Kickin11

If you eat enough protein from whole foods during the rest of the day I'm sure 1 after workout is fine. I just have a hard time with my appetite, and I'm trying to bulk, so I use more shakes to get a decent amount of calories from protein.

I'll see what I can do. I made pizza tonight so I made the sauce out of fresh tomatoes and added roasted bell peppers, artichokes, sundried tomatoes, and eggplant as toppings. My shakes also have about 4 fruits in them total along with soy/rice/almond milk. I could eat half of the pizza and was able to drink about 12 ounces of shake. My problem is I would have a hard time drinking the shake and then eating the pizza, or just eating a lot more pizza, and that's how it is most of the day. I was thinking how full I was eating the last bite of pizza but was able to down the shake no problem a minute later. So without the shakes following most of my meals I wouldn't be able to get enough calories. Usually I do have more veggies I guess the menu I listed was a low day, the day before I had broccoli, carrot, and tofu stir fry and tonight a veggie pizza. Lunch today was a bean and rice burrito with avocado, cucumbers, and olives. I really do want to try to switch to more whole foods but it will probably be gradual since it seems difficult for me to eat a lot of real food. I think it might be due to my initial diet change a month ago and I was eating much smaller portions so my stomach must have shrunk. Thanks for the advice and I"ll keep it all in mind!

Ok I'll definitely try to get some flax seed oil next time I'm out shopping. I guess I'd prefer not to have so many supplements (shakes) but I find them much easier to take in. I actually made a blueberrie / spinach / almond milk / protein / olive oil shake last night and it looked horrible, but I was able to drink it. Also, while I enjoy eating stuff like soba noodles, hummus, or lentils more than the shakes, I get kinda sick trying to eat 600 calories worth of them whereas a shake I can just down it. I might try to reduce my meals from 6 to 4 and see if I can increase my capacity per meal. I think that will make things feel a lot less like work. I spend a ridiculous amount of time preparing and eating food it seems

I became vegan around 5 or 6 weeks ago and around that same time I started running a lot and lifting again as well. 2 weeks ago I stepped on a scale and found I'd lost over 10 pounds. I'm 5'8" and 155 now, I know the weight loss was because of the increase in cardio and poorly planned diet. I have a super fast metabolism and was probably only getting around 1500-1800 calories each day (if that) and almost all whole foods, fruits, veggies, etc. Went from 80% meat diet to healthy vegan diet. I'll try to get some pics up soon, I consider myself in good shape just upset that I lost so much weight. So for the past week or so I've been trying to hit somewhere near 3,000 calories and it has been really hard. I was basing this off of some sites I read and trying to get about a 4 carb, 3 prot, 3 fat ratio for my calories. Here was today's food. A note about the shakes: I make 2 full blender's full of shakes each day, one in the morning and one after work. Total they equal 6 scoops of protein, 2 cups soy milk, 2 cups almond milk, 2 bananas, 2 peaches, some olive oil, and some water. The shakes make enough to fill about 6 x 16 ounce water bottles. I also drink quite a bit of water throughout the day. 6:30am Soymilk + cereal Protein shake 9:30am Peanut Butter + Jelly sandwich Protein shake 12:30 Lentils and brown rice curry Some corn chips Gatorade 3:30 Protein shake 6:30 Lentil curry Potatoes Protein shake 9:30 Protein shake Actually calculating everything today was my best day as far as calories and protein probably since I usually get way under my 35% calories from protein goal. I just get so damn full trying to eat this much I usually make it closer to 2300-2500 calorie wise. Today I added stuff like the corn chips and gatorade where I might exclude the chips and have some more water instead of gatorade. Sorry for the long post but here are my questions... 1. Any critiques on the diet? 2. Is it ok to add a little bit of junk food like the 2 items above to help pad my calories? 3. I'm finding it a little tough to keep eating this much so often, any tips? When I was eating meat I could throw down a bagel w/ ham and cream cheese for breakfast, 12" steak and cheese with fries for lunch, and a large portion of meat and some type of side no problem, no idea how many calories or ratio of macronutrients. Now I have trouble eating a decent size portion of something like pasta or lentils perhaps because it isn't as tasty or the volume is so great.