Vegan bodybuilding tips

Kenneth Williams a vegan bodybuilding success story

Many people are under the misconception that vegans can’t get big, or they have a harder time doing it. While it’s true that eating meat helps in muscle growth (with hormones and high quality protein) vegans who eat and train properly can match any meat eater in muscle gains. With these 3 vegan bodybuilding tips you can ensure better results at the gym.

Get enough calories

Vegan or not you need plenty of calories to get big. And while this tip applies to everyone, it’s especially relevant to vegans since many vegan foods are less calorie dense. So make sure you get those calories or your body might resort to using protein for fuel, and you need protein to grow muscles.

Go heavy with legumes

Legumes (beans, lentils and soy) are among the most nutrient dense foods on the planet. Nutrient per calorie only vegetables beat legumes.

Legumes are also one of the best sources for protein on vegan diet. While the protein might not be as well assimilated as from animal foods, it’s still nothing to sneeze at. And with legumes you avoid saturated fats and other downsides of eating animal foods.

Finally, legumes are a good source of slow burning carbs to fuel your workout.

Opt for quinoa over brown rice

Brown rice is a staple for many vegan bodybuilders. And while it’s good you might want to consider changing to quinoa.

Quinoa is very similar to brown rice and actually tastes like a mix of rice and oatmeal. The benefits of quinoa over brown rice include high protein content. And quinoa is a source of complete protein.

It also doesn’t hurt to change your menu once in a while.

As you can see eating for vegan muscle gain doesn’t have to be difficult. For the most part it comes down to making small changes, like those described in this post. And with changes like this you can ensure you meet your caloric and protein requirements and ensure constant gains at the gym. Don’t let being vegan be an excuse for poor results.

3 Bodybuilding Diet Tips For Fast Muscle Gain

Good bodybuilding diet is a key success factor

So you want to build big muscles? In that case you need to make sure you not only train right, but that you also eat right. Most newbies make mistakes with their bodybuilding diet that makes them big the WRONG way – they get fat instead of getting strong. These mistakes include not understating the right amount of protein, eating wrong types of carbs and trying not to cheat. Let’s look at these mistakes and how to avoid them, so that you can get the body you deserve.

Choose the right kind of carbohydrates

There are two types of carbohydrates, complex and simple. For our purposes simple carbs make you fat and complex carbs help you to build big muscle.

The problem is that most foods are loaded with simple carbohydrates, especially the ready-made foods you’ll get from supermarkets. Junk food is equally filled with simple carbs.

Complex carbohydrates include brown rice, beans, whole grains and so on. Most of your carbohydrates should come from complex carbohydrates.

And while we are on the subject, you absolutely must eat some carbohydrates as part of your bodybuilding diet. They are the preferred source of fuel for your muscles, and it’s carbohydrates that fuel the intensive work you ask your muscles to perform at the gym.

Also, if you don’t eat enough carbohydrates your body is going to burn protein for energy. And you want that protein to go towards building big muscles – not burned for energy. So make sure you give your body some carbs along with protein.

Right amount of protein

You need protein. If you don’t get enough you won’t get big. It’s as simple as that. On the other hand, you don’t want to eat too much of protein also. Simply because protein also includes calories. And if you eat too many calories then you are going to get fat. So you need the right amount of protein, but not too much.

So how much do you need? Well, this depends on the person, but 1 gram of protein per pound of lean bodyweight is a good rule of thumb to start with. You can adjust this up to 1.1 to 1.2 if you think you need more.

Cheat in moderation

Bodybuilding diets can be strict. And hard to stick to when we are constantly bombarded with ads for delicious junk foods.

Most bodybuilders prefer to think that they won’t cheat. That they can resist the temptations. And some can, but most can’t and fall flat on their face. When that happens they go on a big time binge, lose control and eat anything and everything they can get their hands on.

Obviously this is not good and something you want to avoid. That’s why you need to acknowledge that cheating happens and then manage over it.

This is easy to do when you allow yourself occasional cheat days. But the key to these is to decide them in advance and then moderate yourself. Even during cheat days you shouldn’t allow yourself to anything and everything. Instead allow yourself some treats and then say enough.

This sort of controlled cheating allow you to keep control of cravings and actually makes your diet healthier.

And that concludes the three simple and effective bodybuilding diet tips. The next time you think about what to eat to get big, keep these tips in mind. They not only make your diet healthier, but also make a big difference to the results you get in the gym.

If you are looking for an easy to follow guide for all aspects of bodybuilding, you need to check out Vince DelMonte’s No Nonsense Bodybuilding. It includes a comprehensive and easy to to follow diet guide, among other things.