Can't eat any more!

[SteelWeaver]

Every female that I've brought over from the dark side (no meat) has made considerably far more progress with increasing lean mass and dropping body fat. If we weren't meant to eat meat, it wouldn't taste so good. Meat protein is a top source of protein, takes considerable energy to digest, is packed with nutrients and maintains fullness for a period of time.

"I get super grumpy and whiny and my quads burn when I walk up stairs when I go low carb."

Everyday someone else learns the value of carbs for lifting and mental function.

W6

Aah - W6 - were there something in the world that could bring me over from the dark side, short of an extreme life-or-death situation, I would go for it. But I've been veggie more than half my life, and the thought of eating meat turns my stomach (just about the only thing that does - otherwise I have great "intestinal fortitude"). Luckily, I'm so convinced that I can reach my goals as a veg, that little is likely to stand in my way - hell - I have my whole life! And extreme focus ability. And simple joy of life! (OK, I'll stop now )

About carbs ... I'm reading "Power Eating" (2nd edition 2001) by Susan Kleiner (have you heard of her?). She has a string of qualifications and experience with BB and strength training nutrition. She is of the high carb school - recommending up to 8g of carbs per kilo of bodyweight in a building phase. Do you know of any BB's who use this kind of nutrition plan? Could it work, in theory?

 

[SteelWeaver]

Your ratios look OK on paper, but because of the high fiber content you may be absorbing a lot less than you're eating. I am your weight, around 16-17%bf right now, and a strict vego. I gain good lean mass:fat ratio on 3000cals per day MAX.

Well, for sure there's a whole lot NOT being absorbed, as evidenced by twice daily "movements" - eh hem. Gosh MS - how tall are you? Spatterson, also, is around my weight (heavier), much lower bf, and gaining on around 3000 cals a day. Something's wrong here!

Try to fit in more low fiber protein sources such as cottage cheese, eggs, soy protein ISOLATE, whey etc....Consume these proteins in meals that are separate to your veggies and grains, preferably with some fat.

So, if my mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks were, say, apple, cottage cheese, a handful of almonds and a serving of soy protein powder, would that do it? Aren't apples, well, all fruits full of fiber?

Carb cycling also works very well for adding muscle, not just for dieting. I really think your situation warrants a close look at carb cycling. I don't know what weight and %bf you started at, but on the surface of it it seems that your diet and/or training is not optimal for you. A clued up trainer might help a lot (if there is any such thing in Japan?).

I'm willing to try anything (except eat meat - lol) - I want to get this as EXACT as possible. I'm tired of adding a bit here, dropping a bit there, and then waiting to see if anything changes. I started at 26% body fat, 78kg in January this year. Then I took Thermocuts and unknowingly went low(ish) carb, and went down to about 74-75kg, 20% bf (or so) in around June. Since then the bf% has stayed about the same (no more Thermocuts), and I've gone up to about 79 kilos (scale said 80.5 on Tuesday, but 78.6 on the Sunday before - WTF?) No head for math, haven't worked out how much fat that is yet - nervous too). Please teach me how to cycle carbs for gains!

However, as I've said before, the judges in Japan may have compeletely different tastes and criteria for figure competitors. So the best you can do is train well, eat well and rest lots. Don't worry about the scales too much. Keep track of the bodyfat. You may be losing fat, but retaining fluid (common on high carb/high calorie diets), so the scales stay the same but you look bigger. 0.25kg per month of muscle adds up to 3kg per year. That's actually very good for a female who's not using steroids. If you keep that up for a couple of years you'll be awesome!!! However if half of that weight is fat, then that's not so good

I don't want to put on fat WAHHH

Physique, MS, not figure. My gym owner (JFBB judge) said I needn't worry about my calves too much; if I have big biceps I'll do well LOL LOL LOL!!! So I went back to the calf machine and did another superset - heh heh. It's a novice competition, so I think just having some muscle will be in my favour. I think coming in shredded will be even more favoured though.

3kg of muscle PER YEAR is good!? Even if I've only been training 2 years?

MS, you're the best! Thanks for the info. I LOVE this site.

 

[SteelWeaver]

MS -- can you recommend a good nutrition book for someone who mostly doesn't eat red meat? Fish chicken and eggs, as well as maybe a good book for just eggs? Or even for strict veggos like you?

Steel: Regarding Japanese competition: there are a few english language web sites about the Japanese bodybuilding women out there. One of them that comes to mind is steel butterflies (I know, groan). I can't think of the URL off the top of my head, but if you're interested I'll post it when I get home...

Wyst - I read a book called something like "Vegetarian Sports Nutrition" or "Sports Nutrition for Vegetarians". The writer is a famous endurance athlete, but her name escapes me now. I can post it if you like. The blurb says it cover BB'ers, but that's mostly a lie - I think there's only one BB in it, but she covers a bunch of useful nutritional aspects, as well as pesco-vegetarians and other types. She also has a bunch of recipes in it. There is a REAL dearth of vegetarian BB nutritional info as far as I can tell. I guess we're a bit of an oxymoron.

As for English Japanese FBB sites - yes please please please!

PS - not really Krakatoa - LOL!

 

[MS]

Let's see where to begin. First, let's go back to post-training nutrition. This is the most important meal of the day (no matter when you train). For muscle gain try to get in 2 grams of carbs per kg. Keep to mainly high GI carbs, and combine it with 0.5 grams of whey protein. Leave the milk out of this meal. Keep the tofu in for your last meal. Rearrange the rest of your daily carb intake around mornings, with carb rotation in mind.

I can't give you exact ratios for your carb rotation. I can tell you what has worked well for me and some of the semi-veg women that have used it. (I'm 5'5" to answer one of your questions). Two lower carb days (in a row) where the only carbs come from the post work out meal, plus a little in the pre-work out meal. Then a high carb day where you might take in as much as 4-5 grams per kg, followed by a day of moderate carbs (3g/kg). On the high and moderate days you would spread the remaining carbs out over each meal. The fat stays low all 4 days (1g/kg of ) and protein stays constant at 4g/kg.

So for an 80kg person this would look something like:

Day 1: Moderate carbs=240g=960 cals
Protein = 320g=1280 cals
Fat=80g=720 cals
Total cals =2960

Days 2-3: Low carbs=160g=640 cals
Protein and fat same as day 1
Total cals=2640

Day 4: High carbs=400g=1600 cals
Protein and fat as for previous days
Total cals=3600


This is just one of MANY approaches to carb cycling. Individual mileage may vary.
I have not heard of a women eating 8 grams of carbs per kg on a regular basis unless she is on AAS, training for endurance events, or attempting to gain fat! But then I certainly don't know of even a small proportion of the different successful methods that other folks have tried.

Other tips I can offer (the advice is free so keep that in mind) is that the fruit could be cut back on, especially the higher fructose ones (pretty much everything but the grape juice and bananas). If you want to drink fruit juice, stick to grape juice as part of your post work out meal. Add protein into your 10am meal.

I'm glad you told me a little of your history and where you started from. You are doing really well. You have lost fat (~6%) AND gained around 2-3kg of muscle since January. Fat loss with muscle gain is the toughest game in town. I make all of my mass gains in the post competition window of anabolism when my body fat is really low and my body is primed to gain mass with minimum fat. Of course, as you point out, you are a novice and I've been doing this for years……I suspect you will make your best gains post competition as well. Don't be too impatient your first time, As you rightly say, you've got your whole life. If you were in a desperate hurry you would no doubt already be eating meat and taking AAS. Use this competition to get a feel for your body and how it responds to dietary adjustments.

Wyst, I don't know of any good nutrition books, vego or otherwise. I'm sure there are plenty out there, but to judge their worth you have to try the theories for yourself, or leave them on the shelf if your independent research leads you to believe that they are no use to you. As an example, you will find lots of people that swear by Atkin's diet. They have had great results and are happy. However, I haven't yet heard of a bodybuilder who has had any positive results from this type of diet. On the EF diet board you will find an evangelistic following of the CKD diet, yet I know very few women who have thrived on this for precompetition. There are also gender differences in carb metabolism and requirements, so any diet book (vego or not) that doesn't take this fundamental difference into account is of questionable value! Caveat Emptor. Bodybuilding nutrition is still in it's infancy. If I were you I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for "The definitive guide to vegetarian bodybuilding for women".

 

[wyst]

MS -- Thanks, yeah, I'd sorta concluded myself that the books seemed pretty crappy, but I keep hoping that some guru will say "oh, you should pick up this one..." Ah well. Still, your posts are always great, and I'm learning gradually from them and from spatts posts and so on and tinkering and seeing what works for me. I'm actually losing weight and still happy about it at this point, since I'm still a beginner compared to most here, although people at work are starting to ask me what I am doing that my shape has changed so much, yay! When I tell them lots of squats I usually get a blank look if not outright disbelief. People don't expect a japanese woman to do squats, I guess. Anyhow, I can't go back to Mickey D's. I tried it once since I started getting in shape, and I felt pretty sick after, and I swear I could feel the french-fry grease oozing out of my skin about half and hour later. Yuck! Thanks for the advice!

Steel: Yes, I'd love to read the book you're talking about! Maybe it's the one I've been searching for? If you can post the title/author, I'd be in your debt.

PS: Here's the link to a Japanese BB site. As I remember it's not super great, a fan site, i think, but at least it proves that they are out there. I'll post more if I can remember where to find them...

http://plaza20.mbn.or.jp/~stlbtrflys/

xoxo

Wyst

 

[SteelWeaver]

MS - I just want to tell you I really, really appreciate the advice you're giving me here, and the time you're taking to do it. There's so much reading, and so much figuring out to do - basically stuff that only years of tinkering and experimenting will teach me - you're giving me a jump start in a way. I'm raring to try this.

Um ... I have a few more questions, though, if you don't mind. If you do, well, then I guess it's back to the books.

Let's see where to begin. First, let's go back to post-training nutrition. This is the most important meal of the day (no matter when you train). For muscle gain try to get in 2 grams of carbs per kg. Keep to mainly high GI carbs, and combine it with 0.5 grams of whey protein. Leave the milk out of this meal. Keep the tofu in for your last meal. Rearrange the rest of your daily carb intake around mornings, with carb rotation in mind.

OK, this is the easiest part. But - why no milk? Is it low GI? I thought I was giving myself some extra protein here. Is it OK to have my protein shake with milk earlier in the day?

(I'm 5'5" to answer one of your questions).

Wow! You must be a whole lotta woman!

So for an 80kg person this would look something like:

Day 1: Moderate carbs=240g=960 cals
Protein = 320g=1280 cals
Fat=80g=720 cals
Total cals =2960

Days 2-3: Low carbs=160g=640 cals
Protein and fat same as day 1
Total cals=2640

Day 4: High carbs=400g=1600 cals
Protein and fat as for previous days
Total cals=3600

OK, now this is where I'm totally stumped. The carbs and fat are no problem - they're easy to get into the diet, but I just can't see how I'm going to get that number of protein grams in consistently without a corresponding rise in carbs and fat. I've been paging and paging through food composition charts, but any decent vegetarian protein source seems to have tons of carbs or fat. Tofu has plenty of protein, but half my day's fat ration, too. Milk and yoghurt have high carbs. I can't get low or non-fat cottage cheese here ...

Am I going to have to take more than half my daily protein in supplement shakes?

The only other option I see is eating enormous quantities of egg whites.

Am I missing something?

I'm glad you told me a little of your history and where you started from. You are doing really well.

Thank you. That's very encouraging.

Oh, and to answer an earlier question you had about trainers in Japan, well, the first thing is that vegetarianism here is at best an odd curiosity (purely religious), and at worst an anti-societal harmony, overly individualistic and rather arrogant and selfish practice (and I've had people tell me something like that). Female bodybuilding is also seen as rather curious too. A vegetarian, female bodybuilder is unheard of. There are trainers here, - probably very good ones, 'cause they sure look good on stage - but like everything here, they're very, very expensive. And I doubt, with the dietary and language limitations I have, that they'd be much use.

Anyway, I'm very much a control freak, and I love to do stuff myself, my own way - I learn so much more that way. Though I daresay it takes longer.

 

[SteelWeaver]

Wyst - thanks for the link - for some reason my computer won't let me see the pictures, but it looks somewhat useful.

The title of that book is "The Vegetarian Sports Nutrition Guide: peak performance for everyone from beginners to gold medalists", by Lisa Dorfman. Amazon.com has it, with reviews. You might want to check that out. Like I said, from a bodybuilding point of view, it's not super useful, but from a general nutritional knowledge point of view, it's not bad.

 

[MS]

Given the dietary restrictions you've placed on yourself, I see no other way forward than to eat lots of eggs and protein supplements. There is a brand of tofu (I think it's called Moriyu lite or something like that....it comes in those little rectangular long life boxes) which is almost fat free. It will get harder as you move into your pre comp diet since you will need to decrease carbs even more. No one ever said being a vego bodybuilder would be easy!

 

[wilson6]

Yes I know Susan personally. We go back many years.

8 g/kg for guys in the building phase, but for women? I think SPAT was on less than that and was well on her way to looking like the Hindinberg, and would have probably suffered the same fate had she continued.

As I have said, ad nauseam, rotating carbs for women. Probably don't need more than 3g/kg on a high carb day. For precontest dieting, less than that. UNLESS, you're a distance runner, rower, or mixed power/aerobic athlete with 3 hr practice sessions. Then you need high carbs every day or your performance will suck.

We're talking about bodybuilding, not competitive rowing.

W6

 

[SteelWeaver]

Given the dietary restrictions you've placed on yourself, I see no other way forward than to eat lots of eggs and protein supplements. There is a brand of tofu (I think it's called Moriyu lite or something like that....it comes in those little rectangular long life boxes) which is almost fat free. It will get harder as you move into your pre comp diet since you will need to decrease carbs even more. No one ever said being a vego bodybuilder would be easy!

NO KIDDING! OK, I got my hands on some decent nutritional calculation software, and spent most of yesterday afternoon planning my new diet. By 8 pm I was lower than I've been in months - ready to just trash the whole thing and go do something else with my life.

However, once I moved some stuff around and started making actual food out of the ingredients, I felt somewhat better. And my new software is kick-ass! I only had to increase my protein powder intake by 2 scoops per day.

So, this is what I've got for post-workout: a couple of bananas plus 2 scoops protein powder directly after, followed later by half a cup of quinoa (dry weight), a carrot, block of tofu, and ... I think that's it. Comes out to 86g protein, 133g carb, 26g fat. I still have to play with these figures a bit - are they too far off? I could move one scoop of protein to earlier in the day, and bring something with carbs in it to later. What do you think?

The rest of the day consists of mainly cottage cheese, a few nuts, egg whites, some broccoli and spinach, a bit of tofu (depending on carb day), some oatmeal. No more fruit Extra rice or quinoa, tofu, sweet potato and oatmeal on high carb day. Is this reasonable?

It seems like an awful lot of carbs to go to bed on. Doesn't this affect growth hormone release?

Would it be too presumptuous to ask you to post a list of the types of food you're eating? No amounts or anything - just so I can see if I'm hitting the mark?

I will definitely keep you updated on my progress here - thanks again for all the advice.