Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Here I am:



That was over about 2 years on a vegetarian diet (details http://nelliscarlet.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/im-a-vegetarian-and-i-want-to-lose-weightbuild-muscle-what-the-fuck-do-i-eat/ ) with mainly strength training and low-impact cardio since I'm rocking a really tight IT band on my left leg and it hurts like hell to run/jump/do anything fun. I started up a vegetarian fitness and beauty blog since so many people kept asking me about my training and non animal-tested/cruelty-free makeup and beauty. I've recently become hi-raw vegan and feel SO much better than I did eating all that dairy and egg! I'm still a newb to GF-veganism so any help/tips would be greatly appreciated!

Hi Nelliscarlet,

First, wow....you look fantastic. Well done. I'm a little bit envious of the men in Australia this morning.

Most of what is published or written about raw diets is utter fiction by people without real credentials or relevant educations.. A very well credentialed nutritionist (vegan ) who is very well respected in her field wrote a book on raw foodism called "Becoming Raw" ( by Brenda Davis R.D. ). That would be the book to read if you are interested in pursuing a raw vegan diet.

A number of people also feel that a while a high raw diet has a place as a short term restorative diet, it isn't the best diet for a permanent life time change. People can feel better after having gone raw partly due to what they cut out ( in your case dairy and eggs ) and the increased intake of produce ( raw or not ).

At some point in the future you might decide to simply become a vegan instead of being a raw vegan. You will probably feel and look just as good.

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That's fantasic help, thank you! I mainly went for raw because my previous meal plan had me eating so much soup, curry, cooked foods that i just felt so bogged down and sluggish, and I could almost feel all the nutrients being sapped out of my food! I find the hi-raw is making a huge difference to my fat loss, I've lost a kilo this week just from diet alone as I couldn't train last week. I will most likely find a happy medium between the two as you said, but I just feel so elated, similar to when I went vegetarian.

Hi, Nelli!

I agree about using the raw food diet as a targeted cleanse or cutting regimen. It's darned hard to keep up over time, especially as a bodybuilder. There just aren't enough calories. You have to eat your weight in food every day and half your life is spent in the kitchen doing food prep. Yawn. Plus, you have to be super cautious about getting enough vitamins and minerals; you can get anemic very quickly. As you can guess, I tried it for a while. I lost 30 pounds in two months but it stressed my body over time. I go back to it for a week every now and then to recenter myself after a bout of naughtiness but I wouldn't want to live there.

Baby Herc

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Wow thats a really incredible transformation, you look great. Keep up the good work.

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My goal is to become the biggest and best natural bodybuilder of all time, and I'm gonna do it vegan.

Don't be in a rush. Losing more than 1 - 2 pounds a week (the upper limit is for very large people ) increases the chances of losing more muscle while you lose fat. You do that too much and you end up "skinny fat" at your goal weight. Squish, soft, still looking fat, weaker, just lighter. If you are reducing make sure you get plenty of quality protein and exercise to reduce the amount of lean tissue lost.

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• Vegan Mock Meats At Subway? Make It Happen!
• Finding Reliable Vegan Nutrition Information

"The plural of anecdote is not data." (Roger Brinner)

beforewisdom is so right: slower is better. In addition to the points made above, a big one is that the equilibrium of your body will be thrown way out of whack. Sudden weight loss or gain jumbles your hormones, insulin sensitivity, immune system response, tissue inflammation, even the speed at which signals travel down the nerve pathways, which can really mess with you in the gym, not to mention everywhere else. The body responds to sudden changes as emergencies, and it works hard with everything it's got to get itself back to it's original state. It will, however, acknowledge something as a permanent change when it sees it happen gradually over time and has the opportunity to recalibrate itself to the new system.

Relax, enjoy the journey. It's a fun one.

Baby Herc

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Ahh good old "Skinny fat"... I know exactly what you mean. I was skinny fat in my late teens while I was working as a model, zero muscle tone, flabby jiggly arms, no butt, soft hips that spilled out the top of my jeans, despite being the lightest I have ever been. I'm trying to keep my protein up through nuts, soy, quinoa, Kapai Puku, protein powders when I train etc... does anyone have any suggestions? I can't help that weight loss, last week, it just happened. Perhaps it was water weight as I wasn't eating very well before hand?

Fantastic transformation...

Not to mention "The 80/10/10 Diet" by Douglas Graham. I would say that is the #1 go-to book for being successful with a raw vegan diet.

I know it's been a long time since you were in here, but I just saw your post and saw that you mentioned your IT band. I had really bad IT band problems. To the point where after a 2km run I walked with a limp for a week. I spent days researching what to do. Eventually I found somebody that said to try running on your forefoot. I bought some Newton running shoes, designed for this purpose, and I have never experienced IT band pain since!! It's unbelievable what that small change did to my life! I ran a marathon, yes a full length marathon, about 6 months after not being able to run more than 2km. Give it a try. I run with vibram fivefingers now since they're much cheaper and work just fine.

This needs to be a sticky comment at the top of the forum.

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Awesome work!

Keep up the amazing transformation!

-Robert

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