Carni power!

[brent]

So after 14 years of being a strict vegetarian, I've decided to eat meat again. It's impossible to live in Nevada and not eat meat, so I've decided when in Rome... Anyways, hopefully this will help with the bodybuilding thing, but I seem to get sick after eating even a small serving (I've only tried small bits of fish & chicken so far.) Has anyone else here done this? how long did it take? Did you get huge from the increased protein consumption?

[brent]

Originally Posted by drew

When was the last time you met vegan ifbb pro?

Bill Pearl is one name that immediately comes to mind. I know there are more, and probably more relevant ones. I'm sure it's possible, I'm just tires=d of making the effort, especially when you live in Las Vegas.

BTW, although muscles are made of meat, most of that meat comes from herbivores like cows, sheep, pigs, fish, poultry, etc. Generally carnivorous animals do not have enough meat on them to make them viable. When was the last time your butcher had a deal on cat meat?

[glammaman2000]

...SUSHI!!!!It's a great proten source!Just ask Craig"maybe I took this Bad-Boy of Bodybuilding thing too far"Titus!It's bite-size&relatively easy to digest.(p.s.,Andreas Cahling was a vegetarian)

[brent]

Well if it's good enough for my neighbor Craig...

[explodingmuscle]

Drew, You don't know the power of the dark side!


Seriously, I feel compelled to point out that when I stopped eating meat in 1990 I weighed 137# and had never been able to gain much weight. Since becoming vegetarian, I have gained over 60# of muscle and am well over 200# (lean) now.
This may be because my body didn't handle meat well, or maybe it was just the fact that any major change makes you pay attention to your body and its nutrition (or maybe its because I stopped poisoning my body with cattle industry chemicals, Praise Oprah!) (hadda get that in there somewhere )
I should point out too, that not all vegetarians are vegans, and although I can't vouch for "freaking vegetarians" or vegans, or macrobiotic eaters, I can testify to the fact that you can gain a lot of muscle on a vegetarian diet. I should mention that I AM aware that people who eat fish are not considered vegetarians. I did not cheat by eating fish, even on Fridays. Meat (or any other one source of protein) is not the holy grail of mass gain. The key is to do the following:

?1. lift heavy for each bodypart at least once every 10 days. Don't lift for the same muscle group more than 2x a week, unless you are juicing, which I can't advise you about- no experience here.

??2. EAT 4000-6000 Calories a day (depending on your size) or more including, as Drew says, at least 1.5 to 2 grams of protein per # of lean body weight (that's roughly 3.3 to 4.8 grams/kilo of bodyweight). So if you weigh 185 and you aren't substantially overweight, you should be getting 280 to 370 grams of protein a day, and as you gain more muscle the amount needs to be increased. For your internal organs to effectively and safely process that much protein, you need to drink at least a half gallon of WATER (not including tea or coffee or beer or soda) over the course of a day. That's 8 full glasses of water. Sometimes I cheat by diluting my protein shakes with 8 extra oz of water. By the way the calories should come from clean food as much as possible, but you shouldn't worry about a really low fat intake (Stick with the good fats like olive or grapeseed oil.) Stay away from refined sugar, except right after you work out when you need an insulin spike along with your protein. (I like to make my post-workout shake with white grape juice or lemonade.)

Somewhere on the web I've seen a formula that determines protein and calorie needs for mass gaining more precisely. You plug in weight, estimated bodyfat percentage, and general physical activity level, and get exact numbers for calories and protein. But remember, GIGO! Try googling for "mass gain diet" or bodybuilder+protein+diet or something like that.

Food intake should be divided into 5-7 small meals a day(each with some protein in it) rather than 3-4 big ones, so your body can absorb more of the nutrients.

It is much easier, veg or non veg, to get enough calories and protein by including protein shakes among your meals. A multi-vitamin and mineral supplement is a good idea as well, but thats really all you need in the way of supplements.

If you can afford to include anything else, make it creatine, and IGNORE fantastic claims in magazines about "amazing" breakthroughs based on cutting edge research.

In my lifetime (I'm near 40) there have only been 2 real advancements in non-prescription supplements (unless you count better protein refining) Those are 1, creatine and 2, prohormones (which are no longer legal in the US). Many supplements are useless (such as those based on insect hormones, and the recent repackaging of arginine as a cell volumizer- BTW the directions on those NO2 products always say to drink LOTS of water, any positive effect you DO get is probably from water-which is much cheaper than supplements- unless you've fallen for the bottled water scam). Supplements, even ones that don't do anything, are hawked by many different companies, each wanting to win the advertising war and take your money for their version of the latest useless compound. Spend the money on food and protein powder instead!

???3. Last but NOT least, get 8 or more hours of sleep EACH night. Sleep deprivation makes your body want to store more fat and tear down muscle. So if you work mornings, don't stay up to watch the local weather or sports on TV, get it off the web in the morning. If you are hanging at the pub with guys who work evenings or you can see Conan O'Brien or Graham Norton or Carson Daly or that guy who played Drew Carey's obnoxious boss on your TV, you've screwed up bigtime!! Get yr ass in bed MUCH earlier!In case you're wondering how I know all of this, its because I used to work second shift. Yeah, that's it, second shift.

If you want to build and cut fat at the same time, either pick which to do first or else get therapy! It can be done but is very difficult and will probably drive you over the edge unless you are Ralph Nader, a buddhist monk, or some other ascetic, in which case youre probably not reading web info about bodybuilding.
Good luck!

Originally Posted by drew

man I've tried everything frim regular diets, to almost no meat, to no carbs, to almost all meat. For me a diet that's mostly meat and really low in carbs but still high in fibre works best. I try and only get my carbs from either protein drinks or maybe some bread (complex carbs) here or there. Just make sure you get enough calories and that you get 1.5-2 grams of protein per pound of your bodyweight.

And I wouldn't be surprised if you make yourself sick for a while, you've probably killed off a lot of the valuable bacteria and such in your system that normally help digest meat.

If you're used to being a herbivore, just start adding meat into your dishes you're used to eating. Make casseroles or something. That way your body can adjust. But yeah, if you really want to grow some serious muscle, you can't be a freaking vegitarian! When was the last time you met vegan ifbb pro?

Muscles are made out fo meat, so you have to eat meat to build them. Good call for coming back over from the dark side.

[brent]

explodingmuscle, I agree with everything you said. However, since I decided to eat meat, I've started making gains again. However, I used to grow really well as a vegetarian, then I moved to Las Vegas. I find it much more difficult to get enough protein here then I did in Portland somehow. I really think that where you live has a lot to do with it.