Need help and advice to loose body fat and increase my muscl

Hello guys. I ve been vegan for 9 months

My weight is stable now to 150 lb for 5.9 height. I lost 6.6 pounds. Since im vegan i hardly build muscle, i lost my shoulders my pecs and my legs as well. And plus my abdomen stores fat. I dont know why. i am in a really dificult situation because i am the only vegan guy here who wants to build muscle from a vegan nutrition. I live in Tahiti (french polynésia) a small island located in the pacific ocean . so no one can help me here whith my vegan nutrition. Im a really alone. I try to get informations thanks to vegan bodybuildind site or watching video of vegan bodybuilders and folloow advices. But im still skinny, and do not succeed to make any progress. And yet i eat lots of tropical fruits like bananas, mangoes, papayas, i eat walnuts, almond, coconut oïl, extra vierge olive oïl and colza. to get my protein i eat Brown rice lentils, quinoa, buckwheat, beans. for lunch i eat potatoes or pasta sometimes. I want to make green juice but not possible. we dont have big green leaves here just salad or organic leaves from US very expenssive, no kale, no spinach leave. I use protein powder from sunwarrior or vega brandt, 2or 3 times a day above all when im training. I take BCCA and glutamine as well

By eating using all these stuff i dont undersand why i stores fat on my abdomen and my muscle dont grow at all. i m a kind of despaired man now. I wish you could advice me and share your experience. Im about to give up. if theres no change i think i m going to reintroduce fish in my nutrition. maybe my body is not able to synthetise protein from veg nutrition. What upset me is the fat i get on my abdomen. I never get that before i turn into vegan life style. Its really depressing not to achieve my goals and see the transformation of my body in bad way. Wish you could help me.

Thanks again for reading me and helping me if you can. sorry again about my bad English.

Take care. All my regards.

Pascal

Tahiti - French Polynesia

Hi! Welcome to the site!

First, congrats on your vegan adventure!

My first thoughts on loss of muscle mass before I read your food sources was 'not enough complete proteins' and possibly not enough calories so your body is pulling from your muscles. And maybe switching into 'starvation' mode and storing fat around your middle.

You listed out some of the things you eat, but maybe the quantities are low? Quinoa is a complete amino acid grain and a portion, a 'serving' of quinoa is 1 cup. Lentils a good source too! I sometimes mix in lentils with my quinoa for variety. Had to google colza as I didn't know what that is. lol.

Curious about the amounts of Sunwarrior or Vega you get 2-3 times a day when working out. Excess protein can either be peed out or become fat in your body, so maybe you're getting too much?

What might help with answers is to list out what you ate before going vegan.

Stick with it. You just need some serious tweaks to your diet to get the nutritional balance to regain your muscles and trim your waist.

You also wrote that leafy greens are really readily available. Surely there is kelp/seaweed options which could be beneficial.

Maybe later today or tomorrow, list out what you ate throughout the day and include general quantities.

Thanks a lot for your answer. Im a so far and no one can explain me whats wrong with my vegan diet. Very happy to have the point of view of an other vegan sporty guy.

Before becoming vegan, actually my diet was like a high protein intake. i was eating 3 meals a day. It was enough to get energy and protein to build my muscle and i didnt store any fat at all on my abs. for breakfast i eated bread with cheese and butter or a tuna sandwich or one fruit (papaya usually) or a yagourt. i was not used to eat a lot in the morming. For lunch and dinner i eated lots of different kind of fishes like tuna (i liked cooked or raw tuna fish mixed with vegetable lemon oignon and coconut milk or sashimi with sauce), fishes from the lagoon or salmon or mekka fish. other time i eated prawns or eggs with rice or pasta. I didnt eat red meat at all. and sometimes i eated chiken but not often. But I must admit i was not used to eat lots of vegetable and fruits. I used whey protein powder for 2 months just after my working out and i stopped one month for my loins . i was doing that in alternance.

So when i became vegan it was really a big change for me. now my diet is totally different. For breakfast i have to eat more to get my carbs. So i eat lots of fruits : 6 bananas, 2 mangoes, 2,5 cups of fresh orange juice, a protein shake (1 scoop of vega one 15 g protein or vega sport 29 g protein) mixed with oats (0.5 cup) and an handful of almonds or walnuts and 3 or 4 dates. I would love to make green juice to get more protein and enzym but as i said in my first message, we dont dont have kale, spinach, leafy greens. Even if i live in a island, we dont have local kelp and seaweed. seaweeds are imported.

For lunch I try to have a high carb meal and protein as well. So i cooked 50 g of lentils or beans or chick peas. i eat them with brow rice (50 g) or quinoa (50 g) 3 potatoes or 3 sweet potatoes or 4 taros (kind of local ignam) or 50g of pasta. I add 1 table spoon of olive oil and 1 table spoon of colza oil to get omega 3 and 6.

after work at 4 or 5 pm, i eat fruits just to get my carbs 1 hour before my working out: 6 bananas, fresh orange juice (2.5 cups), 1 mangoe. i take 1 or 2 coffee spoon of coconut oil.

After my working out, I eat 4 bananas again, some almonds sometimes and i drink my protein shake (1 scoop of vega sport = 29 g protein). sometime i add strawberries or mangoes it dépends.

For dinner, i try to eat more vegetable like cooked broccolis, spinach (frozen spinach, importated item). I make a salad with carrot, tomatoes, organic baby pring, mushrooms (if i have somme cause very expensive importated item), and organic mais , sprouted alfafa if i have some (for protein), a handful of beans or lentils (for protein). i add 1 tablespoon of olive oil et 1 tablespoon of colza oil in my salad. I try not to eat rice or potatoes or pasta or quinoa for dinner cause im too scared to store more fat on my abdomen.

Before going to bed i drink my last protein shake (1 scoop of sunwarrior : 15 g protein) mixed with strawberries.

What else. I work out at least 4 times a week (45 minutes of cardio training with a group and 1 hour i lift weights). Each time i spend almost 2 hours at the gym.

Wish all those informations would help you to advice me better. Because i dont know what is wrong with my diet. dont understand why i store fat. Maybe my body is not able to absorb all the nutrients it needs. maybe as you said my body turn a good part of my vegan protein intake into fat. I dont know what to do any more. Although i try to keep a high protein intake my muscle doesnt grow at all. I do not succed to get back the body i had before becoming vegan.

Wish you could help me guys. thanks again.

gotta run to work now. But thanks for all the information.

I need to do some research first, but I think for 150lbs homme you may be over doing it on the protein. That is just my first reaction so I need to think about that a little more.

I will get back to you later today.

Au revoir mon ami!

Hi! didn't give up. still working, did find this that might be helpful...

http://breakingmuscle.com/nutrition/how-to-build-muscle-mass-on-a-plant-based-diet

Thank you very much Veganbadass for your help and your research. The article you've found is really good. Going to try the meal plan. but we dont have almond butter, no seitan as well. its complicated to found vegan organic food here.

In the article Derek says that we need 1 g of prot per pound. so i need 150 g of protein. in y diet i think i hardly reach 150 g. I can get aroung 80 or 90 g of protein. Thats why maybe i can not increase my muscle. What do you think ?

Merci encore pour ton aide.

Happy to help. I think the 150g would be for like a serious, professional body builder. Your numbers sound much more reasonable and achieve able.

Knowing has been good for me too. We watch lots of house programs here with people buying in exotic places, Tahiti, Costa Rica, Fiji and so on but I didn't consider the availability to products that you're struggling with. Will do some more looking to see if there are basic ingredients and recipies to make your own seitan or shelf-stable other products...

Thanks again for your support. Its really important not to feel alone. I let you know if i make some progress.