Calorie surplus and body composition question

Vegan, no animal products including dairy.

Vegetarian, no meat.

Not the same thing.

You're welcome.

(Ero made me do it).

 

i love quoting myself...

i eat meat, sometimes. i eat meat by-products, sometimes. i enjoy both. i'm not saying "don't eat these things or i'll burn your house down". i'm saying, it's ok to not eat meat or meat by-products.

originally, i was just pointing out some trolling. i think if you're interested in building up muscle mass, it would be easier to just eat some meat. no? instead of like 10 pounds of kale and another 10 pounds of nuts, lol.

 

I love double quoting people.

By saying, "add some yogurt and eggs to the mix" you are implying that you cannot get enough protein by eating "leafy greens, nuts, dried legumes and grains." Regardless of what you were trying to say, your sentence structure is confusing and obviously doesn't mean exactly what you're trying to say.

What you're also not addressing (which was my original point) is that getting the necessary variety of all those different things to get the correct combination for your basic nutritional needs, costs more money. It is also unavailable in many places around the world. That's not mentioning the nutritional knowledge you need to have to make sure you know what to get in order to meet your basic nutritional requirements. It's a difficult diet, both in discipline and nutritional information.

 

fair enough on the confusing aspect.

i disagree with this part. i don't have hard numbers here, but i lived in greece for quite some time as a boy. we didn't eat meat more than once or twice a month, because we couldn't afford it. i think, and again, no hard numbers to back this up, but a purely vegetarian diet is probably quite a bit cheaper in, say, india or uganda or just pick some less developed country. thoughts?

again, i disagree but only slightly. you have to remember that countries not called the u.s.a. have this thing called a food culture that's built up over time. it's not a lot of work to get all the nutrients you need and it's not hard to have that discipline, because the food culture that's built up makes it easy. like i said, i lived in a very rural part of greece, where meat was definitely not for dinner. people then and there were far healthier than your average american, then or now.

actually, this is a great conversation. cheers.

 

I can't reply in depth because I'm running late to help out with some stuff at the gym but I wanted to touch on one of the points you made that I think was absolutely ridiculous.

In what world do you live in?!

(I kid!)

 

Quinoa and soy are both good sources of lysine, but the quantities that you would need to consume are a bit much if you're trying to keep the calories down. They work well in less-developed agrarian societies because these people need 3000+ Calories per day, but it won't work well for others.

And I never said vegans were dim-witted. I said PETA people are dim-witted. There's a huge difference. I was a vegan for four years and I am quite familiar with protein combining in order to obtain complete amino acids. It is NOT easy, and the only reason I didn't put on huge amounts of weight was because I was extremely active during that time.

Maintaining a balanced diet is VERY difficult without animal-based food sources. You will need supplements and some very highly processed foods to do it or you will need to eat rather large quantities.

 

What the hell. I have a sleep and wake up to see what this thread has become.

I still stand by my comments for before. While there are some minor effects of controlling your diet more, changing body composition whatever your goals comes down what macros you are eating. And if you add up your macros you get your Calorie intake. Yes you can tweak things with low carb/high carb/fat levels whatever to make you feel and perform better and be overall more healthy. But body comp is influenced more majorly by how and what you train and your macros, and this is what the original question was.

Whether you get those macros from protein shakes and salad for every meal or some KFC doesn't make as much of a different to body comp.

To OP... do this...

-Set a Calorie goal (or budget however you want to think of it.
-Set a protein intake goal. 1 gram per pound of bodyweight is a good starting MINIMUM to use.
-Partition your remaining Calories into carb and fat intake. Make sure you don't skimp on the fats.
-Train heavy weights at least 3 times a week.

Try this for at least a few weeks and adjust as necessary according to what progress you see. In the meantime read some books about nutrition - some have already been suggested in this thread. I would encourage you to read the entire books as they often contain very useful information you won't see in summaries around the place. Once you read the books you can experiment using the information and see if you improve in any way.

Good luck.

 

that's interesting. the times in my life i have been vegan, i didn't feel like i was eating that much more than normal to get all the nutrients i needed. it is difficult, no doubt. but in my experience, it didn't seem like that much of a burden. i was definitely trying to keep it as simple as possible. i was also very active during those times, as a child, later as an adult into martial arts. yes, also, like you mention, you do end up eating some highly processed foods like bread or pasta or corn meal or peanut butter, which can have their own drawbacks (the aforementioned sugar problem). i started with lots of tofu but got smart(er) about that and ended up with tempeh or other fermented soy products instead.

all the best.

 

"talk dim-witted? how about rural americans that eat meat and starch practically every meal?"

As someone who was brought up and spent the better part of his life in rural area's I take issue with this kind of statement. Unhealthy eatting isn't unique to the country side and I've seen plenty of city folk eat things far less healthy than a simple combination meat and starches. You won't see me singling out city people as being stupid because of their dietary choices.