Vegetarian Athletes

[gromit]

Is anybody one?

I played sports in college and I guess my body was more resilient then. I still want to be vegetarian now, but I need to be more conscious. I am 28 and have been generally meat-free for almost 14 years. I think I over-did it this past week or so, either too much exercise or not enough food or not enough of the right kind of food (maybe not enough sleep too). So I have been taking it a bit easier in terms of exercise until my energy returns. Today is a bit better!

Eat lots of eggs, cheese, beans/legumes, whole grains, fresh produce, some protein supplement like boca burger or whey protein in smoothies. Things I try to pay attention to:

• Protein
• Iron
• B-12

It doesn't seem like there is a lot of overlap. My vegetarian/vegan friends tend to be pretty scrawny, not into sports beside maybe riding bicycles or yoga. My athlete friends love to eat steak and things like that.

 

[wolfy]

I'm not vegetarian, the only vegetarian lifter I know is Bill Pearl. Pretty famous bodybuilder.

 

[Bamboo]

Are you intentionally making complete proteins from incomplete proteins?

perhaps you are already aware, but not all 'protein' is the same. plants do contain proteins (amino acids) but they tend to be "incomplete." meat, eggs, and some others (dairy is questionable) are (for the most part) "complete" protein sources. with veggies nuts grain etc., you have to combine multiple protein sources in the right amounts, or else some remains incomplete and just gets wasted, though of course you'll still get other nutrient value (ie. vitamins etc) for your body to make use of.


it's a little misleading to read a jar a peanut butter and see x% protein. those amino acids have to be combined with something else for them to be useful for your body.

look it up, it's not really that complicated but it does mean that unless you are specific about what and how many incompletes you eat (what combos you form) you won't be as efficient in forming complete proteins as someone who just eats the complete stuff from the start.

(remember in chemistry class how you had x grams of two elements and you had to calculate how much product they would form? unless you had the perfect ratios of elements, in the end you'd form a product but you'd also have elements which didn't get used in the reaction and would just be left over. it's like that.)

however in practice you can get a lot of protein from some filling meals, so even with lower efficiency someone eating incompletes and who just a little aware of needing variety can do alright and get enough.

 

[Scott N Denver]

Is anybody one?

I played sports in college and I guess my body was more resilient then. I still want to be vegetarian now, but I need to be more conscious. I am 28 and have been generally meat-free for almost 14 years. I think I over-did it this past week or so, either too much exercise or not enough food or not enough of the right kind of food (maybe not enough sleep too). So I have been taking it a bit easier in terms of exercise until my energy returns. Today is a bit better!

Eat lots of eggs, cheese, beans/legumes, whole grains, fresh produce, some protein supplement like boca burger or whey protein in smoothies. Things I try to pay attention to:

• Protein
• Iron
• B-12

It doesn't seem like there is a lot of overlap. My vegetarian/vegan friends tend to be pretty scrawny, not into sports beside maybe riding bicycles or yoga. My athlete friends love to eat steak and things like that.

Depending on what you consider an "athlete" then I am one. I've been vegetarian for like 14 years or so, lactovegetarian mostly. For a while I ate fish like once every 6-24 months but the last tie I ate fish is when I came back from Japan. I will eat eggs, but usually if they are in something someone cooked.

I've practiced yoga for like 14 years or so as well, and done martial arts for longer. Aerobic martial arts like tae kwon do, self defense-oriented how to break people's body parts martial arts like jujitsu, but now I focus more on soft/internal martial arts primarily baguazhang and tai chi chuan though also some xingyi. I have always been broad shouldered and thick boned and stocky. Sometimes I've had more fat as well. I've done a lot of hiking in the past, and quite a bit of backpacking further back in the day. I try to go jogging on a regular basis, but have never been a distance jogger. I would rather sling someone over my shoulder and walk up multiple flights of stairs than go distance jogging.

I'm sorta not sure what to say about food because my diet living at high elevation in intense sunlight and heat is rather different by necessity then when I lived at low elevation in places that actually had moisture. Here I can drink 2 quarts of water and a quart of gatorade and still dehydrate and feel like I'm melting. With that said here I eat/drink: lettuce, yogurt, grape juice, carbs, frozen fruit, lots of water. Wherever I've lived I've always been big into cereal, vegetables, spaghetti ro some other carbs, and a fan of soy veggie burgers. Boca and Morningstar are my two favorite brands. I eat lots of vegetables. Carb intake is the thing I have the most swings in, sometimes its alot, others days not much.

A friend who went ot the Air Force Academy commented to me in one of my more-fat life periods that every vegetarian he knew who was overweight it was from bread, or at least carbs. My relationship with carbs has never been the same since then.

 

[gromit]

Depending on what you consider an "athlete" then I am one. I've been vegetarian for like 14 years or so, lactovegetarian mostly. For a while I ate fish like once every 6-24 months but the last tie I ate fish is when I came back from Japan. I will eat eggs, but usually if they are in something someone cooked.

I've practiced yoga for like 14 years or so as well, and done martial arts for longer. Aerobic martial arts like tae kwon do, self defense-oriented how to break people's body parts martial arts like jujitsu, but now I focus more on soft/internal martial arts primarily baguazhang and tai chi chuan though also some xingyi. I have always been broad shouldered and thick boned and stocky. Sometimes I've had more fat as well. I've done a lot of hiking in the past, and quite a bit of backpacking further back in the day. I try to go jogging on a regular basis, but have never been a distance jogger. I would rather sling someone over my shoulder and walk up multiple flights of stairs than go distance jogging.

I'm sorta not sure what to say about food because my diet living at high elevation in intense sunlight and heat is rather different by necessity then when I lived at low elevation in places that actually had moisture. Here I can drink 2 quarts of water and a quart of gatorade and still dehydrate and feel like I'm melting. With that said here I eat/drink: lettuce, yogurt, grape juice, carbs, frozen fruit, lots of water. Wherever I've lived I've always been big into cereal, vegetables, spaghetti ro some other carbs, and a fan of soy veggie burgers. Boca and Morningstar are my two favorite brands. I eat lots of vegetables. Carb intake is the thing I have the most swings in, sometimes its alot, others days not much.

A friend who went ot the Air Force Academy commented to me in one of my more-fat life periods that every vegetarian he knew who was overweight it was from bread, or at least carbs. My relationship with carbs has never been the same since then.

I am lacto-ovo too I guess (eat dairy and eggs right?)

I guess I would define athlete as at least 5-10 hours of cardio and/or strength exercise per week. I'm with you on the simple carbs. Not something I eat a lot of. I just feel sluggy and not as great.

 

[Scott N Denver]

I am lacto-ovo too I guess (eat dairy and eggs right?)

I guess I would define athlete as at least 5-10 hours of cardio and/or strength exercise per week. I'm with you on the simple carbs. Not something I eat a lot of. I just feel sluggy and not as great.

I used to tell people I was "basically lacto-ovo", but then I think I got sick of saying it and I dont think people were that interested so I just started saying "I still eat dairy like milk and cheese and yogurt, and occasionally I might eat some egg but usually only if someone cooks with it." Which is basically lacto or lacto-ovo but without the big sounding words that people didnt seem to care about.

When I feel down food-energy wise it usually means I've gone too long between meals, or that I need to drink more water and/or gatorade. I didnt need nearly so much gatorade when I lived elsewhere.

I often snack on crackers and peanut butter. When its really hot and dry and I'm sick of drinking water I'll crave small amounts of chocolate candy. Didnt have that when I lived elsewhere.

I do a lot of breathing practices, both yogic and Taoist, and often if i feel sluggish overall such practices make me feel better. Other times I just need more fluids and/or calories.

 

[gromit]

Yeah I think it was calories. I got chinese after the hike Saturday and ate an entire giant plate of bean curd vegetables. Mmmm...

 

[gromit]

Are you intentionally making complete proteins from incomplete proteins?

perhaps you are already aware, but not all 'protein' is the same. plants do contain proteins (amino acids) but they tend to be "incomplete." meat, eggs, and some others (dairy is questionable) are (for the most part) "complete" protein sources. with veggies nuts grain etc., you have to combine multiple protein sources in the right amounts, or else some remains incomplete and just gets wasted, though of course you'll still get other nutrient value (ie. vitamins etc) for your body to make use of.


it's a little misleading to read a jar a peanut butter and see x% protein. those amino acids have to be combined with something else for them to be useful for your body.

look it up, it's not really that complicated but it does mean that unless you are specific about what and how many incompletes you eat (what combos you form) you won't be as efficient in forming complete proteins as someone who just eats the complete stuff from the start.

(remember in chemistry class how you had x grams of two elements and you had to calculate how much product they would form? unless you had the perfect ratios of elements, in the end you'd form a product but you'd also have elements which didn't get used in the reaction and would just be left over. it's like that.)

however in practice you can get a lot of protein from some filling meals, so even with lower efficiency someone eating incompletes and who just a little aware of needing variety can do alright and get enough.

Oh yeah I missed this post somehow.

I have read up on that, and the little triangle thing (you're supposed to consume foods from at least two of the three points of the triangle). I tend to do that anyway. Beans and rice. Nuts and cheese. Soy veggie burger and whole grain bun. But then apparently animal protein is complete, like eggs. So I figure if I have that at least once per day that's probably pretty good.

 

[Wolfie]

Are you intentionally making complete proteins from incomplete proteins?

perhaps you are already aware, but not all 'protein' is the same. plants do contain proteins (amino acids) but they tend to be "incomplete." meat, eggs, and some others (dairy is questionable) are (for the most part) "complete" protein sources. with veggies nuts grain etc., you have to combine multiple protein sources in the right amounts, or else some remains incomplete and just gets wasted, though of course you'll still get other nutrient value (ie. vitamins etc) for your body to make use of.


it's a little misleading to read a jar a peanut butter and see x% protein. those amino acids have to be combined with something else for them to be useful for your body.

look it up, it's not really that complicated but it does mean that unless you are specific about what and how many incompletes you eat (what combos you form) you won't be as efficient in forming complete proteins as someone who just eats the complete stuff from the start.

(remember in chemistry class how you had x grams of two elements and you had to calculate how much product they would form? unless you had the perfect ratios of elements, in the end you'd form a product but you'd also have elements which didn't get used in the reaction and would just be left over. it's like that.)

however in practice you can get a lot of protein from some filling meals, so even with lower efficiency someone eating incompletes and who just a little aware of needing variety can do alright and get enough.

Myth!

I have been a lifelong vegetarian (never eaten meat) and I have never been malnourished. My mom is a nutritionist.

Here's an article:

http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/diet-myths-complementary-protein-myth-wont-go-away.html

 

[gromit]

Myth!

I have been a lifelong vegetarian (never eaten meat) and I have never been malnourished. My mom is a nutritionist.

Here's an article:

http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/diet-myths-complementary-protein-myth-wont-go-away.html

Weird. I have definitely read it in nutrition books. Ah well I still try to eat a variety of foods anyway (and eggs once per day). Can't hurt!

 

[Bamboo]

Myth!

I have been a lifelong vegetarian (never eaten meat) and I have never been malnourished. My mom is a nutritionist.

Here's an article:

http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/diet-myths-complementary-protein-myth-wont-go-away.html

hmm. as stated in the article, this idea appears very frequently from a variety of sources i'd tend to find reputable, but it's possible they (and me too) are wrong.

the article's sources have links that don't seem to work, but one that does doesn't seem like it's cooked up nonsense. i'd say more data is needed here and i'm not fully sure what is being suggested.

it does suggest eating a variety of plant sources and that some aminos are provided in excess, but also suggests that under some conditions people can eat a diet of just rice and be alright, based on the measurement of nitrogen availability, and i don't know how that works. though i'm still skeptical of a rice fed diet meeting protein needs in someone who is active.

to clarify: i was not suggesting that vegetarian diets are necessarily inadequate, or that you need to eat mixed proteins at every meal, though was saying as long as they are eaten with a day or so of each other.

hmm.

 

[burymecloser]

Sorry I'm a little late to the thread. I'm a bit out of practice right now, but when I was in the best shape of my life I'd been vegan for years. I ran about 5 km/day, probably five days a week. I know a lot of people do more, but I felt great. I eat a lot of carbs and legumes and about every other day take a supplement that has B-12.

TONS of accomplished athletes are or have been veg, and it's an increasingly popular trend among many athletes, including those in stereotypically macho sports like baseball, American football, and mixed martial arts.

 

[Montgomery456]

I am non vegetarian but I like more vegetarian foods in my diet.
I eat non veggies to get all nutrition and protein stuff in my diet. I eat fish and meat twice a month and eggs one time a week.

 

[FDG]

I believe vegetarian is OK for athletes.

Vegan is what would be complicated, since there is only a handful of vegan food which contains all the right proteins (legumes, mostly, and not even all of them).

 

[gromit]

Sorry I'm a little late to the thread. I'm a bit out of practice right now, but when I was in the best shape of my life I'd been vegan for years. I ran about 5 km/day, probably five days a week. I know a lot of people do more, but I felt great. I eat a lot of carbs and legumes and about every other day take a supplement that has B-12.

TONS of accomplished athletes are or have been veg, and it's an increasingly popular trend among many athletes, including those in stereotypically macho sports like baseball, American football, and mixed martial arts.

YEAH veg doesn't have to mean wimpy!

 

[Valiant]

I think there is definitely a great deal of difference between different people.
Both when it concerns individuals and ethnicities/races.
For instance, Scandinavians can drink milk without becoming fart machines.
Most of us never lose the enzyme to break down lactose (thus taking it up better).
My daily milk consumption is around three pints, or 1,5 liters.
Sometimes less, sometimes more. My body really hates being without it, too.

Same thing with meat/fish/chicken etc.
I feel weakened if I do not eat meat. Particularly fish. Even if I eat exactly the same food as the vegetarian for a long period of time.
I had a girlfriend who was vegetarian, and I tried it for a few months. It definitely does not work for me.
Or... Well, it works... But it does not work well. I wish it did.
My mother and father tried it when they were younger, and it was the same there.
Worked for my mother, but not for my father. My mother is 100% swedish.
My father has norwegian blood a while back, and we both look a lot more norwegian than swedish.
It's a difference in bone structure, hair type/growth, body composition/phenotype etc.
Historically, the diets have been very different. Still are, even if it has evened out.
I can't seem to find it, but I read something about a lot of norwegians having a genetic mutation that caused them to be dependent on fish.
It was in relation to something truly weird that happened to my father, who hates fish.

He hadn't eaten it for years, his health was declining rapidly. Heart problems, super-low iron blood levels, digestive problems and who knows what.
He had to go take iron shots every week... Until... The bastard started eating fish again. Now he doesn't have problems.
So, I make it a point to eat a lot of salmon, herring, tuna and such. Can't stand cod or most other white fish, though.

 

[EffEmDoubleyou]

There are two prominent vegans who are NFL players: Tony Gonzalez and Arian Foster. If they can do it vegan, I'm sure you can do it vegetarian. Maybe a Google search of them will turn up details on their diets.

 

[Valiant]

There are two prominent vegans who are NFL players: Tony Gonzalez and Arian Foster. If they can do it vegan, I'm sure you can do it vegetarian. Maybe a Google search of them will turn up details on their diets.

They are both black. I am not, and we are separated by hundreds of thousands of years of separate evolution. Before you go crazy on me, I did not say "we evolved, they didn't".
I just said "separate evolution". I only say that we are different, and here's why:
Homo Erectus found in China that is 760 000 to 780 000 years old ("the Peking man") completely disproves the "Out of Africa" idea that says we separated approximately 100 000 years ago.
It all points towards parallel evolution, not the Afrocentric creationist-like lies that have been spread around schools for a good while for no good reason.
What is still fairly intact is that Europeans separated from Asians somewhere around 61 000 years ago.
Either way. If you compare things, dogs have existed (separate from wolves) for around 10 000 years.
Selective breeding to create specific traits in dog races has only been done in the last 6000 years or so.
You can readily accept that short time as having done lots of difference when it comes to dogs and other forms of life.
Humans are not an exception to the laws of nature.
Anyway... People have to take this into account when talking about what diet is best for whom.
We are not the same, and do not work the same even if we are pretty similar.
We have different bone density, bone structure, hormone levels, digestion, different brains, body composition etc.
We're made to live different lives in different localities. Different diets is definitely a part of that.

What works there, does not necessarily work for me or anyone else. As you might be aware, fruit and vegetables is and always have been a much more frequent staple in African diet than in European.
Ours consisted primarily of meat. Of course with some nuts, berries, in some places dairy and root vegetables etc.
That's one factor that made us who we are today.
I'll leave it up to you to decide what you think worked best.

 

[EffEmDoubleyou]

I don't have to go crazy on you. I can just tell you that you're wrong.

According to a Sports Illustrated article Gonzalez comes from a very diverse family; his father being of Portuguese, Jamaican and Scottish descent, and his mother's family being of African American, Caucasian, Cuban and Native American ancestry.

 

[Valiant]

I don't have to go crazy on you. I can just tell you that you're wrong.

According to a Sports Illustrated article Gonzalez comes from a very diverse family; his father being of Portuguese, Jamaican and Scottish descent, and his mother's family being of African American, Caucasian, Cuban and Native American ancestry.

All parts equal? He looks predominantly black.