Vegan?

[Speedwell-Industries]

Has anyone tried going Vegan?

How has it worked out for you? How does it affect your workouts, daily routine, etc??

How do you feel?

Sam

[King Rudi]

Originally Posted by Speedwell-Industries

Has anyone tried going Vegan?

How has it worked out for you? How does it affect your workouts, daily routine, etc??

How do you feel?

Sam

Ex-girlfriend tried it for a while. My findings were that she suddenly wanted to drive 60 miles (120 round trip) to go to the grocery store as the small town we live in doesn't have a Whole Food store. This resulted in her wanting to buy a Prius and constantly explaining to me about how everything I did was terrible based off what I ate. Our relationship didn't last much longer after that and I did't mind it at all.

[Speedwell-Industries]

Originally Posted by Not_Judy

Ex-girlfriend tried it for a while. My findings were that she suddenly wanted to drive 60 miles (120 round trip) to go to the grocery store as the small town we live in doesn't have a Whole Food store. This resulted in her wanting to buy a Prius and constantly explaining to me about how everything I did was terrible based off what I ate. Our relationship didn't last much longer after that and I did't mind it at all.

Wow! Glad you got away from that!

Down here in SoCal we have whole food stores all over the place.

[King Rudi]

Originally Posted by Speedwell-Industries

Wow! Glad you got away from that!

Down here in SoCal we have whole food stores all over the place.

You know, me too. As hot as she was, she was a major pain in the ass. Now I have less drama, better sex and I can eat my steak in peace.

[F80zcp]

I think it's great if you are doing it for ethical reasons, however if you're doing it for health reasons you'll feel good in the beginning but will start having problems.

Also there is a good way to do it, mostly vegetables and healthy fats from avocado and coconut oil for example, but most of the vegans in my life live off potato chips, french fries and bread/cookies/crackers. Which is by definition "Vegan" buy my god it's unhealthy.

[Speedwell-Industries]

Originally Posted by F80zcp

I think it's great if you are doing it for ethical reasons, however if you're doing it for health reasons you'll feel good in the beginning but will start having problems.

Also there is a good way to do it, mostly vegetables and healthy fats from avocado and coconut oil for example, but most of the vegans in my life live off potato chips, french fries and bread/cookies/crackers. Which is by definition "Vegan" buy my god it's unhealthy.

Definitely is a bad way to do it, and not healthy at all!

I've done it for just 6 months last year and have had a great experience in terms of health, and the ethical benefits are also great.

[hooligan_G01]

Fuck. No.

We evolved as omnivores, so that's how I eat.

[UncleWede]

My grand niece did this for a while in junior high. She was playing club soccer at the time, but was making the change for ethical reasons. I watched her/mom go from games to one of the fruit smoothie shops all the time. She gradually became pescatarian, and has further evolved into a chicken as well.

I told both her and her mom that if she didn't find a really good alternative source of protein, it wasn't going to work, especially for soccer.

Now, she is taking at least a year off soccer . . . Along the way, I think she probably gained 20lbs.

[Frozen]

Originally Posted by UncleWede

My grand niece did this for a while in junior high. She was playing club soccer at the time, but was making the change for ethical reasons. I watched her/mom go from games to one of the fruit smoothie shops all the time. She gradually became pescatarian, and has further evolved into a chicken as well.

I told both her and her mom that if she didn't find a really good alternative source of protein, it wasn't going to work, especially for soccer.

Now, she is taking at least a year off soccer . . . Along the way, I think she probably gained 20lbs.

This is the problem, she probably lived off carbs like cereal/bagels/potato chips/french fries. That's a recipe for inflammation and weight gain. Those foods are also very high in calories.

Pescatarian is a great option, but you've just got to get enough healthy fats in there and less shitty carbs. It takes some work but you can definitely be healthy on this type of diet.

[UncleWede]

Originally Posted by e90m305

This is the problem, she probably lived off carbs like cereal/bagels/potato chips/french fries. That's a recipe for inflammation and weight gain. Those foods are also very high in calories.

Pescatarian is a great option, but you've just got to get enough healthy fats in there and less shitty carbs. It takes some work but you can definitely be healthy on this type of diet.

Her family really didn't have the financial basis to make this decision work. If mom had gone along with her, it MIGHT have worked better.


Personally, I'm still omnivore!!! We spent how long getting to the top of the food chain, why would I INTENTIONALLY start over at the bottom?

[The Wind Breezes]

Going vegan is ridiculously dumb if you care about physical performance. Not that you can't get proper nutrition that way but it's way way more difficult. We are built to eat animal products, preferably cooked. Nearly all elite athletes are meat eaters. You are just making it harder for yourself. The only logical reason to go vegan would be for ethical reasons, but I find this one very hard to believe as your individual participation / non participation in buying animal products will have zero impact on how many animals are killed or otherwise used to supply food.

[TomHudson]

Originally Posted by Not_Judy

Ex-girlfriend tried it for a while. My findings were that she suddenly wanted to drive 60 miles (120 round trip) to go to the grocery store as the small town we live in doesn't have a Whole Food store. This resulted in her wanting to buy a Prius and constantly explaining to me about how everything I did was terrible based off what I ate. Our relationship didn't last much longer after that and I did't mind it at all.

“Mary Moon, she’s a vegetarian...don’t like meat, but she sure likes the bone”

[DerEisbaer]

I'm eating all sorts of food, but with severe gout, I'm cutting back on meats where I can.

This being said, I must state that there are a lot of healthy vegan / vegetarian options available, but they nearly all take more time, effort and money to make.

Nevertheless, I like to have the option and in regards to meat, I'm getting more and more picky about the quality of meat that I eat.

I rather eat an awesome 14oz steak once a week than a shitty one every day tbh.

[Wolf 335]

Originally Posted by hooligan_clt

Fuck. No.

We evolved as omnivores, so that's how I eat.

We didn't evolve into omnivores, we just chose to eat meat.

Our digestive system is not designed for meat, but rather plant based diet.

[hooligan_G01]

Originally Posted by Wolf 335

We didn't evolve into omnivores, we just chose to eat meat.

Our digestive system is not designed for meat, but rather plant based diet.

Uhhhhhh, I don't agree and neither do many, many scientists:

https://www.google.com/search?source....0.nRb99KC9Ev8

...Humans are definitely omnivores.

The best evidence is our teeth: we have biting/tearing/ripping incisors and canines (like carnivores) and chewing molars (like herbivores). Animals with such diverse teeth tend to be omnivores.

Chemically, we lack cellulases or cellulosic symbionts that many herbivores have, and have lots of proteases that carnivores do. But we do have sucrases that let us digest fruits. Humans require vitamin B12 to thrive, which can only come from animal sources or certain bacteria (vegans must supplement their diet). We also require vitamin C, which is present in citrus fruits and organ meat, the latter probably being our evolutionary ancestor's main source.

Interestingly, we have very powerful livers (the detoxification organ) and a very strong ability to smell rot/decay/decomposition relative to other animals. This suggests we may have evolved as scavengers, eating dead (but not too decayed) carcasses killed by other animals.

Lastly, our closest evolutionary relatives, the chimpanzees, are omnivores. The leading theory as to how humans evolved is that we became long-distance runners and hunted food by running it down until it tired, and that our access to meat and protein enabled our brains to evolve further than otherwise. So meat-eating is in our history as well as our DNA and physiology...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2.../#108c4ecb7af5



...As a new study in Nature makes clear, not only did processing and eating meat come naturally to humans, it’s entirely possible that without an early diet that included generous amounts of animal protein, we wouldn’t even have become human—at least not the modern, verbal, intelligent humans we are.

It was about 2.6 million years ago that meat first became a significant part of the pre-human diet, and if Australopithecus had had a forehead to slap it would surely have done so. Being an herbivore was easy—fruits and vegetables don’t run away, after all. But they’re also not terribly calorie-dense. A better alternative were so-called underground storage organs (USOs)—root foods like beets and yams and potatoes. They pack a bigger nutritional wallop, but they’re not terribly tasty—at least not raw—and they’re very hard to chew. According to Harvard University evolutionary biologists Katherine Zink and Daniel Lieberman, the authors of the Nature paper, proto-humans eating enough root food to stay alive would have had to go through up to 15 million “chewing cycles” a year...



http://time.com/4252373/meat-eating-veganism-evolution/

[hooligan_G01]

And the final nail in the coffin:

Abstract:

The origins of the genus Homo are murky, but by H. erectus, bigger brains and bodies had evolved that, along with larger foraging ranges, would have increased the daily energetic requirements of hominins1,2. Yet [B]H. erectus differs from earlier hominins in having relatively smaller teeth, reduced chewing muscles, weaker maximum bite force capabilities, and a relatively smaller gut. This paradoxical combination of increased energy demands along with decreased masticatory and digestive capacities is hypothesized to have been made possible by adding meat to the diet, by mechanically processing food using stone tools, or by cooking. Cooking, however, was apparently uncommon until 500,000 years ago, and the effects of carnivory and Palaeolithic processing techniques on mastication are unknown. Here we report experiments that tested how Lower Palaeolithic processing technologies affect chewing force production and efficacy in humans consuming meat and underground storage organs (USOs). We find that if meat comprised one-third of the diet, the number of chewing cycles per year would have declined by nearly 2 million (a 13% reduction) and total masticatory force required would have declined by 15%. Furthermore, by simply slicing meat and pounding USOs, hominins would have improved their ability to chew meat into smaller particles by 41%, reduced the number of chews per year by another 5%, and decreased masticatory force requirements by an additional 12%. Although cooking has important benefits, it appears that selection for smaller masticatory features in Homo would have been initially made possible by the combination of using stone tools and eating meat.

http://www.nature.com/articles/nature16990


So, as I said earlier - we have evolved to be omnivores.

[Wolf 335]

Originally Posted by hooligan_clt

And the final nail in the coffin:

Abstract:

The origins of the genus Homo are murky, but by H. erectus, bigger brains and bodies had evolved that, along with larger foraging ranges, would have increased the daily energetic requirements of hominins1,2. Yet [B]H. erectus differs from earlier hominins in having relatively smaller teeth, reduced chewing muscles, weaker maximum bite force capabilities, and a relatively smaller gut. This paradoxical combination of increased energy demands along with decreased masticatory and digestive capacities is hypothesized to have been made possible by adding meat to the diet, by mechanically processing food using stone tools, or by cooking. Cooking, however, was apparently uncommon until 500,000 years ago, and the effects of carnivory and Palaeolithic processing techniques on mastication are unknown. Here we report experiments that tested how Lower Palaeolithic processing technologies affect chewing force production and efficacy in humans consuming meat and underground storage organs (USOs). We find that if meat comprised one-third of the diet, the number of chewing cycles per year would have declined by nearly 2 million (a 13% reduction) and total masticatory force required would have declined by 15%. Furthermore, by simply slicing meat and pounding USOs, hominins would have improved their ability to chew meat into smaller particles by 41%, reduced the number of chews per year by another 5%, and decreased masticatory force requirements by an additional 12%. Although cooking has important benefits, it appears that selection for smaller masticatory features in Homo would have been initially made possible by the combination of using stone tools and eating meat.

http://www.nature.com/articles/nature16990


So, as I said earlier - we have evolved to be omnivores.

This can turn into a copy paste match of information. Just as you have posted all this I could post information to contradict your research. it will be never ending.

I'll just leave it be.

[WingZeroX5]

I'm going to suggest the opposite and go with a ketogenic diet. It's what humans have lived off of for thousands of years before the sudden (relatively speaking) industrial revolution and massive carbs flooding our foods.

I did it for almost half a year. It takes a lot of will power to resist all these carbs, but I felt way better both mentally and physically. Also, I didn't do it as a "fad" diet, but because it's the way humans were suppose to eat.

It only affected me for a week, as my body adapted. After that, the amount of protein I was eating did not affect my muscle mass and strength.

[TheWatchGuy]

theres a right way and a wrong way to go vegan. the key is a balanced diet, which requires supplementing your vegan diet properly. the issues are caused when that isnt done.

Its similar to an omni diet as well. all diets can work if your dedicated to it and doing it right.

the wrong way to do it is to tell everyone you see you are vegan

[M_Six]

We do vegan fairly often, but not religiously. We get Purple Carrot or TB12 meals delivered and then eat vegan dinners for 3 days that week. We don't do it for any ethical reasons. We do it mostly because Wifey has an allergy to any dairy product or bi-product. So vegan is easier. The Purple Carrot meals are usually very tasty and filling.

But I still use half-and-half in my coffee in the morning and I'll have a burger or a fishy sammich now and then for lunch. I still love me some ribs for dinner and we still hit the local Italian place for their Wed night spaghetti special which has meat sauce.

I do notice that on the weeks where we do Purple Carrot meals 3 nights I can shed a couple more pounds than if we eat other stuff. And I've been impressed with how good those meals are. I love the grain bowls, especially in the summer.

[The Wind Breezes]

Originally Posted by Wolf 335

Our digestive system is not designed for meat, but rather plant based diet.

Doctors, biologists, and anyone with an ounce of common sense would disagree. Humans are omnivores, and this is not even slightly controversial. Claiming we're herbivores is like saying we haven't been to space. Like, OK...Our digestive system is absolutely equipped to process meat, and it doesn't even have to be cooked. It's just that cooking makes it easier to extract nutrients. But it's not necessary.

If you want to see what a digestive system designed for plants is like, look at a cow, goat, horse digestive tract. Herbivores have a completely different digestive process and a substantially different anatomy.

[CrazyT]

Not vegan, but I did vegetarian for 1.5 years. Overall, I did have more trouble controlling weight. While I did not up my french fries and chips intake, I did usually eat more grains and carbs. I'm an old fashioned type of guy so I like a hearty meal every once and awhile. Without meat, this usually involved something starchy or high in carbs.

I did gain a lot of appreciation of foods while I was a vegetarian that I probably would not have if I stayed a meat guy, and I do sometimes take the 'vegetarian option'. I may go back at some point.