Thankfully, that isn’t necessarily the case. There are too many misconceptions about bodybuilding and plant-based foods. For years, people in the industry have been stereotyped as heavy meat-eaters, suggesting that’s the only way to reach your gain goals. But, you don’t need to chow down on chicken breast and fish every day to get the protein you need. 

Whether you’re following a vegan lifestyle or just trying to cut back on your meat consumption, there are plenty of plant-based foods that will not only give you the protein needed to reach your goals but can also improve your overall nutrition and health. 

Not sure where to get started? Let’s dive into how you can make a plant-based diet work for you and how you can fuel your body properly through every bodybuilding workout as you start to see the results you want.

Do Your Research on Plant Protein

The average bodybuilder needs protein in the amount of anywhere from 0.63 to 0.77 grams of protein per pound of body weight each day, and that’s without attempting to gain muscle mass. While it’s easy to throw back vegan protein shakes, those can get old very quickly. It’s usually better to get your nutritional needs from real, whole foods anyway. Thankfully, there are plenty of high-protein plant-based options to choose from, including:

• Beans;
• Legumes;
• Nut butters;
• Quinoa;
• Peas;
• Soy products.

Nowadays, because so many people are following a vegan diet, meat alternatives are more popular than ever. If you’re craving the taste of real meat, consider options like Impossible ground beef. These substitutes allow you to make your favorite dishes and enjoy some familiar flavors without giving up on your plant-based diet. The Impossible burger contains 19 grams of protein — the same amount you would find in a patty of 80/20 ground beef. It’s also loaded with vitamins and minerals like iron, calcium, phosphorus, and B12, which can improve your overall health as you work toward your goals. Sometimes many meat alternatives can also include ‘unhealthy’ ingredients, so be sure to check the ingredient list and try not to consume them too often. There are other fabulous products like Just Egg made from mung beans, which are are rich in potassium, magnesium and dietary fiber.

Focus on Whole-body Nutrition

Speaking of improving your health, it should be your top priority as you work toward your fitness goals. There are plenty of unhealthy ways to achieve big gains, but you’re not going to be doing your body any long-term favors. Instead, focus on changing or adapting your diet to fit your overall health needs. 

That starts with fueling yourself properly before and after workouts. On a plant-based diet for workouts, you should focus on consuming whole grains, dark leafy greens, and high-carb fruits before a workout, and recover with some hummus and raw vegetables or a smoothie filled with greens. Getting the right vitamins and minerals will help to boost your immune system and keep you healthy from the inside out. 

It’s also important to cut out or limit certain foods, not just when you’re trying to cut weight, but for your general well-being. Alcohol, for example, can make it harder to reach your bodybuilding goals. Alcohol negatively affects your body by impeding your metabolism, which can make it harder to cut. It also breaks down protein faster than your body can make it. While having a drink now and then isn’t the end of the world, consider cutting back if you’ve hit a plateau or you’re not feeling as great as you know you could be.

Keep Up Your Energy

You might think it would be difficult to keep up your energy levels on a plant-based diet, but it doesn’t have to be. Again, focusing on whole-body nutrition is the key, but there are a few “extra” things you can do if you’re feeling sluggish during your workouts or on your recovery days. Some of the best ways to keep up your energy include: 

• Managing your stress levels.
• Staying hydrated.
• Avoiding too much caffeine.
• Taking supplements.
• Spending time outside.

By making these things part of your daily routine, you won’t just have an easier time reaching your goals, you’ll feel better throughout the day. As a bodybuilder, it’s far too easy to get into “funks” or hit ruts in your routine. That can lead to a lack of motivation, which can slow down your progress.

Keeping up your energy levels and striking a healthy balance between life and your time in the gym will make a big difference in how you feel and how motivated you are to reach your goals. 

The bottom line? Don’t believe the myths or give in to the stereotypes. There’s no reason you can’t be a vegetarian or vegan bodybuilder and achieve just as much success as your meat-eating competitors. By focusing on getting the right amount of plant protein and maintaining a healthy diet and routine, you can reach your goals (and beyond) and feel good about the lifestyle choices you’re making for yourself every day.

Author bio

Katie Brenneman is a passionate writer specializing in lifestyle, mental health, education, and fitness-related content. When she isn’t writing, you can find her with her nose buried in a book or hiking with her dog, Charlie. To connect with Katie, you can follow her on Twitter.

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Post workout pleasure with @carishmabasday loving her Dutch Cocoa Vegan Shake ? #slenderyou #Weightloss #HealthyLifestyle #Vegan #Healthybody #Healthymind #Bodygoals #fitnessmotivation #fitspo #leaner #healthier #naturally

A post shared by Slender You (@slenderyoushake) on Mar 7, 2018 at 11:13pm PST

The vegan shake is a dairy free, lactose free, gluten free, GMO and soy free protein shake, which has no added colorants or artificial sweeteners, so its about as natural a supplement as you are going to get! This review is mainly done on the protein powder, but I will have a very brief look at the fat burner and the carb blocker.

One thing to start with, is that I love simplicity and love the fact that the names of the supplements are straight to the point with no marketing gimmicks in their names. They pretty much tell you exactly what they are, e.g. Fat Burner, is a fat burner. These days so many supplements have some crazy name ( I know it helps with the marketing and all that but I guess I just hate having to figure out what exactly it is with all the extravagant names out there).

Flavors and Sizes

The vegan protein is available in 1.2 kgs and in two flavours, namely Naturally flavoured and Dutch Cocoa.

Mixes

The protein powder is really fine and smooth, and mixes well with no lumps or bubbles at all. I shook it a few times in the shaker and it was well mixed, with both water and Almond milk.

Taste

In terms of the taste, I may be a little biased here (away from supplements) since I haven’t used any shakes for some time now, so the taste did take some getting used to for me, as would any protein supplement’s taste, as I find they all have a similar taste texture.

I also wasn’t sure what to expect with a vegan shake, wondering how the taste would compare to the milk based shakes such as Whey. I was pleasantly surprised and the chocolate flavour did well, although I think I tasted a hint of peas in the aftertaste, but that could just be in my head.

Slender You uses Stevia in their shakes, which I think is a lot better than using the more artificial sugars.

I am also not much of a fan of drinking my calories so I tried out a simple vegan recipe for protein pancakes, using the protein powder, and to me that tasted great. So going forward I will probably do that rather than drink it. A great alternative if you don’t quite enjoy the taste of supplements.

Protein content

This is the part that I was most concerned with, the PROTEIN and nutritional values.

Slender You’s vegan protein is made from non-GMO pea protein isolate. Just one source of protein which is great, rather than some blend of low quality sources.

It has quite an impressive nutritional profile, carrying 78 grams of protein per 100 grams of powder!
Per serving (3 scoops = 40 grams) it comes down to 31 grams of protein.

Extra Nutritional values

The extra nutritional values in vegan protein is just as important as the protein content.

The carbohydrate content is just 4 grams per 100 gram serving, the same as the fat content.

Also included in the ingredients is a blend of various vitamins and minerals as well as Guarana extract (22% caffeine) and green tea extract.

Affordability

The 1.2 kg tub costs R329.00 giving you 30 servings per tub, that’s just over R10 per shake!

You can purchase their vegan protein at selected Chrome shops, as well as online at their website and they deliver all over South Africa, and they have free shipping on orders over R400.

Final Thoughts

All in all this is a great vegan protein shake with everything that you need, and what I really liked about it is that it is a lot more natural in terms of its ingredients. One thing I would love to see on their website though, is the nutritional values of each product and the listed ingredients. It’s something I always look at when buying any food item and more so a supplement to know exactly what is in them and in what quantities, before I buy them.

Slender you looks like a great supplement company and they have a number of different vegan products in addition to their range. They also offer ‘packages’ where you can purchase a package of supplements together, which works out cheaper than buying them individually.

Fat burner and carb blocker

The fat burner and carb blocker are also vegan and soy free supplements, using a vegetable capsule shell for the outer capsules.

The fat burner also contains more natural ‘thermogenic’ ingredients such as L-Carnitine, Green tea extract, Guarana extract, Alpha lipoic acid, Rasberry keytones and Cayenne pepper extract. The purpose of these simply, is to give you more energy and in turn raise your bodies temperature in order to allow you to burn more calories.

 

The carb blocker’s main ingredients are White Kidney Bean extract and Garcinia Cambogia. They are meant to inhibit starches/sugar from being stored by blocking a key enzyme called amylase, so that the sugar will be passed through your body naturally to reduce the calorific impact.

Check out the recipe video above if you would like to see more of their nutritional profiles.

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• For health reasons
• To prevent cruelty to animals
• To be more environmentally friendly
• For religious purposes

We are all free to do what we want and what we think is best for ourselves, and thus this article is just to shed some light on the thinking behind why someone may choose to follow a plant based diet.

There are many health benefits of eating organic and natural plant based foods and there have been many studies done to show this. It shouldn’t be hard to understand why it would be beneficial health wise.

Many people do not understand it and see vegans/vegetarians as crazy activists always protesting something somewhere and judging everyone who eats meat. It has become a stereotype and quite a generalization like many other things in society. Another aspect of it is the question of obtaining enough protein and other nutrients from only a plant based diet.

To clear this up straight away, there are many plants and vegetarian foods that contain plenty of protein to choose from. You just have to do your research and find out. 

The topic of whether killing animals is right or wrong can be argued by many, I will leave this up to you to decide. The other point, of animal cruelty is one that should be addressed though and at the very least shown, especially now with the internet and social media making it a whole lot easier to access things like this. Many of us are mostly unaware (sometimes not by our own choice either) of what goes on in slaughter houses, and how the animals are treated and bred in extremely harsh conditions for the sole purpose of human consumption. If we have been brought up in a society that eats meat without question, usually we will not question much either and also may think it is necessary for us to do so, and since we do not see the real behind the scenes, who can blame us. 

It’s very easy for us to never actually see what goes on as we go to the grocery store and pick up the meat never knowing what went into it or how it came to be there. It is one thing if we are stuck in the bush somewhere and need to kill to survive, but the way slaughter houses and and the system is set up, it is all for pleasure and really has nothing to do with survival.

There’s a level of hypocrisy that some people exhibit on this subject though. Some people get angry when they hear of people serving specific meats, such as dog meat or whale/dolphin meat for instance, and how they slaughtered those animals in certain countries, or when some animal gets shot by hunters many people get upset and voice their concerns for the specific animals over social media (granted all these things are terrible and should not be supported).

But then they will continue to eat meat and wear fur etc. and not blink an eye. At least be uniform in everything you do, being supportive of one animal or one life versus another, how do you determine this? Why is it ok to mistreat certain animals like cows or chickens and kill and eat them, but then it is beyond terrible when say dogs are killed for their meat? Just something to think about.

Is it because we have grown up within a society where dogs are seen as pets and cows are seen as food? What if a child had been brought up raising a calf as a pet, what would you tell that child when he/she objects the killing of his/her pet? 

The same can be said for animals in captivity. Many people may not know about what goes on to get all the animals in zoos and aquariums. I used to think all those animals were harmed animals who had been rescued and continuously cared for. Unfortunately this is really not the case. Many of those animals were explicitly and violently caught and taken away from their families and their natural environment and put into cages, tanks and small enclosures to serve and entertain humans doing the same thing day in and day out. Their conditions are terrible and most of these animals can become depressed and quite sad. All in the name of making money, the animals are exploited for greed, and made to perform mundane and repetitive ‘tricks or acts’. Though, people justify it and cover it up portraying the animals as happy and enjoying themselves. In some cases it is also done to show humans as the most dominant species.

What if, just what if, there exists another species within the universe, with far more advanced technologies than us, that comes to earth and does exactly what people do to the animals (just because they are the dominant species of course). What then? What would we say then?

I am not trying to convince you to become vegan, but what I do hope is that through this article and the videos below, you are able to become more open minded in every aspect of life, and learn to question everything in life and not do things just because they have always been done a certain way or because society says it is ok.

A more effective way, is to understand the philosophy of life and what you believe is your philosophy of life. For instance if you believe in karma then you know that every action has a reaction, but that’s for another post

Are you thinking about going vegetarian or vegan? Or just thinking of reducing your meat consumption but need a more concrete logical reason to do so. Well here are some great videos which you really should watch to get you informed in order to help you make a better more informed decision. Hopefully they can answer many of the questions you may have.

The Best Speech You Will Ever Hear by Gary Yourofsky

The Fur Industry in 60 Seconds Flat

Vegan Gains, Like My Dog Fur?

The Truth About Your Food with FOOD, INC

Blackfish Official Trailer

The Cove Trailer

Jon Venus, A GUIDE TO VEGAN BODYBUILDING

Sadhguru, The Power to choose

Vegan Gains, Can You Get Through One Day As A Vegan?

Vegan Gains, But Animals Kill Other Animals!

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For the shoots I wanted to be lean, vascular and full, but not as lean as I would need to be for a fitness/bodybuilding competition. So if I had planned to compete in such a competition I would probably have needed to extend the preparation a few weeks to get a lot more shredded and lose that last bit of fat around the lower abs (which is always the last bit of fat to go for me :/ ).

In this post (Part 1) I will cover the background, my diet, what I ate and how I manipulated my calories as well as the overall strategy. In Part 2 I will cover the training and cardio and the final week leading up to the shoots as well as a bit of information on carb cycling that I did.

A little history:

Some time ago I was lucky enough to compete in a few bodybuilding shows, and throughout the preparation I managed to learn quite a bit about leaning down and shedding body fat. I was not vegetarian then and really focused on, and put a lot of emphasis on protein consumption during that time.

When preparing for a competition (or when wanting to lose body fat), my basic approach has always been very simple:

• Step 1: Clean up the diet and become consistent every day.
  I cut out any junk and extra food such as take aways, eating out etc. and had a fixed meal schedule. I also made sure to have the same portion sizes, meal frequency and mostly the same foods everyday, keeping protein the same throughout and not decreasing it.
• Step 2: Keep the training consistent, keeping relatively heavy weights and add in one session of HIIT cardio per week.
• Step 3: After 2 weeks add in another 1 or 2 HIIT sessions.
• Step 4: Check body fat levels every week. If they are reducing gradually then don’t change anything. If body fat doesn’t seem to reduce then decrease a portion of the carbs from one meal.
  Repeat step 4 a few times week after week.
• Step 5: Add in another HIIT session or increase intensity of existing sessions.

While it is a very basic approach it did the job and worked well. I also included some carb cycling about 2 – 3 weeks before the competition but more on that later.

Since becoming vegetarian I have not worried much about protein and focused more on total calories and I have realised we don’t really need as much protein as we think, even as bodybuilders. We also should not fear the elusive carbs!

My one concern with trying to lean down while on a vegan diet was the process of manipulating carbohydrates and isolating protein, since many vegetables that I eat and that contain protein also contain significant carbohydrates such as lentils or beans or oats. Thus this aspect was the main part of the preparation that I wanted to experiment with and see what I would do.

I followed the basic approach as before (as above) starting with Step 1 to Step 3. I had mostly been training in calisthenics with not a lot of weights, so I started to include a lot more weight training and muscle isolation training into my workouts.

An outline of the diet I followed is below:

Full Vegan diet:

• Meal 1: 120 grams Oats, 1 banana
• Meal 2: 1 Apple, 200 grams Rice, 150 grams Chick peas/butter beans
• Meal 3: 1 Apple, Peanut butter sandwich X 2

Training: +- 2 – 3 hours.

• Meal 4: 200 grams Sweet potato, 200 grams Green lentils, Green salad
• Late night Snack: 1 tbsp peanut butter.

I had been following a rough version of the above meal plan for a few months before I started the prep, although I was not very strict, allowing myself to eat out or eat other foods as I felt I wanted to. When the prep started and I cut out all the extra ‘junk’ and the above diet was the foundation of what I followed and ate.

It is not a lot of total calories but it worked for me, though I probably could have added in a few more calories. I used no supplements and also had one cheat meal once a week, which really helped.

Adjustments

I followed this diet for about three weeks before I had to adjust anything, losing about +- 0.4 Kgs per week. The side by side images within this article are in chronological (from top to bottom and left to right) order to show the gradual process and small changes as the weeks went by. In most of the pictures I was quite flat due to the lower calories but once I raised the calories slightly, the muscle fullness started to come.

• The first adjustment I made was to reduce the amount of carbs in meal 3 from 2 peanut butter sandwiches down to 1. ( I also do not like eating a lot before training so this was great)
• The second adjustment was in Meal 2 from 200 grams rice down to 150 grams rice.
• The third adjustment was in Meal 4 from 200 grams Sweet potato down to 150 grams.
• The fourth adjustment I made was in Meal 4 from 200 grams Green lentils to 160 grams green lentils.

So you can see the changes were very small and nothing too extravagant. Each adjustment was made after a week where no or very little fat loss was made. So over the period of about 2 months I only lost +- 4 Kgs, which was roughly what I wanted to lose. I was more concerned about the way I looked rather than what the scale showed.

As I said, since becoming vegetarian I have not focused so much on protein intake (nor do I monitor calories really, it’s mostly done in my head) as I did before and through this experience I realised that all that needs to be done is to just focus on quality natural foods and manipulate the direct sources of carbohydrates. Don’t worry about cutting all carbs or trying to keep protein extremely high, focus slightly on each macronutrient but be more concerned with overall calories and quality foods. Simplicity always works best so remember to not complicate your life!

 

A video posted by fitnish.com (@fitnish) on Jan 8, 2017 at 6:59am PST

In part two I will briefly cover more on my training and cardio and the final week leading up to the shoot as well as what I did for the carb cycling Some photos from some of the shoots can be seen on our Flickr account below.

I have also decided to give Intermittent Fasting a try, and I will do a write up about my experiences with it soon.

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