Decided to be plant based after watching The Game Changers, anyone can share how has this diet helped your performance?

I was raised since birth as a vegetarian.

I’ve never eaten fish, eggs or meat.

I’m a teenager now and have been vegan for the last 2 years. I started running 3 years ago and ran 19min for 5kms I have now run 15.40 for 5000m on my own. I’m also a national athlete.

One arm push-ups are an ease and a grip strength of 70+ kgs goes a long way. Yes, it’s possible to be a vegan athlete!

MyLittlePony Size12 Men's Velcro Straps wrote:

You won't get better or get worse. Food is just food. Animal products don't give a boost to performance but they also don't wreck performance. You'll continue to get better over time just the same.

You also won't really prevent heart disease and lower cancer risk if you don't cut refined oils and refined proteins from your diet too. Hydrogenated oil is everywhere.

Focus on eating starchy stuff. Make high calorie starchy food the center of you meals. Garnish with greens and color. Add nuts, seeds, avacados, and nut butters.

This is how it kinda was for me. Been vegetarian for a while, vegan for a few years. I didn’t really start feeling better or worse. Only real difference I can think of is I used to have to go to the bathroom during runs a lot and now I can usually just go in the morning and be good for a long time.

I’ve been running a little slower than my PRs lately, but I’ll be honest in saying that I haven’t been dedicating nearly as much time to training as I did when I ran them, so in a way you might argue that I’m still running pretty well considering how much work I’m doing.

Bunked wrote:

lwood wrote:

After reading Chris Kresser's notes debunking most of the documentary I decided to keep eating meat.

http://chriskresser.com/wp-content/uploads/Show-Notes-Debunking-the-Game-Changers.pdf?utm_source=hs_automation&utm_medium=email&utm_content=79476616&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9EqrlwIh690MzI6sdMbG5wxKj2QVK0DKt3qmM0-0bmHp51UV8Y51_bNUnAysspsSfD8mYwGlMbZ1vosuMPQVoBKMnTeg&_hsmi=79476616

That debunking has been debunked.

Has it? In its entirety? No it hasn't. And have you read all of it? Much more fact based than the documentary.

There's a lot of polarity hereabouts when it comes to plant-based diet.

I'm a vegetarian, but do occasionally have eggs or milk.

I also watched the Game Changers documentary.

For those that haven't seen it, it asserts there are significant health/performance benefits going "full Vegan" - not just over a meat-based diet, but also over pescatarian or lacto-ovo vegetarianism, prompting me to consider a stricter Vegan diet.

I'm skeptical about the science, though, and would also appreciate other informed opinion.

Presenting a type of diet as science brings an objective fact. Humans are Omnivores. We are biologically built for meat and plants. We have a set of molars for chewing plant based and wisdom/incisors for shredding meat.

Hubert Glass our great American Settler/Explorer was able to hike hundreds of miles in winter living on Buffalo liver. The issue at hand between is a health performance. I'm sure the Game Changers squad all has access to their respective supplements/proteins endorsement. For the laymen and if you just want efficient bioavailability Heme Iron, Liver Enzymes, Animal B12 meat is the best assimilated.

I've routinely had bloodwork done and the 3months I ate all the rice and beans, beets, tofu, greens my hematocrit plummeted in the upper 30s.

Back on meat and initially 16oz/day (turkey, chix, beef, livers 1xweek) my Hematocrit soared to 47%!

Time for that Bacon ?!

Ernest wrote:

There's a lot of polarity hereabouts when it comes to plant-based diet.

I'm a vegetarian, but do occasionally have eggs or milk.

I also watched the Game Changers documentary.

For those that haven't seen it, it asserts there are significant health/performance benefits going "full Vegan" - not just over a meat-based diet, but also over pescatarian or lacto-ovo vegetarianism, prompting me to consider a stricter Vegan diet.

I'm skeptical about the science, though, and would also appreciate other informed opinion.

See above.

I’ve had meat 2x in the past 3 months and dairy maybe 6-7x. Prior I would eat dairy/meats daily. Eating cleaner and cutting out the meats has made me eat way more veggies than before. I have not been sick as often but one pretty significant thing for me is that I’m breathing much better at the end of hard workouts. For the past few years I’ve had an issue with breathing (wheezing and feeling like my airways are closing) especially in the cold or when the air quality/allergens are high. I thought it was because I had exercised so much in super cold weather over the years or that maybe I was developing asthma but after eating cleaner/more vegan my breathing seems so far to be going back to how it was.

it seems crazy to me that omnivore vs vegan/vegetarian is the dominant diet debate or discussion going on nowadays if you are gonna abandon being an omnivore and swear to never eat something, even in moderation, because you think that's what best, then why start with chicken breast? moral reasons aside, why would you swear off chicken breast? how about swearing off cake or alcohol? why not swear off added sugars? why is not eating animals or animal products such a popular diet choice for health reasons? there are way more obvious unhealthy things to consume that these "vegan for health reasons" people do not swear off. it makes no sense it is pretty insane to me that someone thinks their performance or life could be so much better because they don't eat 4oz of chicken breast with their dinner. the world is obese. people are dying young and failing to live happy lives because they eat the wrong foods and it has nothing to do with eating animals. all this attention on whether or not to eat animals is such a distraction from a global health crisis

I figure I will get to eat a lot more food because vegan foods tend to be lower calorie.. and I am a volume eater

plus I love myself some carbs

eat 30g of protein with your meal and drink a full glass of water and wait 30 mins and see if you still really feel the urge to shove more food in your mouth

being a "volume eater" or feeling like you have to get really full with every meal is a dangerous habit to have. it may be okay when you mostly eat foods with low calorie density, but as soon as you eat something with high calorie density, which vegan food certainly has (oil and sugar), you still feel like you need to eat a lot of volume but now you've had way too many calories

Atkins All the Way wrote:

If you are dumb enough be believe that vegan poop, then you should do some research into the Atkins diet. At least the Atkins fad won't kill you like vegan diets do.

0/10

Best decision I’ve ever made.

Started off as health experiment, cut out red meats, then white meats few months after. Lost any craving for either, noticed gut digestion improvement.

Within a few more months cut out all cheese and milk and yogurt, switched to plant milk. Skin and breathing got better. Struggled with Asthma and had dry skin before.

Eggs were last to go about 10 years ago; saw a chicken laying and egg out of its butt/pee hole and just never looked back or craved an animal carcass or secretion.

Certainly not a hippie, but have a clearer respect for life and others having their own reasons to live. Too easy to leave animals alone and quite obvious we have created an over breeding issue.

I would direct message Nimai Delgado, James Aspey, Scott Jurek or the Switch For Good Campaign. So easy to to talk to and all good people.

Best of luck brother.

Dr. Atkins Literally died of a Heart Condition.

Don’t listen to anyone that calls it ‘Vegan Food’. There are about 7 animals on average that we eat. However there are over 20,000 edible plants. To classify Vegan Food as being in the minority is ignorant.

Another note, all food is Vegan Food, the rest is just a dead animal bodies and their bodily fluids.

Oh and anyone who says We have incisors for tearing meat, please laugh at them directly in the face for a good 10 seconds then and walk away, never speaking to them again.

And that goes for anyone who says we are biological omnivores.

Put fruit and a rabbit in a baby crib and who do you think the baby will play with and what do you think the baby will eat? Something to think about.

Alright, let’s point out this guys (tips) disingenuous response:

1. Stopped for moral reasons. Basically saying that he agrees with unnecessarily hurting and killing animals.

2. He ate so much that he got bloated in order to keep the muscle on. He is equating calories to muscle.

3. Then the bloated guy who eats a ton to keep his muscle, implies that he was a skeleton due to the large amounts of plants he was eating. The same guy who ate so much to keep the muscle on to the point of bloating!

4. Then we get to his point: Eat Meat. But a normal diet too, with Whole Foods too, with dairy, etc.’

Conclusion: this guy was Vegan for 3 years and this is his advice?

You just made reductionism sound sensical. Not falling for it. It is a philosophy, not sense.

Hopefully you had bias here and don’t actually agree with what you said.

I love this line, “the world is obese, people are dying...because they eat the wrong foods and it has nothing to do with eating animals.”

Ha! Literally over 17 million people died last year due to saturated fat and cholesterol.

Not cake. Not alcohol.

Vegan for Long Time wrote:

Put fruit and a rabbit in a baby crib and who do you think the baby will play with and what do you think the baby will eat? Something to think about.

Well if you put some dirt and a rabbit in there, the baby is gonna eat the dirt. Something to think about.

I'm 42. I went plant-based in 2015. I've been running since HS (with a few years off in college and immediately after). In the years since making the change, I've run PR's in every distance longer than the 10k. I dropped my marathon PR from 2:57 to 2:54 last year and ran under 1:20 in the half. My shorter distance times haven't improved, but my running focus has mostly been on the half and full over the past years. Granted, these are sub-mediocre times by letsrun standards, but I have improved over the age of 40. Also, I have remained injury free while putting together several 4000 mile years.

Do I "feel" different? Not particularly. My bowels certainly don't give me any issues. Sexual performance is better. Those are the main things. I made the change for ethical reasons, so even if I find out that there is no physical benefit, I'll never go back to eating animals. And yes, I've had plenty of bloodwork done, everything is as it should be. My B-12 is fine, thankyouverymuch.

As far as those claiming no "serious" athletes have been plant-based for more than a year or two, that's just nonsense. Do some research, there are plenty.

So my question to all you "vegans". How big are your organic gardens? Would love to see some posted videos of how you are managing to grow your own healthy veggies....remember that pesticides kill.

Anytime I’ve been strictly vegan I struggled with low iron. Supplements have been very ineffective. I’ve focused on eating iron rich plant food such as black strap molasses, lots of Cruciferous vegetables, beans, and even a plant based protein shake that has a lot of iron in it. My solution has been to do all of that but add on fish.

Any tips for getting enough iron on a vegan diet?

Vegan for Long Time wrote:

Dr. Atkins Literally died of a Heart Condition.

He died from falling on the ice and hitting his head.

His diet is silliness and he had a heart condition, but don't lie about the man's death. And don't start with the falling was a cover-up conspiracy, that makes you sound like those keto crazies who are always claiming conspiracies.