The PhytoAthlete

I was wondering the same thing, enjoy your postings.

If you decide not to compete again, I would suggest increasing your carbs and decreasing your protein. Using your plan of 224 carbs, 81 fat, 130 protein, you could do something like increasing your carbs by 50 grams and decreasing protein around 50 grams. This would give you a total of 274 carbs, 81 fat, 80 protein. This would make it a wash out for your total calories keeping you at 2145/day. And even at 130 lbs, you would still be getting 1.35 grams of protein per kg of body weight which should be plenty of protein to maintain your current muscle mass. This would put you diet at 51% carb, 34% fat and 15% protein. The increase in carbs could be accomplished by increasing your vegetables/fruit intake, preferrably vegetables. Do you like salads? Including atleast 1 salad a day including lettuce besides iceberg would be great. I am not sure how much protein you are getting from the protein powder, but you may could get enough decrease alone by cutting it out, which you mentioned you may do anyway. Otherwise, you may need to reduce the nuts a little, which would also decrease your fat intake at the same time, but since you would be at 34% fat, a decrease some there shouldn't be a problem. As far as your overall general health benefits, which I think are very important. This change would make life a little easier on your kidneys and increase your phytonutrient/antioxidant intake. How does this sound to you? Like was mentioned before, you need to find something you can live with long term. Good luck at the contest!

I agree with you that most people put way too much emphasis on protein. I do not supplement protein either, but still average 1g protein per kg of body weight(which i assume you meant kg instead of pounds) and I have also been able to maintain/increase muscle mass. But I eat a lot of beans/nuts/seeds besides vegetables/fruits. Generally fruit are the lowest in protein content. Do you have any idea how much protein you have been taking in on an average day and how much you will be when you switch to mainly only fruit intake? It would be interesting to know your protein intake and see how your muscle mass maintains/increases during the summer fruit months. This isn't intended to be a smartass comment or to demean you in any way. I am truly interested in seeing how this goes for you. Good luck.

You can definitely tell a difference in the two pictures, especially in the stomach area. What is your plan or theory to continue muscle building while on a fruitarian diet with no supplements?

I recently started using chlorella after reading about it in Brian Brazier's book "Thrive". I bought it from nuts.com and it is expensive. But I haven't taken enough of it long enough to give an opinion on it. I didn't really start taking it for the protein, although it does have 5.8 grams of protein in .4 oz, but rather for the detoxifying benefits.

The best I can describe is that the saw dust blew out in the exhaust. I think it's good we can share bike commuting stories. It helps fellow cyclists avoid some of the pitfalls of the daily grind. By any chance do you wear cycling goggles? I've been debating getting some. The pollen has been brutal. The "exhaust" you refer to is a tube that the shredded pieces of the wood are blown through. They should have been blowing those pieces into the back of a truck similar to a dump truck. If they weren't, I don't know how they could get away with blowing it directly into the street. Possibly it blew over the edges of the truck? I dunno, but if you see them doing it again and are not blowing it into a truck you should report them.(assuming this is in a city limits). Heck, you may could have sued them for your injuries/pain if they weren't doing this properly. I have worn goggles in the past when I did a lot of off road cycling, which are almost a must off road. Now I mainly ride the roads and only wear shaded ones in the summer if the sun is bright. And yes, the pollen is unreal this year. Pollen normally never bothers me, but it is causing havoc with me this year, mainly with my sinuses and throat. No problems with my eyes, but if it is bothering your eyes, maybe goggles would help with that.

This is crazy! What in the world, were they just blowing the chips into the road? They should be putting the shredded chips into a truck and removing it. Or maybe it blew out of the truck? Regardless, that is a freak thing. As a fellow bicyclist I know how it can be, the weirdest things you wouldn't think of normally being a problem can be a big problem on a bike. Glad you wasn't seriously hurt.

This one is quite funny actually because people who eat more vegetables and fruit have more color in their skin. The phytonutrients in the vegetables/fruit actually go into your skin. A good way to test your phytonutrients body levels is to test the amounts in your skin and there is actually a machine to test this. So next time somone says something so stupid to you, try to educate them on the truth of the matter, nicely if you can. (i know after awhile it gets hard to be to nice to some of these people)

Yes, I have in the past, several years ago back around 2002-03 range. Your avatar picture just kind of looked familiar so I thought maybe I had seen you at one of the NASA events.

What amazes me a lot in people is the changes in their face. Congrats.

I was recently told about this product by a friend. I have never used it but he likes it a lot. It doesn't have any stevia in it like some of the Vega products do. http://www.gardenoflife.com/ProductsforLife/SUPPLEMENTS/FoundationalNutrition/RAWProtein/tabid/1894/Default.aspx

Have you ever been to any NASA meets in North Carolina?

I was thinking something similar to what mythil wrote about. For people who are eating very unhealthy before their change such feelings can be attributed to "toxic withdrawal". Which is basically your body coming off of the unhealthy sometimes addictive foods and going through withdrawal symptons, similar to a drug addict or alcoholic coming off their addictions.(but not to this extreme). But it doesn't sound like you gave up that many foods from how you was previously eating to cause too much toxic withdrawal but you still may have been experiencing a mild amount of it. You mentioned giving up cheese, any other foods you quit?

Yes, he did great. He appears to have put on little more muscle and his cardio is great. He is a great ambassador for what eating healthy can do for an athlete. Congrats to Mac!

So you have decreased your total amount of protein it sounds likes compared to what you used to do. Your total protein intake sounds good, you still weigh around 170? If I am understanding you correctly, you are getting around 65g protein from optimizer/plus and around 20 more from the food you eat?

Have you ever heard of the Gerson Institute? I do not agree with the everything they advocate, such as the coffee enemas. But they are very high on juicing and even suggest 13 specific juices you should use.(i don't know what those 13 are). They also claim the type of juicer you use is important. I do not know anymore about their therapy than what is on their website and can't vouch for it's effectiveness. But most of their suggestions sound reasonable. Here is a link to their site http://gerson.org/gerpress/ EDIT-----upon further research apparently Gerson does not recommend eating mushrooms, berries or flax seed, which I would disagree with. I think their recommendations have not changed with the new research. So my main focus on mentioning Gerson is the juicing program really.

I can see a big difference in your size. Very good improvements in just 2 months, nice going. How much protein are you consuming now?

Oh yeah, the lemon juice is great as well. Lemons are the most phytonutrient rich fruit. Do you ever do any juicing with vegetables? This is a way to get even a more concentrated form of phytonutrients than the smoothies.

It sounds like you are eating pretty good. I really like the green smoothies you are doing. They are good for anyone but especially important for someone battling cancer. They give you a very high concentration of phytonutrients to help fight the cancer. And glad you are eating the leafy vegetables so much. All vegetables are important of course but the cruciferous vegetables have been found to be the most important in fighting cancer. I see you are eating onions which is good, it was recently discovered that they help fight cancer too. What about mushrooms, do you eat them? Mushrooms were found to help cancer as well recently. I think you mentioned once your sugar levels were high. Not sure if that continues to be a problem, but regardless do you eat wild(black) rice? Brown rice is good, but wild rice has almost half the glycemic load as brown rice. I garden as well and like you I love it. It is a great release and very relaxing and I would recommend it to everyone. There is just something about planting something as a seed and watching it grow and eventually reaping the benefits of your work. It teaches that work pays off in the end if you are patient. I think more children should be exposed to gardening. Keep up your fight!

Skateboarding, that's cool! I assume that is you in your avatar pic. You just don't look like the typical skateboarder that I usually see!

I have enjoyed reading your log Ironsmith. I wish you the best. You have mentioned your vegan diet a few times throughout this thread, but you haven't really went into a lot of detail on exactly what you are eating. (unless I missed it). Could you give a little more detail on your typical daily intake? What kinds of vegetables are you mainly eating?

Besides lifting and running, I also swim, bicycle, and heavy bag.

Sounds like you are doing great Andrea, keep it up! And that is really cool about your father, it is always great to see family members become interested in living healthier.

Very interesting information, thanks for posting.

Yes, that would be great if you could Mufflon. I didn't realize it was in his Eat For Health book.