dtougas

This link has everything you ever wanted to know (and more) about what fuel you can burn in an alcohol stove: http://zenstoves.net/Fuels.htm#Alcohol

I am a big fan of alcohol stoves. They are simple, reliable, and can be really inexpensive, especially if you are willing to make your own. There are tons of plans online for various versions made out of all manner of soda cans and the like. Many people who do long thru-hikes (i.e. the Appalachian trail) use a simple home-made alcohol stove. If you don't feel confident making your own, there are several different brands of alcohol stoves on the market, one of my favorites being the sets (including stove, stand, windscreen, and pot) sold by Clikstand (http://www.clikstand.com). If you want any more info, let me know, I would be glad to help out in any way I can. If you haven't been there already, a great resource is the forums on backpackinglight.com.

For those of you who are into backpacking and hiking and are looking for some great trail food recipes, I am starting to compile a list on my website. If you have any ideas, suggestions, or recipes that you would like to share that would work for this kind of thing please let me know! We only have two recipes posted at the moment, but more are forthcoming as we get time to put them up. Also, they are gluten-free, which might be beneficial to some out there! The URL is here: http://www.adventureinprogress.com/backcountry-recipes

Hello veggiechik, welcome. For good information on how a vegan diet can help a whole bunch of different conditions, I love to point people to this page: http://www.drmcdougall.com/science/implications.html. It touches on almost everything, including IBS. Probably stuff you already know, but still good to read through. My wife and I have just started teaching a course which focuses on using a vegan diet to cure health issues. Sometimes the process of figuring out a health issue can involve quite a bit of sleuth work, but it's well worth it in the end. I was able to cure my eczema problems I had by moving to a vegan diet, as well as fine tuning my food preferences and our family's use of houshold products (detergents, etc.). I hope you get it figured out! If you need any assistance with this process, please ask, I love to help people work through this kind of stuff.

The results I get from mybodycomp.com are 9.45% and from Covert Bailey's formula, I get 11.8%. I know which one I like better sirdle, when you go to mybodycomp.com, login, click on "My Body", you should see a list of saved reports. Click on one of them to see your body composition. Does that work for you? I didn't have to pay anything to get this basic service for free. I would have to pay for anything else though...

Measuring with with a cloth tape is supposed to be very accurate (depending on the formula you use, and there are lots to choose from). Some formulas can be almost just as accurate as having it done in water. The mybodycomp.com formula measures all kinds of places on your body. Some of the areas measured are your wrist, ankle, and knee, which are used in the formula to determine the size and weight of your skeletal structure. When they take all those measurements together, along with your height and weight, they get a number for how dense your body is. The density is what determines how much fat you have. sirdle, I would be very interested in seeing the formula you have, and try it out. Would you mind posting it? I would like to find some formula that was reasonably accurate that I could do own without requiring a website.

A great site for measuring your body fat is http://www.mybodycomp.com. It's free, and all you need is a tape measure.

I got 1:37... and that killed!!! Ouch!

This one is by far my favorite, when he was a little younger... http://www.cbass.com/IMAGES/BB-C-abs.gif

Hey, A site you might be interested in looking at is this one: http://www.cbass.com This is Clarence Bass' site. This site has tons of great articles on how to balance weights and cardio to maximize the benifits of your time spent working out. I also bought a couple of his books, and I really like those too.

I eat a very low fat vegan diet. I am typically around the 8-10% fat range, although I do splurge from time to time. These are my thoughts based on my experience. - I eat 6 meals a day, eating every 2 - 3 hours. - I try to make them about equal quantity to keep blood sugar regulated. - If I get hungry before I eat, it is usually too late, and I pig out, so the trick for me has been to eat before I am hungry. - It takes a lot of planning and patience to pack food in advance of being away from home (I work at home too). I always pack a snack whenever I go out just in case. I also read somewhere that a good trick is to keep a stash of healthy snacks in the car, just in case. Dried fruit are good for this. - I don't know if you eat whole grains or not, but I find that the less refined the food, the longer it sustains me at the same calorie level. I think the fiber helps to slow the release of carbohydrates into your system, making them last longer. - Beans are also really good at packing in calories, plus all the fiber also makes them sustain your energy longer. - Fruit juice and dried fruit can also help to increase calories, but be careful, it is really easy to eat too much. Don't know if this helps or not, but it has been working good for me.

Ok, I know I said I was done... Well, but let me say this. I have had a hard time understanding the stance of ethical vegans for this reason. All of the impressions I have gotten from ethical vegans in the past has left me with the impression that under no circumstances can animal products be eaten as food. Now, I am hearing that there may be unusual cirumstances where it may be acceptable, i.e. "a struggle to survive". This is good, and I really appreciate an ethical vegan is willing to say it, because honestly, you are the first one that I have heard say that. I started being a vegan for health reasons, and I now also have many ethical reasons for being a vegan (which at this point revolve largley around the environmental, human impacts, and animal cruelty).

So, then, what you are suggesting, is that if lions were capable of making moral decisions, then they would choose not to eat meat? They would die, because their bodies are designed to eat meat. And if frogs had wings, the wouldn't bump their asses on the ground. Come on, guy. Even ignoring the hypothetical, that's a poor argument. Actually, what I thought was a poor argument was the fact that compassionategirl suggested that because animals could not make moral decisions, they killed. The point I was trying to make is that it is not always about making moral decisions, but about the design of nature. I couldn't agree more. Which is precisely why I specified "people that I come into contact with". Yes, there are people who live in climates that won't support plant life. The Inuits are a prime example; their diet is almost completely animal-based. Are they immoral? Not in my opinion. (And I'll leave it at that.) Ok, now I feel bit better. Someone has admitted that there might be a slight possibility that humans eating animals is not necessarily always an evil thing. I am going to sign off this discussion now. I think I have done enough damage to the "first impressions" the ethical vegans are getting of me . Maybe I should change my avatar, I think it is probably giving the wrong idea...

So, then, what you are suggesting, is that if lions were capable of making moral decisions, then they would choose not to eat meat? They would die, because their bodies are designed to eat meat. There are people on this planet who really don't have much choice. Take people who live in extreme climates, for example. I am not going to judge them and say that because they have to hunt some animals to be able to survive the winter, that they are somehow immoral. They have had no choice for centuries. Just because you have the privilege to live in a country where you can have anything you want, and can make the choice to live every day of your life as a vegan, does not mean that someone else who does not have that privelege is living a life of sin. I think that there is a certain design to nature, and some of that design involves creatures killing and eating meat. That may not be pleasant to think about, but I beleive it is true. I don't think that there are always moral issues at stake. I think the moral issues come into play when we look at cruelty, and exploitation, and excess and how it negatively affects the world around us. I may come across as a meat lover, but I am not, by far.

Animals kill each other. Therefore, animals are evil?

I completely agree, I hope my post did not come across otherwise. All I was trying to say is that I don't think that actual act of eating an animal product is evil. Just like eating chocolate, drinking coffee, or putting gas in the car isn't evil. They aren't things we need to live a healthful life. Yet when we get "addicted" to these things, they cause us as a society to do evil things when we get greedy and want lots of it for really cheap.

I am going to go out on a limb here, risking potential friends and credability, but I guess I am new here, so I don't really have any friends here yet to begin with but... I have to say, that from my perspective eating animal products is not in and of itself evil. Wether you believe in creation or evloution, there is nothing that says eating meat is evil. Take a look around you at the animal kingdom... it is very harsh, cruel, and full of suffering. Have you ever seen a cat play with a mouse, killing it slowly before it eats it? How about a boa constrictor slowly suffocating it's prey? There are many more examples that I can't think of at the moment. If you believe that we descended from primates, then you will also find that primates eat meat from time to time. (I come from a biblical perspective, but meat isn't explicity forbidden in the in the new testament either). Nature was designed to exist in a careful balance, with give and take, and some of that give and take means the giving/taking of life for survival. What I do believe is evil, or sinful, if I may, is greed. And that is where all of these problems with animals are stemming from. You never see an animal being greedy, they take what they need and that is all, no more and no less. That is where we fall down. We live lives of tremendous excess, and that is where the suffering of others is originating from. You cause as much harm to animals and the environment by putting a gallon of gas in your car as you do eating a burger. You ride a bike you say? Well, I wonder how much harm was caused by the manufacture of your bike. In fact, here we are discussing this on our computers... do you realize how much suffering, pollution and waste is caused by building a computer? Nobody is complaining here about computers being evil... I could go on and on, but the point I am trying to make is that no matter what we do, we will cause harm to other people, animals, and the environment in some way. What we need to do is learn how to live our lives just using what we need, and nothing more. Yes, we don't need meat to survive. But if you are stranded somewhere and a chicken happens to walk by, then I wouldn't think you would be wrong to kill it so you could feed your starving child. If, however, you are living "high on the hog" so to speak, and others are suffering because you demand sausage rather than otmeal for breakfast, then I think there is a problem there. In fact, there are lots of problems like that, and not just from eating animal products. These problems pretty much all stem from greed and excess. I consider myself a vegan (mostly, although I don't like all of the labels that can be attached to that), maybe you could call me a plant eater instead, because I might have a little turkey at thanksgiving. I think it is more important to focus on trying to live a life that is selfless, compassionate, and forgiving, rather than focus solely on the act of not eating animal products. What you will find is that you will most likely eat a lot less animal products (if any), have greater care for the environment, and generally make more informed choices because you will realize just how living your life day to day can have such a deep impact on so much of our world. Ok! Rant over!

I never do pull-ups, and I just tried and got 1 minute 7 seconds. I think I could do more, I will try again tomorrow. How do you have your hands when you do it? Palms facing towards you or away from you? Is one way harder? When I did it, I had my palms facing forwards.

I tell you, nothing was more difficult for us than getting pregnant and having kids on a plant based diet... and it had nothing to do with the actual diet itself. The biggest problem was everyones misconceptions about what we were doing. Everyone was questioning the wisdom of what we were doing. Friends and family thought we were mal-nourishing our kids by not feeding them milk. The doctors were worried because my wife didn't gain tons of fat like all those women who are on the SAD (Standard American Diet). There were many times (especially in the beginning while we were still learning, and didn't have the confidence in what we were doing) where we started second guessing ourselves, and wondering if we were doing the right thing. In the end, we stuck it through, and are very glad we did. My wife's pregnancies were amazing, and problem free. Are children were born a normal birth weight. As they are growing up, they are thriving. They are lean, healthy, and full of energy. I now would consider it mal-nourishment to feed my children anything else. It is, however, important that if you are going to eat a plant based diet, you really need to do it right, especially when pregnancy and children are involved. That means whole plant foods, as unrefinded as possible. If you just eat lots of tofu and white bread, while it might be vegan, it can still leave you as deficient in nutriens as the SAD, only without the animal products.

Well, I have been lurking around the site for the past few months, and finally decided to jump in. My name is Damien, I am a Canadian, currently living and working in Lewiston, Maine. I have been a vegan for about the last 5 years. My main reason for doing it was health. As a result of becoming a Vegan, and working through a lot of troubleshooting, I have managed to conquor my eczema, I lost 30 pounds of fat, and have greatly improved my health. I was competitive cycling for about two years, then quit in October of last year. I have always weight trained to some degree for the last 10 years or so, but when I quit cycling, I decided to become much more focused. I love it, and I am starting to see some good results, I have gained about 10 lbs of lean muscle in the last 6 months. I have a wife and three kids, all who are vegan as well. My youngest two have been that way since birth. My wife also followed a vegan diet through her last two pregnancies, and had great results. We are very committed to this lifestyle as a family, and believe that it is the key to optimum health. This January we taught a health course at our church that introduced people to a vegan diet. It was very well recieved, and we plan on doing more in the future. (our family website is at http://www.tougas.net) So, in summary, these are my basic philosophies: Training: - I am currently following a program similar to what Clarence Bass recommends in his book "Ripped 3", and I love it. It is based on the principle of periodization, and that really grooves with me because I am somewhat of a geek. - I have recently picked up jump rope for my higher intensity cardio, and I am really enjoying it. It gives great bang for a relatively short period of time. - I love walking, and try to get out for at least a half an hour every day. Diet: - We are currently following the recommendations of Dr. John McDougall. It is working great, and we love it. - All whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, no refined oils or fats. - No supplements, I like to get everything from my food. - I am not into high protein. Have you read T. Colin Campbells book The China Study? It has a few things to say about the problems with a high protein diet... Also, as a career, I am a Web Geek (i.e. Internet developer, systems administrator, etc.). I spend many long days in front of a keyboard. I like to attribute my lifestyle to the fact that I have not been having any problems like Carpal Tunnel or anything like that. (If you guys here on veganbodybuilding.com need some help with web stuff, please let me know, I would love to help out!) Anyways, I have probably said enough for now! Don't mean to talk your ear off!!! Talk to you later!