Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

(Homage to Richard Rodriguez.)

I thought I'd start a bit of a blog, report on how I'm transitioning, and wish you all the best.

A little blurb about myself:

[size]I'm pretty obsessive by nature, love science, solving problems, and learning about the world around me. I've worked for eight different research professors at three different institutions in my time, each with different aims, interests, and means and finally found the place for me.

I'm an amateur pianist, and listen to classical music exclusively. I study with a professor at my university.

I just graduated this spring from a small state school and transitioned into life as a grad student at a monolithic, top research institution, with all the clout, bureaucracy, and politics that go with it.

AND I can put both feet behind my head.[/size]

We'll take it a day at a time.

Day 1: Wheat germ takes forever to digest AND it expands in your stomach. Just 3 cups of it made me feel like I'd eaten a horse, and it was painful. I've had that stuffed feeling for 5 hours. Good food, though, and fills in the micronutrient gaps between what else I eat.

I've ordered hempflour in bulk, hempseed in bulk, wheatgerm in bulk, and I'll be getting some milk-based proteins (sorry guys) soon.

Diet:
I'm planning on about a 42/36/24 PFC ratio @ maintenance in 5 meals a day + 50g hemp flour pre-bed, with only very low GI carbs. Maintenance for me is 2500Kcal/day. I take BCAA pre and PWO, as well as some hydrolyzed protein and dextrose PWO only, which adds up to the calories used during exercise.

I'll be getting protein primarily through wheat germ, hemp, egg, and milk protein. I'll be getting my carbs primarily from wheat germ, oats, and berries. My fats will be from hemp, fish oil, and egg.

250g Protein
150g carb
100g fat

.


Sound reasonable? I'll keep you all updated.

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19 Years Old, 6'3'', 185, MD/PhD Grad Student, Lifting since 8/08

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world- those who know binary, and those who have friends."

Good stuff. What particular topics have you researched? Also, I like the quote in your sig; sadly I fall into the former category...

Anyway, becoming vegetarian is most assuredly a good call from any perspective. I hope it works out for you and that you eventually decide to go vegan. I know that both choices were some of the best ones I've ever made.
Best of luck!

I'm currently eating ovolactopescovegetarian. You ask the Catholics how they do it during Lent. I plan on dropping the fish after I get used to it.

But, for the long run, when I no longer eat fish, do you know of any truly vegetarian sources of DHA/EPA? ALA is converted at such a low percentage that it wouldn't seriously count, and it even deregulates the body's natural generation of GLA if taken in absence of serious quantities of n-6 fatty acids.



During my undergrad, I did some QM simulations (Matlab), and some inorganic chemistry. During the summer before my PhD program, I studied oxidative stress and its effect on CFP, YFP, and a tandem CFP/YFP at U of Paris-Sud (XI). Here at the U of I, I've done macromolecular dynamics simulations, standard biochem (membrane proteins in nanodiscs), data mining for cancer diagnostics, and simulations of phage lambda infection kinetics to compare to single-molecule data a collaborator has collected.

The idea is to try 3 labs for 5 weeks each, while I did an extra rotation in the summer.

In terms of veganism, I don't think I'd ever want to give up milk.

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19 Years Old, 6'3'', 185, MD/PhD Grad Student, Lifting since 8/08

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world- those who know binary, and those who have friends."

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My 2012 Training Log

It says that this comes from algae- could I get the same amount of EPA/DHA from Spirulina? It also doesn't list how much fat there is per pill (IE, am I looking at 115mg of n-3 fatty acids in 500 or 2000mg of oil?

Edit:

Workout-

Rows (5x5) 140 [Machine]
Lat Pulldown (7x5) 60 --> 90
Flies: 4 x 12, 150 --> 190 [Machine]
Cable Chest Press (15, 10, 4, 2) x (100, 100, 120, 130)
Barbell Preacher Curls (10 @ 40)
Concentration Curls (3x10) 25
+ Shoulders.

PWO: 40g BCAA, 70g whey

Followed 30 minutes later by a solid meal, basically heaping spinach salad with cottage cheese, broccoli, mushrooms, and a bit of fish.

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19 Years Old, 6'3'', 185, MD/PhD Grad Student, Lifting since 8/08

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world- those who know binary, and those who have friends."

No clue... I don't work for them or anything. Try http://www.water4.net/contact-us.htm

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My 2012 Training Log

Oh my! Has anybody else ever eaten 3 cups of wheat germ (I am assuming that this is in one sitting that you consumed this amount)? And yes, it is hard to digest. IMO, you overtaxed your stomach (as in the painful part of your comment), cause how much saliva did you get in your wheat germ before it went down the esophagus? Your amylase enzymes are in the mouth saliva, not the stomach. And you need to get the starch off the germ before the enzymes can get to the protein part of it, and all the other phytonutrients that you want to utilize. I hope you have drunk enough water for that mass to pass thru the small intestines and to get enough bile acids to attach to all that fiber as it dumps into the large intestines!

Moderation is always elusive for the BBer! Too much of a good thing will hurt you.

I would do chickpeas instead of cottage cheese (as a vegan), and sunflower seeds instead of a bit of fish (again as a vegan).
The salad dressing could have EFA oil in it (in addition to olive oil) and a good vinegar to help with the digestion (a lovely raspberry vinegarette with thyme and basil is nice).

Though I also do BCAAs and pea protein drink right after working out (OK, 15 minutes later - the time it takes me to get home).

I ate it by the spoonful from a bowl, plain. I drank with it, but there wasn't enough water. It was actually quite delicious, if I do say so myself. I sure got what I deserved though- what goes in must come out . I actually noticed that the left half of my stomach was larger than my right-apparently my descending colon was full of gunk. (And that's a technical term.)

There is also pancreatic amylase, though, as you know arrives at the duodenum through the common bile duct.

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19 Years Old, 6'3'', 185, MD/PhD Grad Student, Lifting since 8/08

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world- those who know binary, and those who have friends."

So Pea Protein is pretty fast digesting? Sort of the equivalent of whey?

Thanks for the chickpea recommendation as well. I'll be sure to give that a go.

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19 Years Old, 6'3'', 185, MD/PhD Grad Student, Lifting since 8/08

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world- those who know binary, and those who have friends."

Check out pea protein:

http://pure-advantage.net/protein_powde ... rotein.asp

Been there, done that with hemp protein though. Lovely green color by the way when it went in and when it came back out! Any digestion of it? Perhaps, but I think my body just pushed it right on thru and being in a big mass, the surface area available for the enzymes was not optimal.
I think it may be beneficial to perhaps eat it throughout the morning, instead of all at once is what I was trying to say. Put 1/2 cup in every half an hour or so (since it takes about 20 to 30 minutes for it to be made into chyme and begin to be digested in the small intestines). A little oil in it will slow it down too as the pyloric sphincter reacts to oils by slowing down the peristalsis of the smooth muscles of the small intestine. Slowing the chyme's transport thru the small intestine to give it more time for the nutrients to be absorbed.

It's not,

If you red his title of his blog

It says becoming Vegetarian....

When I was transitioning towards going Vegan
I was still taking fish oil capsules, whey isolate protein, Greens plus/ginseng w/bee pollen... It took less then a year for my transition. And also to read ingredients and not knowing what is Vegan what isn't.
You have to start some where's. And just like anything else it's a learning process.
I think dnephi is on the right path for posting here for support

Also a note for Dnephi, my first vegan supplement I ever took was Vega. It is a special product. I was introduce to it 3 yrs ago.
http://sequelnaturals.com/vega

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Robert wrote:
My knee muscles look totally sweet where I'm holding my weiner.

Thanks for being understanding.

Vega looks like a fantastic product- but it's very expensive. I'd definitely buy it if it wasn't! I'll also be buying some pea protein from trueprotein soon to replace my whey. Would hempflour/pea protein/wheatgerm be a poor man's Vega? What else would i need to make one?

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19 Years Old, 6'3'', 185, MD/PhD Grad Student, Lifting since 8/08

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world- those who know binary, and those who have friends."

You're right it is expensive my friend.
I use save and put the money away into my saving account. Just to be able to afford boxes of bars, and the powders etc...

It's an all in one.. so it provides all your supplements you're probably using right now. It has five easy digestive proteins (pea, rice, hemp, flax, and chorolea), all the vitamins and minerals, It also has a serving
of Maca Root which does miracles to your body. It brings down your cortisone levels, better sleep patterns, your body recovers faster, I could go on about Maca...
If you do buy all those proteins it would probably cost the same..
Vega has always been to me a better quality, tastes better and your body gets what you pay for.
If you look at it this way. Lets just do some math here..
It would cost less then $2.50 a day for a Breakfast meal..
$2.50X30(days in a month) = $75. So really yes it's a big handful of money to fork over,
but in over all it's saving you money per month.

OMG I just transformed into a mini Robert Cheeke

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Robert wrote:
My knee muscles look totally sweet where I'm holding my weiner.