Ari Klau burns out on plant-based diet

It always come over as sounding like meat eaters are really defensive about anyone who doesn't eat meat. I am not a vegetarian/vegan but what other people choose to avoid in their diet is their choice and I admire those who for ethical and sustainability reasons don't want any part in the quite disgusting factory farming system.

A few comments here suggesting that the best marathoners from East Africa don't eat meat- do a bit of reading on this and you'll find that Kenyans fairly frequently indulge in beef and chicken stew. Anyone who has read 'Out of Thin Air' will know all about Ethiopian runners' love for meat (and their almost spiritual belief in its ability to improve their performance and condition). Do they pig out on McDonalds every day? No. But pretending they are all veggie or opposed to meat is just plain wrong.

I recall Gen talking about what he ate and it was clear that although he ate meat, it was not a daily occurrence. I think this is the weird disconnect with the western diet, people act as if they will die of protein deficiency if they don't eat meat at every meal.

Am I the only one who believes eating is one of life’s pleasures and enjoyed, not something to obsess over?

It depends, caring what other people eat is strange, caring about what you eat yourself does not seem to conflict with enjoying it, I mean why not eat garbage if critically examining it ruins your enjoyment?

In Geb's own words.

"Eat modest amounts of food and a varied diet. In Ethiopia, we are lucky because we have injera. Injera is a type of flatbread made from the ancient grain teff, which contains lots of iron and other valuable ingredients, so we eat healthy naturally. Having no McDonalds in Ethiopia also helps"

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Marathon Training: Helpful Hints from Haile Gebrselassie

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Want to know how the pros do it? Get 5 useful and surprising running tips from Ethiopian distance running legend Haile Gebrselassie.

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Nicolo Fillipazzo 13 min 5K ran 180 miles a week. He's taking a break atm and doing Japan. He ran all mileage and workout races in xc spikes! Absolute beast trained up mountains 6000m elevation a week in 35C in Italy during summer.

You need to eat high carb as a vegan athelete. At least 600-800g of carbs and low fat.

Vegans are a tiny percent of the population and being at an Olympic level and making it to the trials is am even smaller percentage of people. Vegans are doing amazing considering their pool size.

That guy was homeless and yet still running 180 miles a week and he was training with world class Kenyans. He stopped running because he wanted to take a break and he didn't want to shoot up like his team mates. It gets to a point where you need drugs to compete.

So many men have manboobs but hardly any of them are vegan. Dairy causes manboobs from the animal hormones. The brain runs on glucose exclusively so why would veganism cause brain fog when fruit and veggies are the best source of carbs and also vitamins/minerals.

The Kenyans eat high carb too lol Ugali everyday main staple

You sound like some meat dairy industry spokesperson.

And you sound like a Gregerite vegan apologist.

Vegans are at least 5-10% of the younger, educated whitebread hipster Millennial running population, but had ZERO representation in the top 200 marathoners in the go-round for Tokyo despite their "game changing superdiet". "Amazing"? More like Major Fail.

So Coyote Boy was a "13-minute" 5k runner? So, hey, I was a "4-minute miler" as a high school sophomore with my righteous 4:57 PR? No Olympic Trials for him either. The dude was a complete wreck by the time he did his "Into the Wild" cliche personal crisis Alaska deal. Maybe he will take a clue from the Japanese who have the second-highest per capita animal-based food consumption in the world and also the second best health and longevity (only behind Hong Kong who are #1 in both, especially meat consumption).

Manboobs are the result of high carb diets combined with phytoestrogens in soy and legumes causing hyperinsulemia/hormone dysfunction which promotes visceral fat. Anyone who goes to a blue-state workout group of Millenial soyboys running 80 mile weeks yet who still manage to have b#tchtits and little muffin tops knows what I am saying. They work out like it's their job ten hours a week but struggle to get visible abs much less defined arms, legs back or shoulders. "But most of them are omnivores!" Sorry, eating four ounces of skinless chicken breast every other day or having a splat of hamburger paste in you fajita at Taco Bell is not what our ancestors did to survive the toughest conditions that nature could throw at them for 2.6 million years. They slaughtered and ate large animal ruminant meat, and tons of it. When I was vegetarian/vegan for over a decade, I never touched dairy (lactose intolerant) but was soft AF despite all the pushups and situps my little-boy soy body could handle on top of 90 miles a week (when not fighting off sickness and injury).

Carbohydrates are not an essential human nutrient, unlike the fully bioavailable aminos, B-vitamins and fatty acids found in meat, fish and eggs. Even on a zero-carb diet the body generates plenty of sugar, in fact mental clarity on a zero-carb is massive benefit of that way of eating. Anyone who wants to stuff their face with sugar and starch all day and then work their a$$ off after work to burn it off, go for it, but don't fool yourself that it is on any way optimal for human health or balanced athletic lifestyle (not that marathons and ultras are anything but mental illness at some level).

Eat meat or get beat.

I am in Kenya right now, in the Kisii (Helen Obiri)/Keroka town region.

I can confirm that the runners I interact with on a daily basis and that I follow including looking at what they eat and drink, rarely eat meat but sometimes eat it. These runners are not the best runners in Kenya but they are among the best regional runners in their region, ranging from low 28 minutes/10,000 to around 29:30. Some of them run the marathon in 212 to 2:14:00. So these guys are good but they’re not the best. I did not ask them specifically about why they do not a lot of meat but I have a feeling it was because of their reduced budgets. However I also think that they believe meat will slow them, so their typical meals include Ugali (maize), with different varieties of mixed vegetables.

I also notice that when Kenyans become rich or have financial wealth, they will not shy away from meat and I have full evidence of this in the hotel that I’m staying in with all these Kenyan politicians and lawyers presently residing here and looking at their meals which almost every time include meat.

Finally, it is interesting to note that these “wealthy Kenyans” at least the ones that I encounter in my hotel, are far from svelte, and rather obese. Of course, this is not a blanket statement and there have to be financially comfortable Kenyans who are not obese and possibly eat meat as well, but in general, from what I observe, the financially more comfortable Kenyans tend to have much bigger waist lines and also appear to indulge in eating meat on a much more frequent basis compared with the athletes that I encounter every day.

My take?

People put way too much stock into diet and how it may (or may not) influence their running and overall health. They change one little thing in their diet and then if something happens in their running the next week (or their subjective feelings of energy levels) they will often attribute it to that one change in their diet. Often times you hear people obsess over things like "brain fog" or the subtle condition of their skin.

In reality that are many variables at play (some mental/placebo effects). Life stresses, sleep patterns, other lifestyle attributes that are probably going to effect their running and energy levels even more. No doubt diet is important, but Running Training and genetics is probably going to be the most important for your running speed. I used to hang out with 2:10 marathoner Brian Sell and he'd eat McDonalds all the time....he also ran 160 miles a week.

I grew up as a ovo-lacto vegetarian and I thought vegans were nuts (pun intended).

Now that I am vegan I don't think that anymore, but I'm also not going to pretend that humans didn't evolve as omnivores. I still think in a lot of cultures meat is totally overrated (and dairy and eggs for that matter).There is a huge financial stack to push these things (government funded and big business).

At this day and age though (at least in most first world countries), I believe it is quite possible to eat vegan (plant based) and get everything you need...even as an endurance athlete. I wouldn't say that was the case 50 years ago...and it is not the case in a lot of 3rd world countries.

People always bring up "bioavailability and quality of protein" but generally that is pretty BS. It's basic science, biochem and nutritional science. If the body can't tell the difference where it's protein sources are coming from (be it a grain like quinoa that has all essential amino acids).... does it really matter?

There are certain things (like B12, iron, Vitamin D, DHA/EPA fatty acids etc), that I think all athletes (regardless of diet!) should check into and maybe consider even supplementing with. I think it's very hard as a high level endurance athlete (regardless of diet type!) to stay on top of some of these things while training super high mileage. Like I always say, some of the most iron deficient runners (and injury prone for that matter) I've known have been guys that eat red meat 3 times a week. But again diet isn't the only thing influencing this.

I don't believe humans "need" to eat animal meat/animal products. Obviously most people do and they enjoy it and enjoy the taste. Most people also just don't eat a very balanced diet in general though and that's why countries like the US have such bad obesity rates, rates of heart disease, and cancer.

There is no post in this thread that says top East African runners don't eat meat, and none of the "top 20 vegan athletes" link are East African nationals.

East Africans marathoners eat small amounts of meat.

Also, those living in the "Blue Zones" identified by Buettner as populations with extraordinarily high ratio of people living to over 100, eat very small amounts of meat.

Excellent post as usual from Sage.

I agree with Sage that people put way too much into the relationship of food and performance.
For running, nutrition and performance are not really related. And I say that as a long time vegetarian and a big believer that good food is important for you.
The thing is that it is not performance related, at least not at a measurable level in the younger years.
Once you get older your nutrition habits will catch up with you.

I am going towards 60 and most people around my age are unhealthy and that includes runners as well.

A healthy lifestyle with good nutrition choices will make you a healthy person in the long run but you probably will not see a performance boost because of that.

This is good. Idk if his plant-based diet led to his burnout. It might have contributed to it but he probably never ran much more than 9 or 10 hours/week in college. Elite triathlon training is 20+. Plus he's training in a warm climate. He said in the video that 4 days/week he had 2 or 3 hard sessions/day. 8-12 hard sessions a week?? That's impossible to sustain. I think 5ish quality sessions/week is going to work well for triathlon -- 2 bike/2 swim/1 run. That's just the quality. You're going to have tons of days with good but easy volume & tons of days where you're running easy, maybe even long-ish, off of hard rides. I like following his progress in the sport but you need to eat a ton at the top level & you need to train hard but not rush the training. You can get really good at triathlon if you put the work in. But you need to be smart about it & need to recover well.

This thread is awesome.

You are right in that there are *no longer* any posts in this thread that say this, but there most certainly were when I posted the comment! At least two comments that made the claim have been removed.

I would say the most damage that comes from a vegan, vegetarian, carnivore, pescatarian, fruititarian any "-ian" diet is that it, by nature, is restrictive and can lead to a host of issues that are only tangentially related to the nutrition an individual is or isn't getting.

The issue with Keto, for example, is that it tells you eating most vegetables will make you fat. The issue with Vegans (those who practice veganism for non-religious or moral purposes) is that it is restrictive in a sport where restriction can lead to issues. As with mostly anything in life, moderation is key. Should you eat only red meat? Probably not. Should you consume massive amounts of Tofu or synthetically derived and chemically treated impossible meat? No.

Orthorexia is a common side effect of vegetarianism and veganism. Balance is key- it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that supplying your body with a variance of macro and micronutrients is essential to performance and overall health. Restriction, at any level for any reason, is ultimately detrimental.

While I agree that for some (esp female endurance athletes as a cohort) "going vegan" could be highly correlated to disordered eating thoughts....so could any kind of "diet".....keto/paleo/whole30/..."intermittent fasting" etc. That is a mental thing though. In science we should put our emotions/ biased mental attitudes and perceptions aside and look at the facts.

I'm vegan. I realize that that is viewed as being a "restrictive diet" but I don't see it that way usually (unless I'm at a steak house and there is nothing on the menu for me besides a sad iceberg lettuce salad). I am aware of my protein demands as well as levels of vitamin B12/D/Iron etc and intake of some essential fatty acids. But again this should be an "all athlete" concern...regardless of diet type.

I would not advocate eating tons of tofu (although I do eat my fair share of tofu and enjoy it and think it is quite healthy for the most part). Of course many of the meat substitutes (Beyond Meat etc) aren't the most healthy and can be high in fat/oils etc. The ideal is to say "Whole Foods plant based" when you are talking about a healthy vegan diet as that implies you are eating more fresh fruits, veggies and whole grains and less highly processed crap with added refined sugar (i.e. cookies and pancakes and vegan Ben and Jerry's).

I myself indulge in beer and those sweets (probably way too often). I would not say my diet is "super healthy" and it certainly is not just because I am vegan. It's probably a heck of a lot better than the average American though (and the average American believes in eating too much meat and dairy IMO). As athletes we are more sensitive to any sort of deficiency because it could negatively influence our running (esp hard workouts and races). No doubt there are omnivores that eat more healthy than I do.

A lot of the psychology of diet comes down to fear from "loss aversion" I believe. So the idea that if you "take out" meat/dairy of your diet you will be "missing something"(protein, heme-iron, creatine, carnitine, vitamin K etc). Of course these animal products can be great sources of these things...but at what cost? I believe a lot of issues with heart disease and cancers and obesity in people are directly related to a diet high in red meats and dairy (high in saturated fat/cholesterol) etc. But people mainly like to blame "carbs". People will say "oh ice cream is bad for you because it is full of carbs/sugar"...but in reality it's also super high in fat. It's the double whammy effect of high fat/high sugar content that lends itself to diabetes and obesity.

Again, I'd just go back to the Science: What nutrients (vitamins, minerals, macros) does the human body need to perform at a high level and be healthy? -And at what amount (depends on genetics, age, exercise demands, life style factors etc)? Can I get that on a vegan diet? Yes, I believe so.

Speaking to health: according to a metanalysis over 175 populations, meat consumption correlates with longevity, controlling for wealth, smoking rates an other confounders.

dovepress.com

Meat intake is associated with life expectancy | IJGM

Dove Press

Examining the association between meat intake and life expectancy at a population level based on ecological data published by the United Nations agencies

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The "Blue Zones" Had already been thoroughly debunked for the agenda-driven bullish#t that it is, but this is the nail in the coffin for that propaganda.

Beef consumption in the U.S. has dropped nearly 50% but obesity has tripled. Correlates with increased carb and seed oil, especially soybean oil, consumption (most junk and restaurant food is a combination of these two factors).

I agree with Sage that diet, for most, has relatively little effect on performance (except the typical lack of connection made to illness and injury) for those under age 35. As you age, the effects, acute and cumulative, become MASSIVE by the time you hit your 60s.