Any vegan BBers ever try a KETOGENIC DIET?

[Gaia]

I am trying to convert the usual chicken breast with spinach salad, alternating with whey protein powder and peanut butter, into a vegan conversion.

 

So far, I am doing seiten instead of chicken breast (spinach salad is vegan), and pea protein instead of the whey protein (peanut butter is vegan too!).

 

The diet has 4 whole eggs in the morning, but I just used brown rice protein powder instead (Yuck!!!!!).

 

First day of it. Haven't worked out yet. Even though the brown rice protein powder was ghastly going down so early in the morning, it felt good while doing cardio this morning.

 

The spinach salad with seiten was weird to be eating it for breakfast (and after cardio), but I was full.

 

I just did the shake with the peanut butter, and my tummy isn't use to that either.

 

Just trying it out, and wanted to know if anybody has ever done it as a vegan?

[xjohanx]

for some reason the german vegan bbers are into the low carb thing more than the rest of us. they might have been inspired of this

Peronsally I'm all about the carbs and to me ketogenic diets seems to be most beneficial for people who don't want to train.

[damdaman]

Low/no-carb diets are really, really bad for you. Carbs are an essential nutrient, especially if you're training at all. Ketosis is a state of crisis that your body goes into to survive starvation, where your body actually starts to cannibalize its own organs and tissue. It is not a healthful state, it's a desperate state. In addition to the obvious lack of essential nutrients from such a diet, there is reason to believe that such diets lead to bone loss, kidney problems, liver problems, and a host of other ailments. Don't do it.

[Gaia]

Yes, ketogenic diets are bad for the body. Dieting down for a contest is not healthy! I only want to do it for at the most 4 weeks only.

Please answer only if you have tried the diet, and find that it worked for you for your comp (like any spilling over? thin skin? vascularity hinderance?).

[Im Your Man]

Is this a low fat diet too ? if not you can have scramble tofu to substitute the eggs. scramble tofu with turmeric, mustard, cornstarch or arrow-root and nutritional yeast... makes something identic to srambled egg.

[pazios2002]

for some reason the german vegan bbers are into the low carb thing more than the rest of us. they might have been inspired of this

Peronsally I'm all about the carbs and to me ketogenic diets seems to be most beneficial for people who don't want to train.

 

Ive heard of high protein diets effecting peoples thought process, but that was a funny clip. I know he was probably trying to find the english words for the german he wanted to use, but it was funny non the less.

 

thanks johan

[zinzen]

ketogenic in itself is a horrible word to do to your body. ketone bodys are produced when you burn fat too fast for the body to properly burn fat. it bonds to moliclues of fat together creating a ketone body, which throws of your Ph balance for one thing, and has many other horrid effects.

This happens to diabetics a lot since they cannot properly use glycogen as a fuel, and it contributes to diabetic coma.

This diet is only useful for fat people that dont train at all because the heath beniifits of ridding themselfs of obesity outweigh the negitive health of ketosis.

We who train need to use sugar for training, shit some body organs like your kidneys refuse to use any other energy source other then glycogen so trying to only use fat as energy taxes the hell out of the kidneys and these organs are also the largest contributer to keeping Ph balance in the body, so you can horribly mess yourself up with this "Adkins" type diet.

But to answer your question, no I aint ever tried this as a vegan.

I am not trying to be a smart ass with this post, I just want to use my knowledge properly and I hope this at least helps you look more thuroghly into the diet and the definition of ketogenic, which literally means Creation of Ketone bodies

[DV]

Not that Gaia needs me to explain anything for her, but she's a former and current bodybuilder. When you're bodybuilding, these type of diets are (currently) sort of the norm when cutting - as Gaia is currently doing. I believe that she was not vegan when she competed in the past and is trying some of the same techniques as a vegan. (Gaia, correct me if I'm wrong here). While many here might not try this type of diet, this is a bodybuilding site Gaia is an educated woman who does know the negative aspects of ketogenesis - but is willing to take the risk temporarily before competing.

 

Gaia, in the spring of this year, I did some moderate cutting and managed to get my carb intake down to about 80 gms per day with an intake of ~ 1700 calories.. I was using soy, pea and rice proteins as well as seitan and tofu. I used a small amount of berries in my morning smoothie but I had tofu and kale for more than a few breakfast meals. I ate a LOT of greens with seitan or tofu and flax oil. I was almost never hungry.

[zinzen]

Ah ok, well as I said before I just wanted to put it out there, and yeah this IS a bodybuilding site, but a lot of people that are not into bodybuilding and that are just learning get their info from this site, so I just wanted to post something and make sure noone was harming themselfs, its my bad to have posted it to such an experianced person, and I guess I will refrain from such in the future.

Tom

[Gaia]

Oh DV, well said. Yes, I am a Natty (natural BBer), but haven't competed as a vegan. I am just trying to experiment with my diet to let lose the bodyfat and get my skin thin and sucked to the muscles. I was able to diet down to a regular fit person, but now I have to go the extra 10 lbs off to be cut on stage. I diet for the last 4 weeks only pretty drastically. Trying to do it the healthiest way possible, knowing that my body snaps right back afterwards (too easily is another concern I will have to deal with this time ).

 

I am experimenting with the diet I had before for a comp, and it was basically chicken breast, salads/vegetables, and some brown rice. As a vegan, I need to replace mainly the chicken breasts. They are basically protein with fat (no carbs). I choose to have seiten to replace the chicken breast because I am allergic to soy. Unfortunately, seiten has for every 5 grams of protein a resulting 3 grams of carbs! but no fat. So there is still carbs in my diet. I have taken out the brown rice I use to have to compensate for the carbs in my seiten.

 

So the problem is that there is still carbs in the choices for my vegan diet. My pea protein powder has 4 grams of carbs to 25 grams of protein, and the brown rice protein powder has only 2 grams of carbs with 12 grams of protein, so I am low there with the protein powders. The peanut butter I am doing is 7 grams of protein, 7 grams of carbs, and 17 grams of fat, boosting my fat intake way up to compensate for the no fat in my seiten.

 

Can I even do a ketogenic diet? and not use soy products. I am thinking that maybe only with the protein powders is that possible (and still eat all my dark leafy greens and vegetables for fiber and nutrition). Protein fuel as I call the powders.

[beforewisdom]

Low carb and especially ketogenic diets have been proven to be very unhealthy. I lost 48 lbs last year eating lots of carbs. You don't need to harsh and artificial diets to control your weight.

[Im Your Man]

anyone noticed from the post here that the ketogenic diet is the ultimate proof that a carnivore diet is unhealty and degenerative ? it is a deprivation that leads to decay and slow death. Because all foods from the animal kingdom are poor in vitamins and minerals, have almost no carbs at all, etc. Therefore, a vegan ketogenic diet is almost like eating 100% carnivore.

 

This being said, I know that for only a few weeks it's not too bad.

Gaia, just a few words about some vegan products high in proteins but that hides carbs. The more processed, the more these carbs have the opposite effect that you want : high glycemic carbs like in TVP, and in seitan ( I think ?) will cause the body to produce more insulin (promoting fat storage) than fruits that have more sugars.

[Gaia]

I guess the answer is no.

Please do not continue this thread.

[xjohanx]

sorry that i'm continuing. When i was on a diet last spring i never aimed to eat a low carb diet but that's basically what happened. i never entered a ketogenic state but i ate about 80 grams of carbs per day. I was very low in energy but managed to work out almost every day plus a lot of slow cardio.

 

I ate oatmeal (about 35 gram of oats) with 50 grams of pea protein isolate

Fruit smoothie (mostly low calorie fruits like berries) with 30 grams of pea protein isolate

75 grams of TVP(dry weight) fried with veggies

7 grams of eaa

working out

30 grams of carbs

7 grams of eaa

75 grams of TVP(dry weight) fried with veggies

Protein shake (water and SPI) 50 grams

 

every 7th day i had a cheat day which meant huge amounts of carbs and everything else. i lost a lot of fat but also some muscle (more than i expected).

if i remember correctly you don't eat soy...a really good low carb recepie of seitan (that you probably already know) is found here http://veganyumyum.com/2008/07/tamarind-seitan-kabobs/ of course you shouldn't do that glazing.

and the SPI is just to replace with either more pea protein or another protein shake. you should also probably eat a lot more fat than i did, because my weight loss was way too fast. hope that was to some assistance and sorry for the rabbling earlier.

[xjohanx]

oh and just as a side note that you might already know. coconutmilk is really low carb (i discovered that last week) and i bet that can make the cooking a little bit more fun. seitan + veggies + coconutmilk can't really go wrong.

[Gaia]

Thanks for the suggestion of coconut milk!

I could swap out my peanut butter for the coconut milk for my fat content.

Fore go the rice, and just have curried vegetables and seiten!

[Fallen_Horse]

I would like to state that balance is key here. A keto diet is no more unhealthy than an 80/10/10 diet, or any super high carb diet. The body values balance, and neither of those diet styles are balanced...

[Im Your Man]

I would like to state that balance is key here. A keto diet is no more unhealthy than an 80/10/10 diet, or any super high carb diet. The body values balance, and neither of those diet styles are balanced...

oh really ?

Then explain to me why Brendan Brazier, Bradley Paul (I think it's his name, the cyclist from OrganicAthlete) are on these diets and performing extremely well. Their meals are like 15 bananas with nothing else or perhaps a handful of dates on top of that.

 

I'd like to find an althlete on the Ketogenic diet all year long performing as well.

 

You're right, the body values balance, because the Nature values balance. Look at the nutrient ratio of natural foods, most of them are high in carbs and low in proteins, often as much as 80/10/10. Many consider 10% proteins being too much. Human milk is less than that I think.

[Fallen_Horse]

Go to the keto section of bb.com, there are dozens (if not hundreds) of people on there with long term keto diets, and they are doing just fine.

 

Giving a few examples of people who can do well on a specific diet doesn't make that diet optimal...

[xjohanx]

as gaia and dv both said, this is not a discussion about health but a discussion how to get shredded. health and bodybuilding doesn't go hand in hand as often as many think.

Gaia, if you figure a good meal plan out please post it here. Not that I think people that have written in this thread would be intrested but a lot of people acctually asks about low carb diets on this forum. Maybe Robert could update the meal plan section with a keto diet. If you manage to do it without the soy it would be pretty easy to do it with it. Good luck.

[Gaia]

OK I might as well post it. It could be an interesting thread with all the feedback/flack I will get from it.

 

But I have a question. Is it the word KETOGENIC that is controversial? An example of eating only bananas and being an athlete (and naming endurance athletes as oppose to BBers) is OK for you to use? But if I say that I am eating mixed green salads with seiten, vegetables, EFA oil, peanut butter, and protein powder drinks (pea protein and brown rice protein), then how does that compare to eating just bananas?

 

And again, a BBer is a different kind of animal than an endurance athlete (for one example - BBers will only do cardio for cutting! biking for hours is not our favorite thing to do. Our favorite thing to do is lift heavy metal objects!).

[xjohanx]

I think it would be really really interesting. I could never think of a time when I would do a long term ketogenic diet. But when you want the skin to suck to your muscle it seems to be the only way. Last week/days of cútting before a contest is always keto right? Gaia, since you have some experience in bodybuilding and cutting I have to ask you, do you think vegans have an advantage when it comes to cutting sodium? I mean since plant foods are a lot lower in sodium than meat/dairy and so on.

[veggieprincess]

yes, I have tried that type of diet.

 

My additional suggestion would be to vary the protein powders for your proteins. Add in Hemp (subtract the fat from that meal when using Hemp).

 

There are others such as Artichoke Protein and Buckwheat Protein, but they may have some Soy Protein in their mix and you said your allergic, but maybe you'd do okay if its in a blend?? I dunno how allergic you are.

 

Also, are you adding a carb refeed? Try a carb refeed every 20th meal as well

[el_flaco]

health and bodybuilding doesn't go hand in hand as often as many think.

Agreed. Infact I'd say they're often in opposition, especially when it comes to competitive bodybuilding.

 

I think the ketogenic diets have become popular because the elite bodybuilders are almost forced into them. They have to put on so much mass in the off season to keep up with the standards before hitting their cutting phase. A combination of having little time to cut, a huge bodyweight and no aerobic capacity means that this extreme diet has become the only option. Sadly what the guys in the muscle comics do, the rest of us soon follow.

 

Whereas really for the rest of us there's nothing wrong with eating healthy, running a small calorie deficit, exercising and feeling good.

[Gaia]

Yes, I plan to do a carb refeed on Day 6, but that is 30 meals (I am on 5 meals a day). I am only on Day 3 of this diet (15 meals already). I will see how I am feeling on Day 5 (20 meals as you suggested) and maybe I will refeed then.

 

Is there a significance to the number of meals you specify?

 

I am on pea protein and brown rice protein for now. I was on hemp quite strictly for a couple of weeks, but then I noticed I wasn't um.....digesting it very well (going right thru if you know what I mean ) and it was starting to bind me up (even with the gallon of water a day I am drinking). I will do an internet search and find some more vegetable protein powders (they all taste so different when you only take them with water!).

 

I can have soy once a week (if I choose to, but I don't usually), but if I go the second day (or eat alot at one sitting) I bloat up like I am four months pregnant! And on a gallon of water a day, I feel like I am four months pregnant! Not worth it.