Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

I once used veganism to restrict my calories, and now I'm using it to gain strength. I'm definately aiming for strong over skinny now. Here's me at 119 and 5'9

Welcome! Congrats on fighting the battle with your ED, it's a tough thing to go through. My only advice would be the obvious advice, eat more food! Adding calories will enable to you gain some muscle and get stronger. Do you have any specific questions or are you just saying hello?

Welcome! You have great skin. I hope to see you posting back here 20 lbs heavier. Nuts and seeds should help you put on some good mass. Sunflower, hemp, flax, and pumpkin seeds are great.

Thanks!

I did have a question on carbs. I make sure that I'm getting around 1 gram of protein per my body weight, and I'm usually around the 123 to 130 grams per day range, but I'm constantly hearing different opinions on carbs, mostly from non-vegan bodybuilding sites who are recommending no more than 40% of my calories come from carbs. What's the vegan stance on this? Obviously by carbs I mean whole foods like lentils, beans, grains, fruit, ect... and not processed crap (:

Congratulations on beating your eating disorder. First let me tell you to be very careful about calories, and the macro nutrients that comprise them. They are somewhat abstract and we all react in different ways to different amounts and macros.

Firstly I'd start by getting a decent idea of your caloric needs. Figure out how many minutes/hours per day you're actually lifting as this can really skew gains/losses. Google 3 calorie calculators and average the amounts based on your actual exercise level.

As for fats and carbs. I'd say carbs to get most of your calories as long as your body is under a lot of demand for them in the gym. And make up the rest with protein first, then fats, small amounts mind you >20%. Fats and carbs don't play well together in most genetic makeups and fats influence body fat levels a lot.

If you're finding your carb and/or intake is giving you undesirable results, replace some or both of them with protein.

Remember, verses eating too little calories and triggering your bodies survival mode, it's better to over eat a bit and remove them with a bit of extra exercise! So it's best not to drop calories, and just add more exercise to compensate for miscalculations in calculators.

So let's say you're 130lbs, and the calorie calculators say you need 2,400 kcal, just random numbers here mind you. These are the macros you decide to start with.
25% Protein 500kcal from/4=150g Protein
60% Carbs 1440 from/4= 360g Carbs
15% Fat 360kcal from/9g=40

But you find that you're not using all those carbs and you're getting a bit of bad results. You'd start messing with the macros by moving some fat calories to carbs and/or protein, but not going under 10%, because I personally think it's a bit healthy. After that if you still see undesirable results, shift some carb calories to protein.

It's all about dialing it in and finding the macros that work for YOU.

Good luck. (:

At this point, you just need to eat, eat, and eat. Don't worry now about eating too many carbs or too much anything.

I just wanted to add a little. I know psychologically it's probably hard to think this way but your body needs much more fat. Usually the reason people are concerned about macronutrients is that they want to maintain or gain muscle without adding much fat. Your body could use much more fat though. I'd say have fun eating anything and everything you want for the next few weeks. Have a vegan milkshake every other day for the next two weeks! You do still want to eat some healthy foods like nuts, seeds, fruits, and veggies but you can have *anything* you want to add calories to your intake. And don't look in the mirror and judge how you look - people with eating disorders have inaccurate perceptions of their bodies. You have very nice skin and hair and with 20 to 30 more lbs would be truly stunning.

BTW, when I first saw the title of this thread, I thought "ED" meant erectile dysfunction!

I am sure you had No bad intentions, but you just made her feel like something is wrong with her.
Question is how one defines accurate perception. Our perception is subjective hence always relative to the perception of other people. It's effected by the culture you live in and by your values.

happyhealthyandveg You don't look too skinny to me. Maybe that's cause I'm more into Endurance sports.
As long as not going to the extreme unhealthy levels of fat. I think people should decide for themselves what's the amount of fat is right for them. Also it seems some people think being strong necessarily means you need huge muscles. I take guys like Bruce Lee as a good example for that. I mean give me his physique and especially skills and strength. I take it any day over having a massive body.
Good luck with your goal!!

I'm not sure which aspect of my post you're referring to but an eating disorder does qualify as something being wrong with her *condition* (not her as a human). It's pretty much common knowledge from any psychology textbook that people with eating disorders have inaccurate self-perceptions and I was trying to give useful advice rather than just make her feel good. I do apologize if I made the OP feel bad. She still looks attractive (though quite thin IMO) and like she has a lot going for her.

Edit: I feel I should add that it's not really my business to claim that the OP is underweight as long as she's happy with how she looks and her doctors say she's at a healthy weight. I may have made the faulty assumption that in her ED recovery, she still wanted or needed to gain weight. I do apologize.

Firstly, happyhealthyandveg you look amazing! What I wouldn't give to have your body.
Secondly, could you tell me specifically what you eat in a typical day to get your protein over 100grams? I struggle to even get to 100grams most of the time. Do you know how many calories you are consuming on any typical day?

Congrats on your triumphant win! Oh and a mighty big welcome to the forum might I add!

Pre morning run: Banana or other fruit
Post morning run: 1/2 scoop protein powder, 1 tbsp spirulina, 1/3 cup blueberries
Lunch: Tofu scramble (with spinach, mushrooms and nutritional yeast) over quinoa, lentils or a sweet potato
Snack: hummus with hemp seeds and raw veggies
Pre weights: Oatbran with 1/2 scoop of protein powder
Post weights: 1 scoop of protein powder
Dinner: Same as lunch usually, but with steamed broccoli or brussels sprouts

I use Plantfusion protein powder (:

I really try not to count anymore, I just kind of feel it out (:

this!

You already have great shoulders.

Just a quick comment if you don't mind.
There's no need to consume protein before the weights. Might be better to replace it with similar amount of carbs.