Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

ok thanks for the tips mate ill go and get some healthy peanut butter today! maybe and avacado or 2 like grangi said aswell! i didnt know that about vitamin c, thats on the shopping list too lol

weather sounds good down there mate, its not nice up here pouring with rain and windy.....pretty cold too!

just keep training and eating healthy and the impressiveness will follow

Am not again counting macro's myself Mike, counting calories in vs calories out is important only to a certain point. For pure fat loss (and muscle retention) Setting up the proper hormonal environment is imo the most important thing. When you do that, everything just fall's into place.

That's the same for me grangi71, I've always struggled to gain weight (currently 67kg at 5'11"), and when I made a conscious effort to try and hit 3000 calories a day whilst doing stronglifts I did gain weight, but mostly fat around my gut.

Since going vegan I've lost the fat around my gut, thankfully, but I still really struggle to put weight on and hit a decent amount of calories. I think that we share the same problem in that we're doing too much cardio, you on the bike, and me in crossfit classes, but to be honest I enjoy crossfit so much I wouldn't want to stop, and I think you and I probably just need to eat a lot more to compensate. Perhaps cut out one thing at a time from your diet and see if something is bloating you.

hey Rob, i dont know why ive just never been into counting the numbers, i just hate turning my meals into a maths class lol i know where iam with my eating now, as in im fairly lean and can maintain the little muscle i have......so just making small tweaks here and there like you suggest with the fats and so on and i should hopefully keep progressing.......thanks for your and everyone else who has posted in heres help its very much appreciated does eating fat actually help with lubrication of your joints like people say in your opinion Rob?

I agree with you...and I don't like to weigh the foods too!
I tried in the past but it was stressful, even if a I know a lot of guys that use the powermeter (i'm talking about training on the bike) to calculated the calories burned, and then take only those needed.

Not for me....

Yes, Omega 3 fats are great for the joints.
Vegan sources would be flaxseed oil, linseed oil and olive oil among others ( flaxseed would be the best one ).
One or two tablespoons a day should do the trick.

and it definitly wont be stored as fat on my body?

lol, sorry, i meant to say in that last post am not into counting calories myself Mike, i feel the same way about it as yourself. It my believe that those who take the time to weigh, cook and prepare several formal sit down meals a day, as well as counting every gram of this and that, these people are no longer treating food as a basic need, their treating it as a morbid obsession.

When am on my lunch breaks at work, there's a few groups of woman in the canteen who talk about nothing only slimming world and weight watchers, the weigh out everything, they count every "syn" or "point" or "calorie", they weigh themselves every week etc, they even have counters that count every step the take. Guess what, they've been doing this for years and their still overweight/obese. From an evolutionary pov, if counting calories in vs calories out was so important, we would never have made it as a species.

Yes good fats will help the joints, moreover they play many more important roles in our overall health, fats have been demonize in recent years, however without valid reason. There called essential fatty acids for good reason's:))

Hi Andi,

yes it's hard to gain weight( and muscle)!!

Starting from the bottom of your post, it's a good tip looking for that foods that can bloating me. Like pasta...even if I'm italian I dont' eat a lot of it, I prefer potatoes, spelt, barley, wild rice.
Maybe to much fruits? I eat a lot during the day, especially apple!

It is the same as protein. Protein is used by your body to build muscle, skin tissue, nails, hair etc. The excess is stored as fat(energy).
The fat you consume will be used to balance your hormones, digest vitamins, produce EPA and DHA(good for the joints and heart), etc.
The excess will be stored as fat!

That's the reason the recommendation is 1g/kg of bodyweight. Enough fat will even promote fat loss, because your hormonal levels will always be in balance.

ok thanks for that maybenot, ill incorporate some into my dietand see how i go maybe my joints will stop clicking so loudly now

Wow man, your log has turned into a nutrition lesson ha I love it! I'm a little confused about hiit, could you talk me through you're average session? Like rest time and other detailed stuff

yeh mate this place was crazy yesterday, good though i love chatting and learning from everyone!

my workouts are pretty simple really mate, and im keeping the reps quite high at the moment cuz i love the pump from it! i normally do a few sets of dumbell lateral raises and pec dec to start with just to warm up my shoulders a bit.

then i do :-
upright machine bench press
supported bent over rows (got a brilliant machine in the gym with a pad for your chest)
millitary press
cable tricep pressdowns
cable bicep curls (standing quite far back from the machine so the cable is on an angle and you get a much better contraction at the top)
leg press
leg extensions

thats the basic thing im doing at the moment, 1 do one warm up set on each then one all out set to total failure, like where you cannot move anything a single mm more, then i keep pushing till it feels like im about to die from the pain haha, then just enough rest between exercises to set up the next one and then off you go again...........sometimes ill do rest pause, for example go to total failure, then rest 10seconds and go again to failure. and sometimes ill do supersets by doing another exercise for the same muscle with no break...for example......do a set to failure on upright bench press then jump straight on the pec dec and go to failure again. i want to start doing some of the techniques that HITrob has been talking about like static holds and so on too it looks simple but if you go to absolute 100% failure it hurts and works .......

Mr Dorian Yates, doing some HIT training

recognisable

Good Stuff Mike:) Its always a good idea to Finnish a full body workout with legs since they take a lot out of ya when you start with them. I used to do something very similar myself, it was-

Incline Hammer Press or Machine Dips
Underhand Pulldown or Chest Supported Hammer Row Machine
Machine Lateral Raise (static hold or 1 1/4 reps)
Leg Press or Leg Extension / Curl combo)
Standing Calf Raise or Seated Calf Raise

Alternated the movements on each workout, no direct arm workout as the first two movements covered them, trained once every 4-5 days, worked really well. Wouldn't rule out training for periods that way again.