icarus0720au

We actually have a VBB lunch group in DC now that meets once a month. I think your visit might coincide with that lunch gathering!

If you have the option to pick up and move somewhere - I say go for it!!! Save a couple months rent and just book the flight. I'm tied down so it's not as easy for me - I'll live vicariously through you. I did the school thing and finished, but I really don't believe in what it is that I do... don't get me wrong - it's challenging and rewarding work, but my heart is elsewhere. Sadly, this is a fairly recent phenomenon in lots of places. Before our "time of plenty", people basically accepted that role in life and made the best of it. At least today we can question this and possibly do something about it. Best to notice what you've noticed now, and not 20 years down the road! Best of luck

Yeah, when I was marathon training I never EVER had any problems getting bigger and stronger legs... it was just the rest of me that wouldn't get any larger! Cutting out the cardio allowed me to put on the weight and muscle i needed... then i just picked up cardio again once i hit my target weight. I swear by this method... it's worked for me! ~ John

Just received my t-shirt today... going to wear it during tomorrow's workout. Will post a mission report when I return... I'm going in, cover me!

In my experience, I've never been able to mix cardio up with weight training. I'm not sure if it's my body type in particular, or whether this is more general but, whenever I did cardio and trained, I was never able to add any mass. I made that mistake for years - i figured it was genetics. But that was eons ago... A friend of mine told me to cut the cardio for about a month or so, and then start mixing things up again. I thought I'd give it a try. Results: In about 6 weeks, with some heavy and intense training, I put on 8-10lbs of lean muscle. I couldn't believe it! I went from 140lbs to 150lbs. After I hit 150 I started up with cardio again and managed not to lose any of the weight (muscle) I put on during that time. I'm now at 155 with 6-7% body fat, looking to get up to around 165-170 by the end of the year (170 is my upper, upper limit because it'll impact triathlon performance - and I have a weak knee from running). I'll likely get there by cutting out cardio for 3-4 weeks at a time, and then incorporate cardio back in... repeating until I hit my target weight. Cheers! ~ John

Really good question... I'd probably go with some expensive spices, cooking oils, olives, etc... all of which add to the cooking (and dining) experience. Just out of curiosity, what's everyone spend a week on their vegan groceries / produce? The minimum I'm spending is around $70 and that covers weekly fresh produce, canned beans, etc. When I have to re-stock on things (soy milk, some spices, whole wheat flour [vega and supplements not included]), I probably drop $150. All in all, I probably spend $360 a month on food, in the DC area, and that's just for ME. Maybe I eat too much. Vegan-Oink.

I'll probably go to check it out, even though Vega and VBB won't be there. I sent the Vega people an email the other day and they did say that they're trying to expand the market in the DC area. With any luck we'll be able to buy Vega directly off the shelves of our local organic market in the near future!

Welcome! Check out the DC-area discussion group in here... we've just started planning monthly get-togethers. I'm just across the wilson bridge, in dc ~ John (icarus)

hrm, maybe someone can head up writing a book or pdf or something on vegan bodybuilding. sounds like a project to me! it'd be fun though... and a learning experience

DarkFlames - Check out www.organicathlete.org -- they have a general sports nutrition guide there that might help you out a bit. It's free, and published by a reputable organization. ~~~~~~ Opinion time (for everyone else following this thread) - It's nice that we're trying to offer advice but I don't think we've helped "the cause" with our approach. The whole process of changing to a vegan diet really is stressful and at times overwhelming when you first start out. I think the best thing we could possibly do as a group, it to perhaps direct people to some basic books on amazon, or perhaps something like the sports nutrition and wellness guide on the www.organicathlete.org website. While this is a vegan forum per se, it'd be nice to be more welcoming to people without speaking from the pully-pulpit and possibly scaring them away. In the end, it's probably better to "recruit" someone to a vegetarian diet than it would be to sending them back to the omnivore world. Myself personally, it took me some 2 years to move to a mostly vegan diet, and even now I still have a couple of eggs every now and then (albeit, they're from happy chickens). From both a health and ethical perspective, that's got to be better than being a full omni. Yours Truly, ~ Icarus PS: Don't worry, be happy!

Refined is basically just stuff that is over-processed... maybe it was changed so that something valuable was taken out, or perhaps a chemical addition or alteration., just to make the food more attractive for people to eat. My rule of thumb is that if the food doesn't look like it grew that way in nature, i try to avoid it. Sometimes it's difficult to tell though (ie, white rice vs brown rice... they can come from the same plant but the white rice is refined in the sense that the outter shell was removed - the shell is a significant source of fiber).

Wow, and I thought my lesbian friends were militant! Good thing I don't post my diet online - my Sunday omlet with my parents would cause so much commotion we'd be talking about it for weeks on end! At any rate - Kudos to you for leading a more healthy lifestyle than most people. Being 16 years old, it's pretty cool that you're trying to endeavor to make some decisions early on in life that will have a huge payback down the road in terms of health, not to mention the ethical issues. Switching to a vegetarian and/or vegan lifestyle can be a challenge, especially if you weren't brought up that way. Keep up the good work, I'm sure you'll do fine!

Yeah, post the recipe when you have a chance. I've been making whole wheat cherry & walnut muffins as of late - it takes all of 25 minutes to throw the ingredients together and bake them... they're great when you're running out the door in the morning and need to scarf something down before your 6am workout.

More people in the DC area - how wonderful! I won't be able to make it to lunch tomorrow but, I'd love to meet up next time ya'll decide to get together. On an unrelated note - anyone from the DC area looking for someone to go cycling with on a regular basis? I live near 13th and U, in the district. Hit me up if you're interested!

These studies are so very hard to interpret; taking into account all of the variables at play is definitely tough, and it'll probably be awhile (if ever) before we really know what half the stuff we're eating (and don't know about) actually does to us. In changing to a vegetarian diet, I too was concerned about all of the "dangers lurking in soy" articles on the internet, and a book or two on amazon. Most of the publishers of the articles either weren't reliable, or their sponsors were from or sponsored by a competing industry (the cattlemen's association [aka big beef] used to refute the benefits of a vegetarian diet). So it's difficult to sift through a lot of the info out there given all of the special interests who stand to make a buck off of selling you their product(s). I've been doing the soy thing for years and am fit as a fiddle. A quick inventory reveals no boobs, shrinking (or newly appearing) appendages, or an imbalance in hormone levels. The fashion sense thing... yes, but that happened long before soy!