hey ho from Brighton...

A newb... looking for some solidarity and grounding. Day-to-day life makes reality far too abstract for my liking... A community would give me the slap around the chops required. RR

Hi RR what are your goals in the training sphere? - getting into condition is a great goal, if you need the odd 'virtual slap' to keep you on course, then you've come to the right place ← that's me in 'slap practice' with a med ball

Looking for some guidance on the supplement side... tried pea isolate and hemp and brown rice... but i long for the days when i could chug down a whey shake and it didnt taste like death.

Also, maybe some nutritional info... i.e if your training (weights 4 times a week + cardio 3x) what levels of other vits and minerals does my vergan body require.

I've been vegan for over two years and i feel superb... but i'm not seeing the growth as before... just want to make the most of my hard work really... ideally i'd like not to take any supplements at all... just a great diet!

RR

One point is growth does slow down as you advance (obviously), but you may have some nutritional issues or it may be your training or recovery plans? For the shakes flavouring might be an option for you to think about if you hate the taste of shakes. Many people have personal choices, taste isn't really an issue for me I'll chug down whatever I feel I need to, but I know many feel the need for flavouring of their shakes - from simply adding a banana or berries to some flavoured powder there are tons of options available to you.
To be honest it's impossible to quote 1 figure that will cover your nutritional needs in terms of vitamins & minerals as people are all unique & have unique goals. What I can do is go through a few ideas I've found helpful to many vegans (& many meat eaters too actually in a lot of these):


Eat dark green leafy veggies as often as you can - you can also add stuff like spirulina or greens plus into your shakes for extra nutrition, but those are EXTRA still add in the daily greens leafy veggies. Vary your leafy green intake. Leafy greens contain a lot of your daily magnesium, potassium & calcium that will really supercharge your growth potential, so you don't waste your time in the gym.

Eat whole foods as much as possible as these have the most natural make-up of nutrients, steer clear of white flour, white sugar & processed fats (still eat other fats like olive & other cold pressed oils) as much as you can.

I tend to add a couple of brazil nuts daily as they contain a lot of trace minerals (selenium being the most well known).

Seaweed - I try to have daily, either a seaweed wrap or 1/4 of a teaspoon of kelp powder everyday is enough to get you iodine & other minerals

B12 take this daily. I know you don't need to for 'health', but you're going for maximum growth & B12 is vital for maximum growth. I know many meat eating bodybuilders who inject large amounts of B12 regularly, it's actually fairly common practice. You don't need to inject, but take it daily to help maximise results.

Flax seeds - grind up 2 tablespoons a day & add it to your morning shake, sprinkle into cooked porridge, add to cereal or just add to fruit juice, soya milk or water & chug it. It's best to take first thing AM. The best way to grind it is to buy a cheap coffee grinder & grind fresh each day (which takes seconds), you could also use hemp seeds or even walnuts if you preferred, you are after the omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids (in the form of ALA in this case), getting this first thing will start the day right.

DHA - above you saw ALA was an omega-3 fatty acid, well there are other forms that ALA breaks down to. There has been the idea that maybe not enough ALA can be broken down to DHA by everyone. As far as I know there has been no research on the ALA to DHA conversion done on athletes, so to be extra safe I do suggest a DHA supplement (get DHA from algae, not from fish oil). It may be overkill, but for me the risk of decreased performance Vs the cost of buying made this a worthwhile investment for me. Take DHA pills later in the day than taking the ALA, so you get maximum conversion b the body of ALA to DHA first then just 'top up' with the pill.

If you have joint issues take glucosamine HCl & MSM (& drink enough water!)

If you do like detoxing or similar that use Milk Thistle then stop right now - milk thistle inhibits androgen receptors (these are the so called 'maleness' receptors, which even for women are used to implement muscle growth amongst other things), so you can't grow as much muscle. You also dilute the IGF-1 signalling system, so you release less IGF-1 into the body than you should be (a major signalling system for increased muscle growth). Add these together & this spells a double whammy for muscle growth. If you need liver support or are using as part of a detox I now suggest resveratrol as that has been shown to increase liver regeneration as well as being an antioxidant. It 'may' also increase lifespan, but most studies (done on various animals & insects) appear to show that it might have to be taken from birth to be effective in life extension..but it is a really effective antioxidant & liver repair assistant (although it costs quite a bit). Go for 99% pure.

The most simple thing you can do if you are not growing (after taking B12 & EFA's which are both vital) is to eat more! Most people fail to grow because they fail to realise that as they get bigger they need to eat more to keep on growing. Add to that the fact that a vegan diet tends to be less calorifically dense (that is you need more food to get the same calories) then you need to be eating quite a bit more as you grow to keep the growth going. If you only eat 3 times a day, then add in 2 or 3 snacks between those feeds (it can be a sandwich, a shake, some nuts, whatever). If you eat 5 or 6 times everyday then try adding in a little more to each meal, like a few extra nuts, have a meal with a protein shake (or even just soya milk), just slowly add to what you eat - just like with weights you should be slowly progressing, so say today you lift 100 pounds for 10 reps & next week you lift 110 pounds for 10 reps, so with eating today you might need 4,000 calories to grow, but next month the slightly bigger, slightly stronger you might need 4,200 calories to grow. Think about it, it makes sense. ...Oh yea & a little about fat, yes you will add fat,. OK Mr '1 in 1 million' might be able to add muscle & lose fat, but the chances are you are not them, so some fat gain is to be expected. Bear this in mind. To gain muscle takes years, to lose fat can take weeks. providing you are under 40 you can easily spend a year adding mass (mainly muscle, but a little fat), then take a few weeks to slice off that fat, then bulk again for another year (or even longer time frames some people have bulked for years, then cut successfully). Just keep in your cardio to keep the heart functioning correctly.

Post workout nutrition - you should be getting some protein down you straight after training. Most people still believe that some carbs are useful after training although this isn't universally accepted, so bear that in mind. I tend to go the middle way & add a little fruit to my after training shake, maybe a banana or some other fruit. But everyone agrees that protein is needed (I also add a green powder just to get those antioxidants working on recovery as soon as possible).

That's about it off the top of my head. If you have anything specific about diet or training then let me know

All in pdf format so you'll need to download acrobat reader to view:

You can get our guide to nutrition here

You can get beginners bodybuilding here

This is superb Pete. I really appreciate the time... You obviously give a lot of time and thought to your training regime...

I found the info on B12 and calories most enlightening. I had no clue B12s had such a positive affect on growth.

Thanks again... to the health store i go! I'm going to need a second kitchen!!!

RR

Keep us up to date on how you get on.

By the way some stuff is cheaper online than at the local health food store. B12 is dirt cheap anywhere, but some other things tend to be cheaper from the internet.

The above is good advice.

Quote :

Seaweed - I try to have daily, either a seaweed wrap or 1/4 of a teaspoon of kelp powder everyday is enough to get you iodine & other minerals

I assume a 'seaweed wrap' is like a bread probably tortilla like, I should have looked into that last week. I've bought raw seaweed before, dried is often very salty, I don't know if that is too salty. Of course, that's clear, iodine.

Seaweed bread too, from the web looks like a real winner, I'll check around for that.

Quote :

If you do like detoxing or similar that use Milk Thistle then stop right now - milk thistle inhibits androgen receptors (these are the so called 'maleness' receptors, which even for women are used to implement muscle growth amongst other things), so you can't grow as much muscle. You also dilute the IGF-1 signalling system, so you release less IGF-1 into the body than you should be (a major signalling system for increased muscle growth). Add these together & this spells a double whammy for muscle growth. If you need liver support or are using as part of a detox I now suggest resveratrol as that has been shown to increase liver regeneration as well as being an antioxidant. It 'may' also increase lifespan, but most studies (done on various animals & insects) appear to show that it might have to be taken from birth to be effective in life extension..but it is a really effective antioxidant & liver repair assistant (although it costs quite a bit). Go for 99% pure.

Interesting notes on 'milk thistle', Rock Star drinks have 'milk thistle' though I have not had one of those for quite some time. I had a bottle of 'Silymarin' Milk Thistle extract.

"Resveratrol", you say expensive but it looks like I saw some supplements that are at a reasonable price. Again, everyone should read up, I get quite a few internet hits on this.

Seaweed wraps (sometimes called 'sheets') are kind of like if you imagine a sheet of very rough paper (like what sushi comes wrapped in).
I found a picture online here you go:

Now that you show that, I have seen those big sheets of sea weed before.

I once heard a little of how they fix them in Korea.

I venture, you would soak them in water first, I would think to make them soft and pliable and then wrap it around something to eat but I don't know if that is necessarily so.

No, you can wrap them directly around stuff like rice, or I do a tempeh & soya milk thing that goes kind of nicely. Basically anything moist makes them floppy & pliable just about on contact.

Thanks for the answer: actually, this is not a really important point but I once let on in a net forum that I'd eaten seaweed right out of the bag and I asked how they ate it and a lot of people told me they'd soak it in water first.

There are some, I think "Dulse" which I found relatively easy to eat, soft out of the bag.

See here is a quote:

"Seaweed is a type of green, leafy plant that is found in oceans and is eaten primarily in Asian cuisine. There are several types of edible seaweed; collectively they are also known as sea vegetables. Seaweed is available in two forms: dried and fresh. Dried seaweed is dehydrated and processed into a sheet that can be packaged and sold commercially, but it requires soaking in water to make it pliable. Fresh seaweed doesn't need as much effort to prepare--just a quick boil in water to enhance its flavor and texture. You can eat prepared fresh seaweed in salads or add it to soups or other entrees."

http://www.ehow.com/how_5863446_prepare-fresh-seaweed.html

I've had seaweed salad before, that was okay, a bit pricey and real crunchy, I guess one could make it like that.

I've had Tempeh before if that is the fermented soy more common in Indonesia.

Miso soup most times has seaweed in it too.

Soy Miso and Seaweed are so very salty but I've had a shaker of dulse granules that has lasted forever, use it like salt.

Here is this "Minute Miso" I've tried w/high fructose corn syrup, seaweed extract, shiitake mushroom extract among other ingredients and it's made in Japan.



Miso seems to be real salty but I'm now just trying to get by it, this one brand makes a few varieties, one flavour is with chickpeas in the mash as well. I think that's relatively good.

They are now making a low sodium Miso but I did not think it was too much different than the regular. There is also red and white miso, not sure what that is about, maybe aging, maybe something else.

Fermented soy seems so very salty...do other people run into this and how do you remedy that??

I guess though most of us don't want a lot of salt from chips, etc. there is not much problem with this kind of salt?

----------------------------

On HFCS or High Fructose Corn Syrup: http://www.aolhealth.com/2010/04/26/high-fructose-corn-syrup-vs-sugar/?icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl3|link1|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolhealth.com%2F2010%2F04%2F26%2Fhigh-fructose-corn-syrup-vs-sugar%2F

Fairly good nutrition article:

Excerpts:

"Is high-fructose corn syrup worse for you than sugar? Researchers at Princeton University think so. But the American Medical Association and most dietitians say no. AOL Health contributor and nutritionist Victoria Stein examines the issue.

Before we delve into the debate, let's review some basic chemistry. Sugar and HFCS have the same chemical structure. The main difference is that HFCS is manufactured from corn syrup (primarily glucose), which undergoes enzymatic processing to increase the fructose content and is then mixed with glucose. Pure sugar is also composed of glucose and fructose but in marginally different concentrations. Both are calorie dense (with about 16 per teaspoon) with no nutrients.


.........

As a dietitian, I shun foods and drinks with HCFS because I don't think anything manufactured in a lab belongs on our dinner plate. But whether the body differentiates between HFCS and sugar is unclear. While the jury is still out on what (if anything) HFCS does to us, it's always best to eat foods that are as close to their natural form as possible.

Bottom line: Eat less high-fructose corn syrup and, while you're at it, cut back on the sugar, too."

The Dulse is just dried whole piece of seaweed (just like you find on the beach), so yes that needs soaking. Seaweed wraps are kind of chopped up, then pressed together, much ,much thinner & used to wrap stuff like sushi normally, but we'd use it for rice or other stuff. I can see the confusion, they are 2 different things, the Dulse is hard, say a mm or 2mm thick & sort of brittle bit of seaweed, while a seaweed wrap is a chopped up created thing that goes soft in a moment.
...oh yea, I actually took a picture of a meal for some reason a while ago - here's the idea with a seaweed wrap - it's a meal I prepared myself using a seaweed wrap



Can't remember exactly what was in the wrap though?