Fat is Fat?

Hey, could do with a bit of help here cause my brain is ready to explode!!! Prior to the bodybuilding I was veggie for about 15 yrs but for some ridiculous reason when I started bodybuilding I added chicken and eggs into my diet (methinks because I was listening to others instead of myself) Anyway, I've stopped eating meat and tried to follow a plant based diet but I'm really struggling with the training and recovery. I'm possibly not consuming enough food but the thing that's stopping me from jumping right in is............... FAT! Have I just been brainwashed with chicken and rice to stay lean? I mean surely you can't eat all those nuts and fruits etc to stay in shape, ha - I know I sound ridiculous but just need a fellow vegan to re-assure me (I've got a feeling i'm gonna get some abuse but honestly the volumes are so different and it really plays tricks on your mind) Go on, help a girl out

To lose body fat you need to expend more calories than you consume.

 

To grow muscle you need to overload the muscle with exercise, take in enough calories for the exercise, take in enough calories to fuel the cellular growth, get adequate sleep to allow the growth to happen and you need to take in enough protein.

 

It doesn't matter where you get your calories and protein from.

 

All else is commentary or bullshit.

 

Is fat, fat?

 

No.

 

Is a carb a carb? Is a slice of white bread or a soda the same as eating a sweet potato ?

 

There are healthy sources of fats and unhealthy ones.

 

Your chicken and eggs have a ton of saturated fat, the bad kind as well as all sorts of chemicals, pathogens and filth from the factory farms from where they came from.

To lose body fat you need to expend more calories than you consume.

 

This little fallacy needs to be retired along with other narrow minded gems like "No pain, no gain". It assumes that everybody perfectly absorbs and utilizes any and all digestible substances that they swallow and that simply isn't true. There are types of people who digest fats very quickly and actually need more of them in their diet to feel balanced, types who feel ill after eating very little fat at all, types who don't digest grains efficiently, types who need grains like air, and types who could live on a diet of mostly simple sugars and thrive. Body fat is a far more complex system than just calories consumed. Certain peoples of the world store and burn fat very differently according to the demands of their region; pregnant women's bodies go into fat storing overload to accumulate the needed supplies for gestation and breast feeding; and everybody stores fat differently on the time line of their life according to their waxing and waning hormone levels.

 

None of the above are diseases or dangerous health conditions, just normal people who tend this way or that way on the sliding scale of what it means to be human. So much research has been done on this but it is not widely disseminated because the giant food companies who usually foot the bill for marketing (Got milk?) only want the research to say that their product is what you can't live without. They don't want you to know that everyone's health is subtle and elegant, changing day to day and year to year. Want to change the fat distribution on your body? Get to know your mind and body first. (Start with your mind, you'll save time.) Yeah, it's a complex route but you only have to focus on yourself, not the whole world. Once you learn the language of your individual body, you'll only have one health news segment to monitor on a daily basis: yours.

 

Baby Herc

Get some good fats in your life. Try cooking with coconut oil. Here is healthy fats 101: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/115936.php

Get some good fats in your life. Try cooking with coconut oil.

Good link. I made the switch to coconut oil about 4 months ago and haven't looked back... it's great stuff.

coconut oil.

 

Just bought some more today! Num!

 

Baby Herc