I am a personal trainer with 6 years of experience and have been a vegan for the past 5. I'm here to help, ask me anything

[gagurl]

@extraneous Thanks for sharing your expertise. I am keen (and getting keener) runner, covering about 60 km a month which I expect will go up to 100 by the end of the year. I have lost a ton of weight which I suspect is mostly muscle loss. I run for my heart and mental health , and really don't want to give it up.

What is a good approach to retaining strength and conditioning? I run 5 days a week and do yoga/kettlebells 2-3 times to maintain strength but it's clearly not enough. (Also being stronger will help my running I'm sure)

 

[extraneous]

@gagurl You're welcome, I'm here to help.

As per your question: losing muscle mass doesn't necessarily mean you're unhealthier. So far your mileage isn't as high as to make me worry for your health other than potential hip/knee/foot injuries, which can be prevented with a good strength protocol.

If you aren't sure about what you're losing, I recommend you start doing (at least) monthly bioimpedances. They cost a couple of euros at your local pharmacy in most countries and they monitor your change in body composition percentages (mainly fat and muscle mass). You could also buy a cheap impedance scale such as the OMRON-511 for around 70€.

Now, yoga/kettlebells 2-3 times definitely does not tell me enough about your strength programme, but hints to me that it definitely isn't enough if you haven't gone in-depth with it. I've trained endurance athletes multiple times as the city I'm from (Valencia) is called the city of running around here, we have a ton of long-distance competitions such as marathons. Most of these people had a milleage upwards of 600km a month which is way more dangerous, and the ones that were injured could be rehabilitated with simple exercises. What you really need long-term is proper technique, footwear and a strength protocol which I can only hint you on reddit (even if I point you to some videos, you really need someone (preferably a podologist or certified PT) to analyze your running cycle at least once and maybe recommend you either insoles or technique correction).

Now, for training, you definitely should be focusing on 2-3 days a week of compound exercises with as much transference to running as you can do (half-squats, split squats, bulgarian deadlifts and squats) in 3-5 sets of 4-6 reps to strengthen lower-body stabilization and basic hypertrophy training (seated leg presses, abductions and adductions, leg curls and extensions) in 2-4 sets of 8-12 reps with a excentric-overload protocol if possible (which needs an explanation on itself for every exercise, but I'll summarize: a muscle contraction has two dynamic parts: a concentric contraction (against the resistance, that's going up against gravity on a squat), and a excentric one (in favour of the resistance, that's going down, following gravity's pull on a squat). A excentric-overload protocol for beginners would be to perform the concentric part of the contraction as fast as possible and slow the excentric one as to last about 3 seconds.

 

[betelo995]

@gagurl 60 km is 37.28 miles

 

[padraig_leigheanach]

@extraneous Hi!!! Thank you so much for posting. I was wondering if you could help explain the liver to me. My sister is vegan and extremely high crab to the point where she think shes causing damage to the liver by eating plant based fat. She says to me the body cant process nutrition if you have a fatty liver. What’s constitutes for a fatty liver? She thinks even eating to much fat will and the liver wont be able to detox correctly. I eat around 50-69 grams of plant fat a day. Is this okay for my body? I do enjoy fat and feel to hungry without it. I also love flax for omega 3 since its help bring down inflammation.

Lets talk about fructose. I have heard even high amounts of it coming from fruit even being bad. I used to eat 7 bananas a day but i feel like its to much fructose for my liver ( to my understanding the liver hates sugar) so i only eat 2-3 pieces of fruit a day now . I do miss the higher fruit but feel like i could get insulin resistance eventually or diabetes.

Also lets talk about water soluble b vitamins. We get them in abundance from plants specifically b6 and the RDA is maximum of 2.0 mg sometimes im consuming 3.7 mg a day will eating that much more b6 have a significant impact on my nerves over time. Studies have showed if you go over 2.0 mg of vit b6 you can eventually get peripheral nerve damage. Sometimes to many vitamins can be a bad thing and cause issues.

Thank you

 

[extraneous]

@padraig_leigheanach Sorry for the late response, just came back from work and am catching up with everyone.

Hi!!! Thank you so much for posting. I was wondering if you could help

explain the liver to me. My sister is vegan and extremely high crab to

the point where she think shes causing damage to the liver by eating

plant based fat. She says to me the body cant process nutrition if you

have a fatty liver. What’s constitutes for a fatty liver? She thinks

even eating to much fat will and the liver wont be able to detox

correctly. I eat around 50-69 grams of plant fat a day. Is this okay for

my body? I do enjoy fat and feel to hungry without it. I also love flax

for omega 3 since its help bring down inflammation.

Well, there are a couple of misconceptions in the statements leading to your question. Fatty liver is only the common term used to describe a serious disease called hepatic steatosis. It's mainly prevalent in as alcoholic hepatic steatosis and even its non-alcoholic counterpart is prevented by following a vegan diet. It's normally associated to other comorbidites that are present much earlier and easier to detect such as obesity or diabetes. It definitely isn't preset almost in any individual with a healthy diet and even less on a whole-foods plant-based diet. You could be eating 200 grams of plant fat a day (most of which you wouldn't even absorb due to its associated fiber) and wouldn't be at risk of suffering anything close to a fatty liver. Omega-3 (even on supplement form as flax-oil pills) is definitely worth the investment for every diet.

Lets talk about fructose. I have heard even high amounts of it coming

from fruit even being bad. I used to eat 7 bananas a day but i feel like

its to much fructose for my liver ( to my understanding the liver hates

sugar) so i only eat 2-3 pieces of fruit a day now . I do miss the

higher fruit but feel like i could get insulin resistance eventually or

diabetes.

Eating less fruit is the opposite of what you have to do to have a healthy liver, or a healthy body for that matter. The studies from which people extrapolate that fructose is bad are mainly comprised of injecting isolated fructose in liver cells or feeding ridiculous ammounts of the same isolate to small rodents. There hasn't been a single study performed in reasonable conditions on humans that has concluded against increasing fruit intake, even those where participants had diabetes (and I point you to this fenomenal Michael Greger's video on the topic).

Also lets talk about water soluble b vitamins. We get them in abundance

from plants specifically b6 and the RDA is maximum of 2.0 mg sometimes

im consuming 3.7 mg a day will eating that much more b6 have a

significant impact on my nerves over time. Studies have showed if you go

over 2.0 mg of vit b6 you can eventually get peripheral nerve damage.

Sometimes to many vitamins can be a bad thing and cause issues.

I'll point out the same as right above this answer: most of these studies are performed injecting isolated nerve cells with isolated b6 in a petri dish on a lab and have no factual weight in our lives. It's true that fat-soluble vitamins can cause hypervitaminosis but the only cases I know about are those surpassing the RDA over a hundredfold with excessive ammounts of vitamin supplementation and those are just anecdotal evidence not even trials as it would be unhetical to force someone into those conditions.

It's extremely unlikely for you to suffer hypervitaminosis without supplementing as the body has mechanisms such as buffer systems to reduce nutrient digestion which increase their function as you increase the intake. Definitely a raw 100% increase (excluding that a part wouldn't even be ingested anyway) in a fat-soluble vitamin on a whole-foods plant-based diet is nothing to worry about.

 

[padraig_leigheanach]

@extraneous This is incredible advice. Can i ask how long you’ve been studying for you certainly understand nutrition on a cellular level that is impressive. I have to correct myself because when i asked about vitamins i was talking about the vitamins in whole foods not supplements. I dont take any just get everything from whole foods. I was concerned about the amount of b6 vitamins i was getting daily because sometimes i really enjoy bananas and eat maybe 4 in one day ( whoops) and also chia seed and potatoes have alot so i have to be careful. The recommended daily amount is only 2.0 mg and tracking my nutrients im getting double that amount 4.0 mg. I have nerve problems right now but its because of scar tissue from an injury it suck its pushes on my sciatic nerve so whenever i do weighted squats i get nerve pain for 4-5 days and leg is super stiff ( this also might be tendinopathy or tendenosis of my hamstring tendons because i had achilles tendinopathy and i heard that the tendon breaking down and theres nothing you can do bout it. Anyways i agree i dont think eating 80 grams of plant fat a day is bad for your liver im sure it can handle alot and isnt as useles as i think it is.

Thanks so much for taking time out of your day you are super thoughtful

 

[jennkzoo]

@extraneous how can i increase my appetite? i get full very easily and struggle to eat more calories. also, what are some good high calorie vegan options other than nuts and dry fruit? because they're extremely expensive so I don't eat a lot of it

 

[extraneous]

@jennkzoo You have exactly the same problem I've had for years. I've been ectomorph basically all my life (I weighted 68kg at 186cm tall when I was 18 years old), way before being vegan and exactly the same after I started being able to eat a lot more (I'm at 87,5kg now, so that's a 44 pound change, 22 of which has been in the last two months).

The first ten kilos I won were by limiting aerobic training, increasing volume in my strength training and increasing cereal intake (pasta, oats and bread, all whole-grains). I even got to 82kg with that simple change before stopping and staying at 78-80 for years.

For these last 10kg, it's been way harder. I've changed my routine completely, I only do hypertrophy right now, and I'm eating around 4000kcals a day, which tends to be 2500kcals of whole foods as main meals (mainly pasta, bread and beans) and 1500kcals of homemade oat shakes, dark chocolate mugcakes and other high-calorie, low-fiber foods I can easily microwave or blend. It's also cheaper and healthier than its supplement alternatives.

 

[jennkzoo]

@extraneous thanks for the advice

 

[jennkzoo]

@extraneous actually, i have one more question. is it worth it to join gym at this stage when i can do hardly 10 push ups? or should i start with bodyweight training and join gym once I can do atleast 30-40

 

[extraneous]

@jennkzoo It's even better to join the gym while you can't do anything else. Calisthenics has a significant entry point, it requires certain conditioning that most of us didn't start with (you can even injure yourself easily by trying difficult exercises early on, even with those push-ups if your technique isn't correct), while in most gyms you can adjust the weight of any machine all the way from 2,5 kilos up to 100.

I love calisthenics and the impact it's brought on many people's health, but a gym has the most adaptable tools for every type of routine.

 

[dawn16]

@extraneous What is the maximum percentage of total calories coming from fruit would you recommend for those that love it and want to max out whilst not missing out on key nutrients from other food groups? For instance Dr fuhrman says maximum of 40% of your calories should come from fruit

 

[extraneous]

@dawn16 If you had told me about any other plant-based food group I'd told you to eat as much as you want, but fruits are the only ones that can cause a real protein and mineral deficit as well as even hypervitaminosis on any diet.

I'd say it depends on how many calories you eat, even if the question is a percentage. A surplus of 300-500 calories over your BMA+physical activity will mean that you're probably meeting the RDAs for every nutrient even if your diet is mainly fruit. On a normal, normocaloric diet I wouldn't go over 40%, and that's eating around 10 bananas, 20 oranges or 14 kiwis a day. Eating as many seems unrealistic to me with the ammount of water and fiber they contain.

 

[jamedoc]

@extraneous Besides the basic advice of making sure your meals are balanced (carb/fats/protein), what are some often overlooked things in the diet which require special attention... Things like B12 or Omega-3's: but anything else?

 

[extraneous]

@jamedoc B12 and omega-3's are definitely the biggest offenders, even for non-vegans.

·Vitamin-D as supplementation as there are very few foods that contain them and most of the population suffers from deficiency (even in countries with good climates most of us need supplementation during winter).

·Check for iron defficiency on a blood test, it's especially prevalent in females for any diet, can be solved easily and anemia has some serious consequences.

Plant-based diets offer higher intakes of almost every micronutrient, and a healthier gut flora, so I wouldn't recommend anything else for health if you're following a healthy diet.

Now, given how we are on r/veganfitness, a couple of healthy sport supplements are:

Disclaimer: these are all regarded as ergogenic aids, which boost performance but do not cause serious side effects and are allowed even in professional sports.

·Creatin-monohydrate: the worst side effect is that it can cause episodes diarrhea if taken in excessive quantities, increases performance in strength training and HIIT protocols by boosting the reserves of phosphocreatine up to around a 20%. Dosage is 0,06g/kg daily.

·Nitrid oxide: mainly in the form of beet juice but there are pills nowadays, boosts aerobic performance for long-distance sports by the expansion of the cardiovascular vessels. Has no common side-effects. The only time I've used it, pills didn't even exist and the dosage was two glasses of juice 40 minutes before exercise.

·Caffeine: can boost overall performance by stimulating the sympathetic nervous system, it's effects diminish with repetition so it's typically used only on competition days. Dosage varies from 200 to 400mg 1h before exercise.

 

[ireneste]

@extraneous I’ve always thought I was “healthy”. I surf a few times a week and that’s about it. My diet is pretty bad though. My current issue is blood pressure. I’m not currently vegan but will transition to it eventually. My BP has been around 130-140 / 80-90 over my last few years. I want to get this taken care of if it’s possible. I probably have visceral fat even though abs show. Have you seen a client who has elevated BP go down to normal ranges? What should I do for this specifically (besides reduce salt)?

 

[boldor]

@ireneste Not op but my close friend's older sister used to have terrible blood pressure to the point where she was taking meds, within a month or two of switching entirely to a plant based diet it went back close to normal.

 

[extraneous]

@ireneste Sorry for the late response, I'm pretty busy on weekdays and then to check reddit only on the weekend.

I've had several clients with different stages of cardiovascular disease, some of them had had heart attacks and anginas. Most of them with elevated BP.

A whole-foods plant-based diet ALWAYS resolves the issue. Here's former president of the American College of Cardiology talking about plant-based diets.

The main problem is salt, that's for sure, but overall cardiovascular health, especially low-grade chronic inflammation of the cardiovascular system is something on which vegan diets have an immense effect and reduce BP.

 

[jamedoc]

@extraneous What is your formula you use to determine daily protein requirements based off of a desired weight ?

 

[extraneous]

@jamedoc I do not use a macronutrient formula anymore, as caloric intake and food quality is way more important for long-term muscle gains and health, but the science seems to agree that between 1,4 and 2,2g/kg works for almost every single professional athlete (which you get with sufficient caloric intake as long as you eat whole foods consisting in something other than only fruit). In this reply is some more info about this.