The PhytoAthlete

I have been a vegan for about 2 months and recently began working out with a trainer. I am a 5'9'' female... He wants me to eat 1300 calories per day, 110 g of protein, 50 g of carbs, 25 g of fat. Is this healthy? At this point, I can't even imagine how I can do it - it seems to be very hard to stay under 50 g carbs while also getting enough protein from whole foods, and I have been taking protein powder. I am not sure he knows much about vegan diets, but apparently I don't either, and I am trying to figure out if I need to modify his suggestions or not. Any reactions or suggestions? Thanks!

How much do you weigh?

The breakdown on your pro, carbs and fat does not come out to 1300 calories, only 865 calories. That can be figured by---protein and carbs equal roughly 4 calories per gram and fat is 9 calories per gram.

But regardless, yeah the 50g carbs seems very low.

This appears to be your first post here, welcome to the forum.

Welcome, congrats on your past weight loss.

I have no problem maintaining muscle mass. I actually put on some muscle year or so back and wasn't even trying and my protein intake is on the low side at only 1 gram per kg of body weight.

Your friend who was eating 80g protein a day, how much does he weigh?

Sure.

I have some info. about my workouts on my site under the "about me" section. But I have adjusted that slightly a few months back(i need to update it on the site) after reading info. from a marthoner/triathlete who found that actually doing less has helped him, mainly by doing less exercise with his heart rate above 130 beats per minute. He recommended only getting your heart rate above that once a week and only for a 30 minute time frame mainly with interval training.

I also read an interview where olympic swimmer Dara Torres was doing a similar thing in her workouts leading up to the recent olympics. She said she was swimming as good as ever at 45 yrs of age. Although, she just missed making the team this year.

I used to do intervals in my 1x/wk bike ride every time and my heavybag workout, getting my heart rate to the 150-160 range for 30 minutes. Now, I just do intervals in one of those exercises a week and keep my heart rate below 130 in the other, I rotate this between the two workouts. I also am doing little less band workout and doing one more shorter (1 hr) bike ride a week since I am in town little more right now and able to get the bike ride in.(i normally work out of town all week).

Thanks for checking out my site.

They may not be having problems now, but it may effect their health long term. For more info. on this, you can check out Dr. Fuhrman's book "Super Immunity", he discusses how too much exercising can effect your health in the book.

So if I understand correctly, you worked out for 3 hrs yesterday, in what sounds like pretty intense workout the entire time?

If so, I hate to be the one who suggest to someone to workout less, even if you feel you are capable of doing it, but I would think about doing less. Long term, this many hours exercising is probably not the best option for your health. By this I am referrring to your total hours per week working out if you are doing 3 hrs a day, doing a 3 hr. workout once a week or so isn't a big deal if your total hours per week doesn't get too high.

Sometimes your body will hit a plateu during weight loss, where you may stay at for awhile then start losing again. So unless you really want to lose the weight in a hurry I would be patient and concentrate on eating healthy.

At 1100 calories a day and 130 grams of protein and 12 grams of fat, you are getting 520 calories from protein and 108 from fat, that puts your percentages at 47% protein and 10% fat. So I think you are already consuming a high protein low fat diet.

I personally think at 107 lbs. your protein intake is too high. I think 105 grams would be plenty and even little lower if you wanted. 10% fat for the exercising you are doing is low in my opinion, unless you are trying to lose fat for an upcoming bodybuilding meet.

If you lower your protein to 105 grams, that is 100 less calories from protein and puts you at 38% protein. I would make up that difference in the calories(100)with fat, which would be 11 more grams of fat a day, which would get your fat percentage to 19%.

Of course, percentages can vary depending on what you wanting to accomplish and what works best for you.

I certainly don't think that is too little. Everybody is different and you got to figure out what works for you.

Exercising does put stress on the body and causes free radicals to form and over training can cause harm to the body, and not the just the short term tiredness you may feel but long term can put you at higher risk of various diseases. I don't think you are that point right now as far as possibly causing problems down the road, but if you are feeling tired you may want to shorten your work out times are take few more days off. Sometimes it takes awhile for over training to catch up with you and to start feeling the effects, maybe that is what is happening to you now.

Welcome.

Sorry to hear of the lose of your friend.

Yeah, it is weird sometimes who have heart attacks. I think there is much more the medical field does not know or understand about cardiovasular problems.

Welcome Cheryl,

Since you are continuing to further you education in plant based nutrition, you may want to look at Dr. Fuhrman's program as well. You can find more info. about it at http://www.nutritionaleducation.com/

Welcome to the forum.

I quickly looked at your website. Based on what I seen there about what you are eating and I believe you are consuming protein powder as well, I think you can get enough protein without the egg whites. Although, to be sure, you would need to keep up with your protein intake for week or so to see exactly where you are at.

A multi-vitamin would be good.

How is your diet?

I have never heard of overtraining causing wt. gain or effecting the thyroid, but maybe it is possible. Or you could have thyroid issues from another cause, have you had your thyroid checked?

If your thyroid is ok and you gain weight that quick/easily just from not exercising daily then I would think it is something in your diet that is causing the wt. gain.

What do you eat on an average/typical day?

Really pathetic isn't it.

Yeah, I think this is similar to our discussion about the USDA and dairy.

I think it is good when public figure/politicians type people bring up the need to eat healthy. But at the same time it is a little scary, especially if they ever try to start mandating anything, because many of the govt. recommendations aren't good.

Welcome and congrats on giving up meat and dairy products, your body and health will thank you for it.

Your diet looks decent and you are getting in your protein sources for the muscle mass you want to gain. Maybe try some nut butters, fruit/vegetable smoothies with ground nuts/seeds in them and maybe try some wild rice along with the brown rice.

Remember to eat a good variety of fruits/vegetables, getting in different colors, the different colors represent different phytonutrients.

="blabbate VBB is also way too credulous and anti-science at times. Too much holistic crap and anecdotes, not enough real, verifiable evidence.

All I can say is this hasn't been my personal experience, actually just the opposite. I haven't been on VF in a long time after I was treated rudely by many there including some moderators. They point blank told me that they didn't care about their health and that wasn't what veganism was all about. I understand that many, maybe most(?) vegans become vegans for other reasons besides health, which is fine. But if that is the case, then why put "fitness" and "health" in the title of their website.

Maybe, I wasn't around long enough and missed some of their discussions on science since I was hated on from the get go over there.

I don't intend to turn this thread into a flame war between VF and VBB and highjack the thread from the original topic. So to contribute to the thread topic, for what it's worth, even Dr.Fuhrman, who bases everything he believes on the available science, is leary of fluoride and I don't think he uses it personally.

I agree, Kale is one of the best foods you can eat, along with other leafy cruciferous vegetables such as collards, turnip greens, mustard greens, spinach, cabbage, bok choy, darker green lettuces, and swiss chard.

Everyone should eat atleast one serving of a leafy green daily, at a minimum, but more is better.

Welcome back.

All the sudden I know what they mean over at Vegan Fitness when they say "take it to VBB."

Wow, I was a little surprised to see this. From my experience, the folks here at VBB are much more open minded and less confrontinal and MUCH MORE concerned about fitness, health and nutrition than over there. Actually, some there admitted they had no concern about their health at all. Really, I am not sure why they even have the words "fitness" and "healthy" in their title/subtitle.

Sorry, I don't mean to bash other vegan websites on here. But if they are saying to "take it to VBB" sounds like the bashing has already been going on. I would say if someone wanted to learn more about health to bring it to VBB.

I don't guess they are technically a dried fruit? but I recently ate some Turkish Figs that were superb and the best tasting natural sweet fruit I have tasted.

Can you give the name of this alternative doctor?

Welcome to the forum.

Glad to see you have been eating some leafy vegetables last two days, that would be my biggest suggestion, is to try to increase your vegetable intake some, especially cruciferous vegetables.

Good luck in your training.