people have an automatic shut off to not think about things that are too traumatic/disturbing to think about, and becasue we're conditioned to stay shut off its easy to justify taking meds. But PTSD causes me to see and hear the graphic reality that everyone else blocks out.

Maybe if people started dying because they refused animal tested drugs then they'd start making drugs vegan and not animal tested...but that's what it would take for drastic changes to the system...some of us will need to suffer/die to make it happen. I wouldn't consider my life wasted.

Forcing an animal to live a short, miserable, excruciating life so that I don't have to is wrong. The animal experiences terror and pain just the same way I do. It too only has one life that it gets to live in this world. I don't deserve happiness or health more than it does and if bad luck has stuck me with whatever illness then that is my own bad luck. Just because I can steal an innocent animals happiness and health, and everyone else is stealing it, doesn't make it ok.

If people want to make their difference to the world by not eating animals and being happy healthy people inspiring others meanwhile taking antidepressants, headache, arthritis or whatever meds that have caused just as much animal misery as slaughterhouses I think its only 50%. You can influence others with your body and diet, that's fantastic...but you an also lead by example of compassionate self sacrifice - which really gets peoples attention and makes them think. They won't follow...they're conditioned to care only of themselves and block out the screaming of a mutilated animal...but at least they will think.

_________________
Failure: unacceptable.
Find me on facebook: Deborah Nasmyth

I agree with both of you,

However precision female, I don't feel that I am responsible that they used animals for research. And I have to draw my own line somewhere: how can I bring a change in this complex-horrible and depressing situation, how can I bring the best of myself for bringing that change and saving animals from misery on the big scale?

I think it's also how you resonate, but I am not sure about your conclusion:

Most people think of me as an extremist because what I do is so far away from them. Many still think you'll get sick if you are vegan, you need meat, dairy, eggs... that if you take supplement it's the proof it's not the right choice, etc.

They don't look at the world with my perspective and my knowledge on all those questions.
I am sure you also experienced how terrible and frustrating it can be to debate with a person who just don't understand very basic concepts, doesn't know what he is speaking about and doesn't want to know (some of them are even doctors, dietitian, love animals...). I don't think those people care how "consequent" I am since they don't understand what it is about.

Don't they grow our (organic) food with manure (coming from animals)? Shall we avoid that food? What about transportation of food, doesn't it kill some animals sometimes? What about the materials, tools, for building the cars, what about the roads? Didn't we destroy animal habitat to build ourselves homes, computers, Internet access, etc.? What if those were our child?

We can never be a complete hole vegan in a non-vegan society.