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Is it posible to do well as vegan without supplements?


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Hello!

 

I am elastic vegan about month. Elastic because sometimes there is no 100% vegan friendly meal in cafe, where i use to eat dinner between lectures.

So... i wanna start with fact, that i do not feel good in trainings. I am not weaker, but i feel weaker, it is more painful to do training. I feel tired. My body feels clumsy and weird - muscles doesn't work like before, its hard to describe, but now muscles working is more jerky - seems like ill get convulsions ( i remember the feeling when some years ago i used too much green tea and i got problems with muscle cramps). Sometimes my head aches a lil bit.

I don't use any supplements or soy products - and i really don't wanna use supplements, maybe soy products for a rare. I think i eat ok:

1)before morning exercises(running, or jumping with skipping rope + joint warming and little stretching): 1 glass water and 1 apple after

2) after morning exercises: full corn oat flakes or millet + sesame seeds+raisins+coconut milk or margarine, sometimes i add kites. (it can be about 100-150 grams oat flakes and i have no idea about all other)

3)eating at university cafe - it is various: ussualy salads, grains, legumes

4) apple or banana

5)salads depends on days and seasons (dills, basil, tomatoes, chives, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, celery, onions, rutabage, garlic, sorrel and so on...)

6) potatoes, grains ( rice, buckwheat, pearl barley, full corn pasta), legumes (beans and lentils).

7) it isn't strict eating time, i use to eat between meal time, or after that (ekological brown bread, peanuts, sometimes walnuts and almonds, sesame and sun-flower seeds, halva, dark chocolate, oranges, apples, bananas, raisins, dates, humos, cannabis sandwich spread etc...)

 

In holidays i eat a bit different, but its still something like that. And drinking - i drink water about 1,5-2,5l a day + 1 cup green tea+ 1-2 cups latvian herb teas.

 

i make attention to buy products without food fixings (e-stuffs), to don't buy GMO food. I live in Latvia, and i try to eat food what grows in my climate for most. I buy vegetables and fruits from local farmers mostly.I make attention to seasons, for example, in summer i eat more greens, tomatoes etc..., but in winter i focus on roots (carrots, celery etc..).

 

i train periodical - i know thats isn't good. I go in for fitness and parkour (for body it means something like gymnastics).

If i am not lazy Training is 6-7days a weak. I run or jump with skipping rope every day in the morning. 1day,3day, 5 day i go in for body building and 2-4-6-sometimes7day i go in for parkour.) After every training i go in for stretching for about 1 hour. For body-building training i pay about 1 hour, no more, but for parkour it depends from situation from 30 mins to 3hours.

 

I had no problem till i ate meat and dairy, but now i feel really clumsy. I didn't have problems with health, i felt good. I got a lil bit sick probably once a year. As i told it isn't like i am weaker, but i feel clumsy and tired. I even sleep more and can't get up for the morning exercises. I don't wanna say i feel really bad, i can study and use my brains, there is no problems in other ways. I wanna say my muscles feel weird and i need much more time to rest, especially my legs muscles always are sore, like just after training.

 

Could it be b12 deficient? but i doubt it can be so fast... What is your suggestions? Should i really take supplements? I just like to eat natural, i don't know will i believe that veganism is good for my body if i must use supplements.

 

Ill add photos to check my body last summer, when i wasn't vegan, there is no much difference from today:

http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/556/img2594g.jpg

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/657/imgp2341.jpg

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/1160/img2355p.jpg

 

P.S. I hope u can understand my English.

 

Respectfully,

Imants

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I would definitely recommend a B12 supplement. If you're not going to take it, I'd say you need to get some foods that you know are fortified with B12, often soy milk (or other types), some breads, yeast extract, some other breakfast cereals...

 

I'd say you don't need any other supplement for vitamins or minerals, since you can get those from plant foods. Regarding soy, it is a good source of protein, but if you don't want to have it, you don't need it specifically.

 

Regarding feeling weaker or slower recovery, maybe you could eat more? Seems like quite a low calorie diet that you are on. I wouldn't think it was B12 deficiency, since as far as I know your body can store B12 for quite a long time before it running out. If you are worried, you could get a blood test. But I think it makes more sense to just eat some fortified foods, or a supplement

 

You look in great shape!

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I would agree that you may need to up your calories or protein or both. It would be great if we had a side by side comparison of your diet before and after going (mostly) vegan. If you don't have a soy allergy and are just worried because of something you read, you might at least consider tempeh. Even the articles that disparage tofu usually admit that fermented soy products are good for you (phytates and lectins are mostly destroyed and digestibility is increased by fermenting). Soy is just a very easy and cheap protein source.'

 

You could also try adding a (rice or pea or hemp) protein shake.

 

Oh and definitely take B12. You can take a 1000 mcg dose (a tiny little pill) once a week and it should be enough to keep your levels up unless you have pernicious anemia.

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You can get biologically active B12 from chlorella which is not a supplement. But since very few tests have been conducted on humans, chlorella and B12 levels, I'd suggest you go for chlorella for a while and check if your B12 levels start going down.

 

It's not expensive to take blood samples and you'll be a lot happier when you know you're ok. It takes a year or two to get B12 deficiency so you can try chlorella without any other B12 source for months without problems.

 

The B12 analogues in spirulina ARE NOT absorbed by humans and eating spirulina won't get your B12 levels up.

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Wouldn't nutritional yeast work for B12?

 

by the by, I also agree with upping your calorie intake.

 

you can try taking some Vega. It is a whole food supplement. I don't like taking supplements either, but I am find with taking Vega. I do not know how you feel about that though.

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Wouldn't nutritional yeast work for B12?

It is quite unreliable source and I would not count on it.

 

I wouldn't rely entirely on b12 from nutritional yeast either. I don't think it's unreliable (as long as you're eating b12 fortified nutritional yeast), it's just fairly low in b12 in general. You'd have to eat a lot of it.

 

If you were for some reason avoiding supplements but were cool with fortified foods, you might be fine as long as you can get about 20 mcg a day from nutritional yeast/fortified vegan milks, chlorella etc. Nori/purple laver might be a source too: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11430774

 

It still makes the most sense to just take a cheap pill once a week to my mind.

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Hey, I herd that Dulse, spirlina, and Miso, and anything that is seaweed related have traces of B12, what do you guys think? is it good enough?

 

No.

 

According to Jack Norris, a registered dietitian and a cofounder of Vegan Outreach those foods just have chemicals that are similar to B-12, but are not or due to modern sanitary food production processes can't be relied upon as sources of B-12.

 

For one of the best guides you can ever find about B-12, you can read his article:

 

http://veganhealth.org/articles/vitaminb12

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Imants.

 

There are only a few things you need to be aware of on a plant based diet to stay healthy. However, there is a lot of confusion and BS on the web about nutrition.

 

I have a SHORT article on my blog about where to find the most verified vegan nutrition information from the most reliable sources. That article will help you get you to the TINY amount of reading you need to do fast.

 

http://beforewisdom.com/blog/?page_id=462

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Unless you are consuming well over the recommended amount because of fortified foods (like soy milk, which usually has B12 thrown in) then you really do need a supplement. I have heard of and seen too many vegan/vegetarians who have trouble after awhile because they developed pernicious anemia from lack of B12.

 

As for your other troubles, perhaps you simply aren't getting enough calories?

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