hi from leeds

[janosch]

Hi guys and girls,

I'm a student from Leeds (in the north of England), kind of fallen into a dairy-free veggie diet for health reasons but looking to make more progress to becoming fully vegan this year...

I work out 3-4 times a week, recently started using heavier weights and would like to get a bit bigger (though I find I have to eat ridiculous quantities of food in order to put on weight). Also enjoy mountain biking, play 5-a-side football and do a bit of boxing.

Just wanted to say thanks to you all for putting together such a friendly, helpful community - I've found some useful advice on this board and it's certainly encouraged me to give more thought to the vegan philosophy!

j

[JP]

Hi Janosh, welcome to the board!

Great to hear you like it mate.

If you want to get bigger and stronger, you have come to the right place To eat enough to bulk up is often a lot of food - and imagine, as you grow bigger, the demand increases accordingly, so when 3000 calories may be enough to put on weight, at some point you may need 4000 just to maintain!

What were the health things for avoiding dairy if you don't mind me asking?

[janosch]

OK, here's the story.

First I should point out that this is entirely anecdotal. I'm happy to share my experiences, but I recognise that this hardly constitutes proof of cause and effect, much less any sort of scientific explanation.

I used to drink lots of milk when I was a teenager and I never thought twice about it. I also used to have extremely bad acne on my back and shoulders - really deep cysts which were very painful. Fortunately hardly any on my face, though.

Eventually this cleared up on its own, but a few years ago I started getting folliculitis - infected hair follicles - on my arms, back and beard. I noticed this got particularly bad when I was in Paris with my (vegetarian) partner, where we were eating a lot of cheese because it was pretty much the only option.

So I decided to try to cut out dairy as much as possible, and I've found it has really helped me a lot. Wish I'd tried it when I was sixteen, though!

[Strix]

That's great! Hi, nice to meet you

My ex-beau used to eat lots of cheese. I encouraged him to stop and when he did, his skin problems (some sort of eczema, I think) he'd had all his life disappeared. He had been using some prescription cream for years. Whenever he'd have even a bit of cheese, he'd have a flair up, lol

Anyway, whatever brought you to vegetarianism/veganism is a good thing!