Contradictions / misinformation on Vegan diet

[xJimx]

we need the RAW TRUTH from ha up in this thread!!

Indeed, clearly the OP could overcome his dilemma simply by just eating an extra 30 bananas everyday

@ Aliquis: I'm genuinely curious, just what the heck are all those supplements you've got there?!

[JohnBarleycorn]

we need the RAW TRUTH from ha up in this thread!!

We may find Ha amusing, or annoying, but he doesn't worry about his amino acid profiles, and he is bloody fit ! He doesn't carry a lot of muscle, but thats the nature and volume of his training. And in terms of stamina there wouldn't be many to touch him on this forum.

And he does it all on raw, so it just shows how well the body can adjust and accomodate any diet.

[Big Good Wolf]

I may be missing something here, but I'm a bit confused by all this amino acid stuff.

I can understand how someone exercising would need more calories, protein, carbohydrates or whatever, but as I understand it, these amino acids are essential for everyone.

The argument seems to be not that the person execising needs more of them, but that they are missing out on them completely.

So, surely, most other people will be missing out on them completely.

And yet they are still alive.

Have I got that wrong ?
Are these amino acids not essential to everyone, but only to someone who wants to optimise their sporting performance ?
Can people living a more sedentary lifestyle survive perfectly well without them ?

[gauze]

we need the RAW TRUTH from ha up in this thread!!

We may find Ha amusing, or annoying, but he doesn't worry about his amino acid profiles, and he is bloody fit ! He doesn't carry a lot of muscle, but thats the nature and volume of his training. And in terms of stamina there wouldn't be many to touch him on this forum.

And he does it all on raw, so it just shows how well the body can adjust and accomodate any diet.

hey, you're preaching to the converted here JBC, I'm a big fan of ha, his outlook on life and his accomplishments.

[erske]

I may be missing something here, but I'm a bit confused by all this amino acid stuff.

I can understand how someone exercising would need more calories, protein, carbohydrates or whatever, but as I understand it, these amino acids are essential for everyone.

The argument seems to be not that the person execising needs more of them, but that they are missing out on them completely.

So, surely, most other people will be missing out on them completely.

And yet they are still alive.

Have I got that wrong ?
Are these amino acids not essential to everyone, but only to someone who wants to optimise their sporting performance ?
Can people living a more sedentary lifestyle survive perfectly well without them ?

They are indeed essentiall to us all (and we get them without much trouble) but the question is if we need all the essentiall amino acids in some specific ratio within some short window of oportunity directly after training for maximum results and recovery

[Dave Noisy]

After research I think I'm going to stick to a veggie diet; but obtaining the food from reputable sources (For instance, RSPCA freedom food eggs)

Maybe you could research how "reputable" a source RSPCA "freedom food" is. To start with, you could look at the investigations here: http://www.hillside.org.uk/

From a philosophical point, my belief is that if man was meant to be a vegan, these sources of food would be given to him in plants... you shouldn't have to supplement on unnatrual synthetically made ingrediants.

Man was not 'meant' to be anything. Why does it matter if something is 'natural' or not?
Appeal to nature is a fallacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

Further, i think what a number of us are doing, as athletes, is 'unnatural'.

I don't believe it's 'natural' for humans to kill themselves for hours on geared two-wheeled contraptions, or haul around tractor tires or make our muscles huge and suck away every possible ounce of fat.

What we're doing is highly unnatural. And to accomplish these unnatural tasks, we need to do some unnatural tasks.

It's not 'natural' to eat 5,000 kcal in a day. But i need to do that after some training sessions.

Are you suggesting that people not eat more than is 'natural'?

Most of the examples given are pretty baseless...take creatine. If you were to only eat 'natural' sources of creatine, you'd need to eat something like over a kilo of meat to get 5g.

That's 'natural'??

Ridiculous.

[Speciell]

but a lot of them have do have their diets straight and know what they're eating. So with that being said I'm not sure what kind of lifters you're basing this assumption off.

i think thats not the issue. Like spug said in his EPIC post, athletes have a "solid" diet, of varied balanced diet - but there is a qualititive difference to the obsessive attitude to the nutritional minutae that bodybuilding magazines advicate (for commercial reasons).

But in general, people in heavier weight classes, or people with huge calorie demands (like runners, long distance cyclists, swimmers) cover all that detail info by the sheer volume of food they eat.

I'm not really aware about how much others eat. JP, could you tell me how much is "sheer"? In kilos or calories would be prefarabel and easy for me to grasp.

[xrodolfox]

but a lot of them have do have their diets straight and know what they're eating. So with that being said I'm not sure what kind of lifters you're basing this assumption off.

i think thats not the issue. Like spug said in his EPIC post, athletes have a "solid" diet, of varied balanced diet - but there is a qualititive difference to the obsessive attitude to the nutritional minutae that bodybuilding magazines advicate (for commercial reasons).

But in general, people in heavier weight classes, or people with huge calorie demands (like runners, long distance cyclists, swimmers) cover all that detail info by the sheer volume of food they eat.

I'm not really aware about how much others eat. JP, could you tell me how much is "sheer"? In kilos or calories would be prefarabel and easy for me to grasp.

Sheer?
Some swimmers I know easily eat 5000 calories a day. When I was training double time, would go past 4000 most days. I eat over 3500 now. Of course Phelps ate 10,000 to 15,000 a day. I've seen him eat in person. Amazing.

In the case of Phelps, he could eat garbage, 'cause that sheer volume of food would get him the micronutrients he needed, regardless of what he ate. The less calories you eat, the more eat one needs to count, the less room for "empty" calories.

[Speciell]

Sheer?
Some swimmers I know easily eat 5000 calories a day. When I was training double time, would go past 4000 most days. I eat over 3500 now. Of course Phelps ate 10,000 to 15,000 a day. I've seen him eat in person. Amazing.

In the case of Phelps, he could eat garbage, 'cause that sheer volume of food would get him the micronutrients he needed, regardless of what he ate. The less calories you eat, the more eat one needs to count, the less room for "empty" calories.

Thanks! It makes me dizzy to think about how much food 10.000 would be. That is more than 3x what I eat a day. I mean, how fast can one chew and swallow stuff? Does people develope techniques for eating faster or just spend more time on cunsuming food?

[xrodolfox]

Sheer?
Some swimmers I know easily eat 5000 calories a day. When I was training double time, would go past 4000 most days. I eat over 3500 now. Of course Phelps ate 10,000 to 15,000 a day. I've seen him eat in person. Amazing.

In the case of Phelps, he could eat garbage, 'cause that sheer volume of food would get him the micronutrients he needed, regardless of what he ate. The less calories you eat, the more eat one needs to count, the less room for "empty" calories.

Thanks! It makes me dizzy to think about how much food 10.000 would be. That is more than 3x what I eat a day. I mean, how fast can one chew and swallow stuff? Does people develope techniques for eating faster or just spend more time on cunsuming food?

Spend time with me, and you'll see. I can still down an entire bunch of spinach and a chopped large cucumber dressed with lemon juice and salt, two cans of garbanzo, four bananas with peanut butter, two HUGE bowls of cereal with soymilk, and a toasted bagel, in about 20 minutes when I get home late on Wednesdays before I have to put the kids to bed. (This was my dinner two Wednesdays ago)

Today, for lunch, I ate at a vegan pay by the pound place. I spent $20 there. They charge $4/lb. So I ate 5lbs of vegan food for lunch today.

Practice. It's all practice.

[Speciell]

I'm in awe. I spend a lot of time just getting 1lb down for lunch. And I might take you up on that offer at spending time in the future!

[mouche]

It makes me dizzy to think about how much food 10.000 would be.

Here you go, this is apparently Michael Phelps' 12000kcal/day diet plan... though I'm not sure visualising it will make you any less dizzy

Breakfast: Three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise. Two cups of coffee. One five-egg omelet. One bowl of grits. Three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar. Three chocolate-chip pancakes.

Lunch: One pound of enriched pasta. Two large ham and cheese sandwiches with mayo on white bread. Energy drinks packing 1,000 calories.

Dinner: One pound of pasta. An entire pizza. More energy drinks.

Though I'm sure I read an article a while ago that listed even more stuff... Either way, pretty mind-boggling! Does the man eat anything vegan?

[aliquis]

Heh, XkillerX, if you wheren't sceptical enough about the supplement industry before, try this! ;D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThdFqGLq4QU&fmt=18

[XkillerX]

People who came with me to "all you can eat" places, they know that I eat ALL I CAN EAT. Like the man R said, practise makes perfect.

[VeganEssentials]

People want to believe this stuff. They want to believe that there is a magic protein ratio or a secret amino acid that will make them succeed.

Exactly. Sometimes, too much thinking becomes a crutch for lack of ideal performance, and in turn becomes the supreme scapegoat. I'll readily admit to being dumb enough to having a bad day lifting and that I've made excuses about maybe not having the right foods, being a few hundred calories short, etc. for why it sucked. Yet, it won't explain the days where I had eaten maybe half the "necessary" calories prior to training (sometimes all of it from crap foods) and still had some of my best days in the gym. There's not always a sound explanation for why things work the way they do, so it doesn't pay to put in one's head that anything less than optimal science based on our preferred readings is going to be a miserable failure. That just isn't how things work in reality, but if we convince ourselves that anything less than the best is garbage, expect performance to follow suit in going downhill fast.

Science, while wonderful in all its explanations, can be overwhelming and occasionally cause near paralysis from too much consideration of all the "facts" that you'll take in from varying viewpoints. Sometimes, you just need to eat what you feel is good for you, train hard, and give it time to see where it goes. Everyone has off times, particularly when making a major change in diet. Not everyone is going to go from omni to vegan and find that they feel better than ever right from the start - it might take a bit, performance in training might drop a bit, but with adequate tweaking things CAN come together over time. But, if one simply follows everything that says what we need for "optimal" performance and let it convince us that anything less is shooting ourselves in the foot, then we'd best get ready for self-fulfilled prophecy of failure that's coming soon afterward.

I agree with JP - keeping things simple can sometimes be the best way. Why stress over every small detail - do the best you can regarding your "ideal" diet, train with everything you've got, and see where it takes you over time.