GRardB

I second this. Everything you need is in the food you eat (assuming it's the right food). Otherwise, our ancestors in the wild would've died out extremely quickly without their multi-vitamins, protein powders, omega-3 pills, creatine, etc. Also, protein/fat needs are pretty low, even when it comes to building muscle. Don't listen to the dairy/meat industry lies. Our ancestors ate meat and so got there omega 3s, b12s, proteins, creatines etc were the new age radicals who are choosing compassionate diets at the expense of what I lsited and so we need mutlivitamins, omega 3 pills but protein and creatine poweders arent neccesery unless you really need to build big muscle. Not true. The first humans probably didn't eat meat. It's not our instinct to know how to make spears, swords, or any other hunting weapon. Our bodies are not capable of hunting many animals without any kind of weapon, and our anatomy is that of a herbivore. The China Study shows that humans are healthier on a vegan diet, so why would we be omnivores? It makes no sense. My personal, logical belief is that humans can digest meat only for survival needs, if abundant vegetation isn't accessible. I don't believe it's healthy at all for those who have sufficient plant foods. Omega-3's are found in plant sources, and I believe they're overrated. They seem to be "in" right now because they're a relatively new discovery (I believe?), and people are now obsessing over getting it. B-12 is created by bacteria that grows on plants. How would meat (pigs, cows, chickens) get B-12 if it wasn't in the food they ate (especially cows, which are herbivores)? It's in plants, but our vegetables and fruits are washed so much that the B-12/bacteria is washed off the plants. Fortified foods give you more than enough B-12 in today's world (1 cup of Silk's soy milk contains 50% of the DV). I believe that everything you need is in the food you eat. Creatine certainly helps, but so do steroids. It's produced in our bodies already, and that's all we should get in my opinion. Protein is overrated and is found in most foods. Supplementation is unnecessary.

I've read the caffeine leads to loss in calcium (sort of like animal protein I guess?) Regardless, I'll never drink coffee (or not regularly) in my life. Same with alcohol. I just don't believe it's good for you. I don't drink tea either. I think it's overrated and most people brag about how healthy their tea is, even when they add tablespoon after tablespoon of sugar, or even milk, etc. in it. Water is the only thing I drink Soy milk for cereal, though.

I second this. Everything you need is in the food you eat (assuming it's the right food). Otherwise, our ancestors in the wild would've died out extremely quickly without their multi-vitamins, protein powders, omega-3 pills, creatine, etc. Also, protein/fat needs are pretty low, even when it comes to building muscle. Don't listen to the dairy/meat industry lies.

I'm not too comfortable with eating sugar in the first place, but I just wanted to know if white sugar with bone char was vegetarian because LOTS of things have sugar in them, especially in restaurants, etc. which is where my unhealthy food is eaten. The reason I'm a vegetarian is for health reasons, not really animal rights, although I'm glad that I can help as much as I do. (Non-vegan foods that I rarely eat are junk whether vegan or not {pizza, brownies, cookies, etc.}, which is the reason I'm not 100% vegan since it would be harder to eat out). I was talking about cane sugar used with bone char specifically, but your reply helped indirectly! I did a little research to look for PETA's list, but instead I found this: http://www.beansandgreens.net/index.php?/archives/32-Is-Domino-white-granulated-sugar-vegan-No..html They say that the bone char is not in the sugar itself and that the sugar technically contains no animal products. I know it's still not vegan, but at least I know I can eat it and still be a vegetarian. I still won't buy it though. RAW SUGAR ALL THE WAY! Thanks for the help, Gerard

I know that white sugar is made white by many companies using bone char, which means it's not vegan. My question is: is it vegetarian? By vegetarian, I mean is there any animal tissue or anything like that in the sugar after it is whitened. I ask because I'm not a vegan, and although my diet is 97+% vegan (especially at home), I want to know if it's not vegetarian to eat most things made with sugar for when I'm not at home. Domino sugar is made with bone char, and they're probably the most used (at least around where I live). I've tried researching, but I don't know. Thanks, Gerard

I wish I could've gotten rid of my sickness that easily lol. I didn't even feel it coming (it happened overnight). I don't like taking pills though 5-10 years?? O_O That's a long time (a long range too, though, lmao). Congratulations to you. I wonder if I could've gotten that high if I wasn't wet for so long :-\ Nah, I think I got sick because of the rain. My diet is pretty similar from day to day. I've ate nothing but healthy food when I got sick and it didn't go away very fast. It was strange. It seemed like instead of a sickness that lasted 2 days like a normal one would, but with harsh symptoms, my body spread out the symptoms over like 5 days. I didn't like it though lol.

Damn, Fallen Horse caught up to me! Now I've gotta take another video and see if I can do more than 11 haha. This is fun stuff.

lol, no offense taken. I can understand the anger. I never do them, I just tried them today. I'll make sure to keep this knowledge in mind and not do them again

I think I can do more than 10-11 now. Today I did 10 behind-the-neck. It actually didn't hurt my shoulders, although I don't think I should do them (except to impress people, which I did )

I second this. Best way to get your chest huge. lol, I usually do the main chest exercises, but I'm doing Bill Starr's 5x5 program, which only includes flat bench press. I've read that decline bench press (with DBs) works out the most tissues, but I dunno if it's true or not. Main chest exercises mentioned two sentences ago: Flat bench press Incline bench press Decline bench press Flyes I prefer dumbbells over barbells/machines. They hit the stabilizers better. Also, this was only when I did one muscle per day. If you're doing more than one, I would take 1 or 2 of the exercises out (or even 3, depending on the program you're following). Gerard

Ugh...I regret to admit/reveal to everyone that I'm sick. It's the first time in almost two years. I always told my non-vegetarian friends to eat vegetarian/vegan in order to prevent sickness. Now I'm sick. I hate this. I think it happened because I live in NJ (NY metropolitan area) and we recently had some CRAZY rain, which I got caught in with jean shorts that I wore (wet, not by choice) for HOURS. I'd say I had them on and they stayed wet for about 7 or more hours. The only thing I'm confused about is that it took about 2-3 days for me to get hit by whatever I have. Also, the sickness seems to not be very serious, just annoying. Every day I got a new symptom and lost the last one. First day, I had a sore throat. Next day, I had a congested nose. Next day (today), I was coughing in the morning, and now I have no voice (I'm not coughing now). No fever, no chills, no signs of weakness (heh, I benched 10lbs more than my bodyweight and did 10 behind-the-neck pullups today as a test). So, any thoughts? How often do you guys get sick, if ever, and from what? Does everyone get sick at some point, regardless of how healthy they are, or did I slip up? I'm not too happy about this. I feel like I've been defeated by a virus lol. Oh well, hopefully in 2 years I can boast again about not being sick for 2 years. Gerard

Yeah, I checked it out before. Looks like I should start getting some powdered ginger in my green smoothies

Same here. My gym has a few different types of dumbbells/weight plates. The lightest DBs to me are the ones with rubber coating. Same with the rubber coated weight plates. The "regular" dumbbells feel "regular" and there are other non-coated dumbbells (different look) that feel heavier than the "regular" ones. I don't understand it one bit. Although they all feel different, I think I get the same reps no matter what.

Anyone watch out for that kind of stuff? I was checking out Nutritiondata and I noticed Kale was strongly anti-inflammatory. I decided to check out other foods I ate, and it seemed like almost every other food that I ate was inflammatory (bananas, prunes, apricots, oats, bread [wheat], potatoes, yams, brown rice, etc.) Foods that I eat that are anti-inflammatory: Kale Carrots Onions Bell peppers Tomatoes Probably others, but I figured this was enough research The problem is that many of the inflammatory foods are either "moderately" or "highly" inflammatory, and most of the anti-inflammatory foods are "moderately" or "mildly" anti-inflammatory. Also, I tend to eat the inflammatory foods in larger amounts (as I'm sure many others do). Is this something to worry about, or is it a non-issue as long as you're eating healthy foods? Thanks, Gerard

I disagree. When I was much younger, I used to hate whole wheat bread. I ate 2-3 sandwiches with it and forced myself through them, because I was fat and needed to change my diet. After that, I didn't mind eating it, and eventually I started liking it much more than white bread. Anyway, the one food that I can't STAND is kale. I make smoothies with it since it's considered to be ultra-healthy, but I can't eat it by itself raw or cooked, or in anything other than a smoothie. I just hate it...

It's hard for me to eat 5-6 small meals a day, AND to eat 3 large meals a day. I feel like I do better on 5-6 large meals a day lmao. Then again, I'm 17. Although I'm not very good at keeping fat off me, so I try not to eat too much. I say do what makes your body feel the best.

How ironic. So the smart individuals who decide to stop eating what our bodies are not made to eat, become less intelligent after we stop eating meat? That explains why people on this board just aren't as smart as the average person on T-Nation or Bodybuilding.com forums. I'm gonna start eating meat again, that's it....

This is one of the reasons I dont eat much corn. It tastes good and although I wouldn't say it's extremely healthy, it's not bad for you. But this really pisses me off: http://sweetsurprise.com http://www.hfcsfacts.com I just saw two commercials on ABC Family about how High Fructose Corn Syrup is no worse for you than sugar (and they pointed to that first website). They say it's "natural" and is fine "in moderation." As far as I know from doing research on HFCS, the FDA has no real "definition" of the word "natural" and is wrongly applied to many unnatural foods, HFCS being one of them. You can't find that garbage in the forest, jungle, water, or ANYWHERE! It's unnaturally made. It's bad for you. Now I won't blame EVERYTHING on HFCS, but isn't a little strange that the U.S. consumes the most of it (mostly because we don't get any sugar from Cuba, and it's expensive otherwise) and we're the most obese country in the world? Obviously it also has a lot to do with meat, milk, etc. but HFCS definitely plays a role in it. There's probably no real point in posting this, since this isn't news to most of you. It just gets me mad when large corporations try to advertise food as being "not unhealthy" (not necessarily healthy) when in reality it is terrible for you. Any thoughts? Gerard

Vicious debate going on right now... Should probably be moved to the "Health and Nutrition Programs" forum though. Anyway, I'd like to add to the thread. I've spoken with Veganmaster through private mesages about his methods. I've also tried them out. They work. I am only 17 and I've never taken any kind of nutrition class, although I've spent way too many hours to count researching nutrition and taking my own stance on many different topics. It's one of my passions <3 On the other hand, I've also tried the "fat doesn't make you fat" approach. For bulking, I gained fat. It didn't work, and I'll be limiting my fat next time I'm bulking. I don't think my fat intake was extremely high. Did I get bigger and stronger? Yes, but I also gained a good amount of fat, which has made cutting season hell for me. When I first started cutting, I was eating about 10% fat. I lost fat quickly, and kept muscle. I then came to a halt. Then I started using veganmaster's advice (even less than 10% fat). I lost fat quickly, and again, kept muscle. Then it started to slow down and sort of halt (although this is most likely because I have been on vacation and it's hard to limit my fat and work out). It seems that both methods can work, although I believe veganmaster's approach not only makes more sense, but if you look back into our evolution, it's something we should probably be doing. Now I'm not sure about fasting for people trying to maintain their physique, but I'm doing it because I'm cutting. In regards to everything else, to me it makes sense that a very low fat diet is what's best for us. Why? Well every August I go to this amazing beach/forest (Lake Huron in Michigan, USA). If I step into that forest, it will be very hard for me to find something to eat that's fattening. I can find blueberries, and outside of August there are raspberries and strawberries. There are pine trees, but they do not produce pine nuts. Most areas of the world, as far as I know, don't have abundant amounts of natural fattening foods. Much of the fat that people eat today comes from oils, nuts/seeds, and fruits/veggies like avocados and coconuts. Avocados/coconuts are rare cases in my opinion and could bump a diet up to 10% fat, but not everybody in the world has vegetation with those characteristics. Nuts/seeds are a different issue though. Where can you find a huge amount of nuts/seeds anywhere in the world? Sure, we can find them, but probably not enough to make more than 10% fat or less in our diet. I believe that humans evolved eating mostly carbs. Plants have protein, so that's not an issue. Now I'm not stating any of this as irrefutable fact, and I'm not pretending to be an expert. I'm just [trying] to think logically about this topic and I'm throwing my ideas out there. Any thoughts? Gerard

I haven't read/bought the book. Should I? Chris says there's too much fat/sugar, and Fallen Horse says not enough protein. What are the numbers like? I'm curious to know about it. Thanks, Gerard P.S: I'm guessing the book talks only about vegan food? Is that correct?

I kinda sorta halfta disagree on this. It might not do much harm, but I do believe that 100% plants is the healthiest. Animal foods are bad for people. In my opinion, eating them "sometimes" means getting some negative effects. I also think it's a little unfair to use the oldest people ever as examples. The oldest woman ever (from what I've read) smoked for most of her life (literally). I think that those people are blessed with amazing genetics that allow them to live that long. "She reportedly attributed her longevity and relatively youthful appearance for her age to olive oil, which she said she poured on all her food and rubbed onto her skin, as well as a diet of port wine, and nearly 2 pounds of chocolate eaten every week. Jeanne Calment smoked until she was 117, and only quit when she could no longer see well enough to light the cigarettes." Just my two cents.

I admit that this thing just scared the hell out of me right now (well, not too much, I'm only 17 lmao). I guess since I'm still growing, growth hormones aren't TOO much of a problem. Regardless, I'm thinking of ditching my soy/gemma protein. Anyone know what I should eat after workouts? For cutting? Bulking? Gerard

I've read that the body can only absorb 50g of protein at once (200 calories from protein), give or take a few grams depending on the person. That's all I know regarding this topic. I don't know if anything more becomes fat or passes through the body. Interesting though.

Alright, so I have a video.... I'm not sure if you can call this 11, which would be 1 more than last time, because in the last one I don't think my chin technically reached the bar, and the video doesn't help me see it any better. It looks like 10.85 to me, but I'm posting the video regardless if it was still 10 or if I did 11. It was better than my last workout though, that's for sure! Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUNpz5A0D-Q At the time I'm writing this post, it's not "processed" yet, but I don't have time to sit and wait! Have fun Gerard