Vegan Muscle Building Tips - How Much Protein Does a Vegan Bodybuilder Need?

 Click HERE to Find Out How You Can Build Muscle & Lose Fat By Eating Plants

HOW TO EAT LESS PROTEIN TO BUILD MORE MUSCLE?

Protein Matters, But There Is So Much More to the Puzzle

When we think about building muscle, the first thing that pops into most people’s minds is PROTEIN! Especially when eating only plants! “Where do you get your protein?” is a common question.

There is an ingrained belief within the fitness industry that in order to build muscle and get stronger, we need protein (especially animal protein) as our primary and often singular focus for growth.

Don’t get me wrong, protein is important. It is a precursor in muscle growth, BUT it is not the ONLY precursor or important variable either.

It’s part of a system of components that come together to create the perfect muscle-building storm, and in this article, I will explain how and why you can afford to drop your high protein intake to actually make more gains.

First and foremost, realize that the commonly suggested protein requirements most people think are needed to build muscle within the fitness industry are often totally excessive.

All we are doing is allocating excess calories to a single nutrient that is ONE part of the muscle building equation, over-saturating that one variable to the point of excess waste and by-products, when we could be more strategic and maximize all the variables, not just one.

More protein doesn’t necessarily equate to more muscle; there are more factors at play than one nutrient. Your average-looking gym goer drinking protein shakes all day is an anecdotal example of this.

What We Have Been Taught

The standard notion of 1 gram to 1.5 grams per pound of bodyweight, for example, is for most average people totally excessive and unnecessary. That would put a person like myself at around 210-300g of protein per day. Whoa. Overkill.

Some people go even higher than this with the notion that more must be better. How often is this not true! Especially when cutting calories, it leaves fewer alternative fuel sources and key phytonutrients that can help boost your performance.

Research Suggests

There are so many various conflicting research papers that show differing results, so understand first off that your goal, expertise level, output, and disease state all play a role in this.

That being said, I want to share with you my own experience along with those of my clients and friends, coupled with some basic understandings of the research, to give you a kick-start toward adjusting your own protein intake to further your gains.

Here are a few cited research examples.

• Tarnopolsky et al. (1992) observed no differences in whole body protein synthesis or indexes of lean body mass in strength athletes consuming either 0.64g/lb. or 1.10g/lb. over a two-week period. Protein oxidation did increase in the high protein group, indicating a nutrient overload.

• Walberg et al. (1988) found that 0.73g/lb. was sufficient to maintain positive nitrogen balance in cutting weightlifters over a seven-day time period.

• Tarnopolsky et al. (1988) found that only 0.37g/lb. was required to maintain positive nitrogen balance in elite bodybuilders (over five years of experience, possible previous use of androgens) over a 10-day period. 0.45g/lb. was sufficient to maintain lean body mass in bodybuilders over a two-week period. The authors suggested that 0.55g/lb. was sufficient for bodybuilders.

• Lemon et al. (1992) found no differences in muscle mass or strength gains in novice bodybuilders consuming either 0.61g/lb. or 1.19g/lb. over a four-week period. Based on nitrogen balance data, the authors recommended 0.75g/lb.

• Hoffman et al. (2006) found no differences in body composition, strength, or resting hormonal concentrations in strength athletes consuming either 0.77g/lb. or >0.91g/lb. over a three-month period.

Fear-Based Nutrition Keeps Us Stuck

So often, those high-protein suggested intakes are more fear based than science based — it is fitness industry hype and guesswork. The best way to know for sure is to DO IT yourself, implement it, and see.

Believe me, anyone whom I have coached or guided to do this has always had great results when we tapered protein down from the high amounts and then added various other nutrient sources to boost performance, recovery, and hormone profiles. It is the paranoia around muscle loss that keeps people stuck.

Beyond Protein (The Key)

Beyond that, I want you to understand that incorporating other macronutrients and micronutrients into your nutritional equation is the KEY for building more muscle and strength with less protein.

Keep in mind, the focus being on how the body partitions and assimilates nutrients by elevated and optimal hormone responses.

What this means in simple terms is that hormones are like the body’s software.

They take protein, carbohydrates, fats, and micronutrients and allocate them toward specific jobs, like building muscle, fat stores, bone regeneration, brain function, and hair and skin growth.

Your hormone profiles on many levels dictate what your body does with protein anyway. So why not optimize these variables so you become more effective at using the protein to begin with?

It is primarily why someone who is obese vs. someone who is very muscular can have the same diet and calorie intake and even the same height and body weight (with vastly different body compositions).

Yet, their bodies both assimilate and partition the nutrients very differently due to various hormone profiles like testosterone, estrogen, thyroid, and insulin sensitivity.

It is also why men and women have different body compositions — the hormones and partitioning ratios dictate over protein intake and calorie intake.

The way to optimize hormones in the body is by putting optimal health FIRST, which means a lot of micronutrient-dense plant foods. The denser and wider range you can get and the less processed garbage you consume, given time, your body will become more responsive.

The point is, if you can optimize your internal systems through micronutrient-dense foods, then this often gets the job done. The body simply becomes more efficient at using fuel.

That is the goal here: efficiency.

It is important to realize that in order for us to actually perform well in the gym and create progressive overload (being able to lift more weight or more reps for weight each week), we need some form of high-octane fuel.

My go-to macronutrient source for heightened performance is always going to be carbohydrates. Just think when you were a kid, what did they give you to drink while playing sports? Gatorade and Powerade?

Now these might not be the healthiest options, but they are fast-acting carbohydrates, designed to push sugar into the system to fuel performance. In some cases, depending on the goal and challenge, fat could be used as a fuel source too. This is where it varies, but know it is never just about protein intake.

Carb/Fat Phobia and Nutrient Timing

Most people in the fitness world are carb phobic, especially the Paleo and Ketogenic crowd, which comprise mostly of people who aren’t Vegan. It’s just what they’ve been taught.

They will even add loads of protein into pre-workout meals, which in my view is not fueling performance, just increasing digestive function, which then impairs performance.

Think of our blood as the primary transporter of fuel to our systems. It shuttles oxygen to muscles, breaks down glycogen into glucose for energy, and pushes blood through our heart faster and into our lungs to increase oxygen uptake.

Digestion takes up a huge amount of blood volume and metabolic energy. So, adding extra protein sources and food to meals through fear of going catabolic just allocates more metabolic energy toward digestion and less to performance and output.

We need to optimize and time our digestive function just right so we can channel as much energy into performance, endurance, and mechanical strength as possible.

If you time your carbohydrates and fats, fiber, and micronutrients around your workout and daily routine, you will get fewer cravings, better controlled sustained energy levels, and better pumps in the gym. More strength and recovery result in better muscle growth with a well-rounded plant based diet.

I often get asked, “When is the best time to get my protein for my workout, before, during, or after?” There is no real timing or strategy with most people — it’s just an over saturation.

A blanket approach with the idea is, “I’m not really sure what I need, how much I need, or when I need it, so I will just throw everything at it, including the kitchen sink.” While this can work, believe me, it doesn’t yield the BEST results you could get either. So, let me explain a bit more about timing.

Adjusting Protein for More Gains

Let’s say you are at 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight (200 lb.), so approximately 200g of protein per day. For the time being, forget the total calorie intake too. For all intents and purposes, let’s say you drop to 0.64g/lb., approx. 120-130g.

You now have about 280 extra calories that you can now time in and around your workout to help you overreach and overload the amount of weight and reps you can do — and therefore, outperform, which is key for muscle growth.

For example, let’s take that 70g of protein lost and replace it with 70g of carbohydrates. We could do two servings of coconut water during the workout for electrolyte replacement (90 calories).

This leaves us with 190 calories of fruits, along with any whole food plant protein like sweet peas or shelled edamame we can pack into a post-workout smoothie for glycogen and amino acid replacement, helping with recovery and driving more sugars and vital nutrients to repair muscle tissue.

This helps you train harder and lift heavier, which creates that vital progressive overload needed to even build muscle in the first place.

Research indicates that even setting protein requirements at 0.64g/lb. has shown NO muscle loss or lack of nitrogen retention. Obviously, total calorie intake comes into play here too, which is the next point.

My Approach — Calorie Cycling

When we are either trying to gain muscle or get leaner and hold muscle, allow protein intake to move up and down like a sliding scale as your total calorie intake tapers up or down.

The reason for this is just logistics. It’s much easier to focus on one variable change than to try and coincide two together: focusing on total calories going up and down over total calories + every single macronutrient ratio remaining totally intact.

Again, if you are that 200 lb. guy going from 120-160g of protein based on total calorie intake increasing or dropping, it is fine, it’s what I do! This is another strategy to building more muscle with a lower intake, even when we are sometimes in deficit too.

Beyond the calorie deficit are peaks/calorie spikes where by you can “refeed” (a higher calorie meal or day) and fuel up around workout time to really enhance performance.

Traditionally, when people are trying to get lean, they pull carbs to try and drop water weight, and by doing so, replace those lost calories with protein. If the calories are uniform each week, protein remains high and carbs low. It doesn’t have to be this way, but it is how most fitness people approach things.

If you cycle through periods of calorie deficit (example, 1800 cal.), calorie maintenance (example, 2200 cal.), and calorie surplus (example, 2600 cal.).

You can use the sliding scale approach with your protein, so dipping lower on a deficit day won’t be an issue like people think, because you come back up to maintenance and peak into spikes of surplus calories/protein at strategic times during your training week.

It also allows for the body to rest and digest (on lower calorie days), enhancing the parasympathetic nervous system on rest days to bring stress responses down and allow the body and gut to regenerate.

Then it spikes higher into a caloric surplus on days where you need to over reach and train hard (a hard leg session, for example).

This way, you allow the body to tap into fat stores and heighten insulin sensitivity on rest days, which then helps partition carbohydrates more effectively anyway — and on training days, you fuel yourself for maximum performance, so you can create more progressive overload during your training.

Calorie cycling with a sliding protein target and not stressing over the tiny details is a great way to make gains without the constant fear and obsession about grams of protein.

This way, your protein intake can be set lower, and by spiking carbs and fats on certain days, you fuel performance and output. Realize that once your body adjusts to a higher carb ratio (but also be aware of your sodium intake alongside this), you won’t retain water like you may have in the past.

It’s like someone who is dehydrated in an attempt to dry out for a competition. If they spent a long time dehydrated coming into their show, they can often end up holding MORE water.

The way to shed more water is to consume MORE, so the body doesn’t struggle to find balance when you pull it suddenly right at the end.

The same rings true for macronutrients too. Give the body time to adapt and it will, but keep changing up the variables, and the pendulum will swing wildly as the body tries to find homeostasis (balance within the body).

When it comes to undulating calories to help you overload during your training sessions, think of all the macronutrients as a sliding scale.

What I mean by this is that yes, you can fix your protein intake at a certain number and just add in more carbohydrate and fats, but often a lot of plant foods come with some protein too.

So to allow for a wider, more diverse range of food choices, be okay with your protein intake peaking and dipping as your calorie totals do.

For example, it might look like this:

• Low day — 2200cals — 100g protein / 300 carb / 66 fat
• Moderate Day — 2600cals — 120g protein / 380 carb / 66 fat
• High day — 3200cals — 150g protein / 450 carb / 88 fat

Don’t Pigeonhole Yourself

Now obviously, this is just for demonstration. Some people might elect for more fats or taper their protein up more depending on their body composition and training output.

The take home point is: be okay with your protein intake sliding up and down a scale to allow for the inclusion of more plant foods into your diet.

You can keep it fixed and add in more fruits too; a lot of this will come down to your own unique biofeedback and how your body and hormones handle the various nutrients.

I coach people on an elite level, high-performing business people, and I would tell them to not stress over total calorie adjustments AND try to hit specific macro ratios too. It becomes so time consuming and stressful trying to find foods and measurements to make it all fit.

As I said earlier, focus on total calorie adjustment and allow for a sliding scale (a range) of your macronutrients.

Take-home point: Protein can dip and peak based on your calorie intake, and if done right, you lose no muscle. In fact, you gain some.

Muscle Growth HACKS with Less Protein

It is important to understand not all carbohydrates or fats are created equal and that different kinds of carbs will play different roles in the body based on when they are used. Think of these two macronutrients like fuel sources that enable us to perform at a higher level.

I generally consider carbohydrates like an explosive fast-acting fuel source perfect for acute bouts of high performance. Fats are a more sustained release energy source, ideal for longer endurance work or stable blood sugars through the day outside of the training session.

A key mistake I see people make when trying to get lean is they pull their carbs or fats right down and increase protein, with the notion that more protein will have a muscle sparing effect and that is all we need to focus on.

While in some cases, this is true, the lack of carbohydrate and fats for training often means the person loses strength. Stamina drops.

The workout capacity decreases, and this is the perfect environment for no muscle gains and even some muscle loss, because the progressive overload aspect to muscle growth is absent as the body adapts, sometimes in a way we do not want.

Our body tends to hold muscle best when there is a physiological need for strength and regular stimulation. As your strength drops via lack of fuel to progressively overload, so too does the need for high levels of muscle mass. Now, it’s not to say if you lose strength, you lose muscle.

Sometimes this is a nervous system recruitment response, but the best way to make amazing muscle gains will always be progressive overload in the gym, and the best way to fuel that is with carbohydrate and fats and bringing that high protein intake down to allow for that.

Alongside carbohydrates, we have to factor in micronutrients (Minerals/Vitamins).

Most fitness people think in the realm of macronutrients (Protein/Fats/Carbs) only, often not paying attention to vitamins and minerals and how they can help us recover, over-reach in the gym, and give us the ability to contract our muscles with more force and duration.

Without a well-rounded micronutrient intake in your diet, all the protein in the world won’t build muscle optimally, because we will be in a constant state of under performance in the gym needed to stimulate muscle growth.

It’s Very Rarely a Lack of Protein (What Is It, Then?)

A great example of this is the mineral sodium. Sodium is looked upon by most people as a bad thing, but in the right amounts at the right times, it is a powerful weapon.

The amount of times I’ve heard someone say, “Oh crap, I’m losing strength, I must be losing muscle, do I need a second protein shake!?” Sigh. I remember watching a video by famous powerlifter/bodybuilder Stan Efferding.

Though he is far from Vegan, he made a fundamental point about the need for micronutrients in relation to sodium before a powerlifting meetup.

He had been dehydrating to try and cut water weight to qualify for his weight class and with that, lost sodium (electrolyte) levels in his system. He began to cramp and lose strength during his opening lift and barely made the lift. It wasn’t a strength issue, he had the strength base, it was a software issue.

Sodium plays a key role in muscle contraction, and without that, we cannot overload or over reach. If you have good sodium levels in your diet with a focus being right around training time, you won’t need that extra protein shake! It’s not the cause or solution. It is a lack of micronutrients.

Micronutrients are another term for vitamins and minerals, from Vitamin A, B, C, D, and so on to magnesium, iron, calcium, potassium, sodium, and many more. A great way to see your micronutrient intake is to track for food in an application like Cronometer.

This way, you can then troubleshoot the low areas, get them optimal so you can recover faster, improve sleep, improve strength, and as a result of all of this, grow some more muscle — and potentially get leaner in the process.

Take-Home Points!

1.    The average fitness goer or training will always overshoot their protein requirements. I have tested the theories in this blog on myself over years and countless clients with great success.

2.    It is one thing to read something on the internet and tout it as absolute truth. It is another thing entirely to get in the trenches and live it. Do not let the fear of muscle loss or the supplement industry push for you to buy protein powder out of your eyeballs. It is a money-making industry backing this way of thinking. There isn’t profit to be made in eating whole plant foods to get minerals and vitamins! But there sure is money to be made in protein powders, drinking dairy, and eating meat pushed by animal agriculture research funding to promote the “need” for these products. Connect the dots.

3.    At the end of the day, plant-based proteins like animal proteins are all just chains of amino acids. You can still get the same results and effects using plant-based proteins over animal protein. Do not buy into the belief that plants are less superior. I believe they are far more superior.

4.    Adapt, test, and master your own calorie cycle; allow for your protein intake to move along a sliding scale as your total calorie intake goes up or down.

5.    Get a wide range of micronutrients and food choices in your diet to help boost recovery and performance. Avoid eating one dimensionally like a lot of fitness people do.

6.    Time your food choices the right way. Certain foods used at certain times can enhance output and muscle growth. You can interchange fats with carbs once your protein intake drops based on your goal, output, and needs — don’t be locked into one paradigm of thinking.

7.    Stop sweating over the small stuff. All the most successful people in any endeavor often got there by doing the basics consistently and with accuracy and not stressing over minor details. “Success is a habit.”

8.    Use a tracking app like Cronometer to track your food to see where you can optimize mineral and vitamin numbers. Track your performance in the gym: weight lifting, circumference measurements, and so on. Tracking these things is feedback, which gives you means by which you can adjust your diet, nutrient timing, and calorie intake to make some serious vegan gains, all with less protein!

9.    If you are truly paranoid about muscle loss while tapering protein down, just use a good BCAA supplement while you work out. I suggest Clean Machine BCAA, as it is a high-standard vegan brand, owned and operated by a vegan of 31 years.

10. Get a coach. If this all sounds appealing to you but outside of the realm of your understanding or ability to apply it, invest in a coach like myself to streamline that process for you, expedite your results, and get you to your goals

To get more vegan muscle building tips, watch this video - VEGAN BODYBUILDING MACROS 101 | How much Protein!?

 

Written by:

 

Fraser Bayley is the founder Plant Strong Fitness and Evolving Alpha and a contributing writer for VegetarianBodybuilding.com and other fine plant-based fitness publications.

 

Author Bio:

 

Chris Willitts (creator of V3), is the founder and owner of Vegetarian Bodybuilding.

 

V3 Vegetarian Bodybuilding System is a mixture of science and author’s advice, providing users with optimal diet and exercise. This system is designed for vegans and vegetarians only.

 

A lot of research has been put in this program. Furthermore, a lot of professional bodybuilders and athletes tried and tested the program, praising its progressiveness and efficiency.

 

The program is about taking control of your own body and health according to your potential and needs. And worry not; you’ll get plenty of proteins with this system. It will boost you with energy, and you’ll feel just a strong as any carnivore would (perhaps even stronger, depending on how much you invest in your exercise). It avoids vitamins deficiency and provides you with a lot of proteins, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. 

 

Instead of saying things like “I think a plant-based diet is good for athletes and bodybuilders,” the V3 Vegetarian Bodybuilding System claims “I know a plant-based diet is good for athletes and bodybuilders, and I have results to prove it.”

 

To find out more, visit the website at V3 Bodybuilding – Vegan Muscle Building Tips

Vegan Diet and Athletic Performance – How to be a Successful Athlete Like Tom Brady?

 

Click HERE to Find Out How You Can Build Muscle & Lose Fat By Eating Plants

TOM BRADY’S SECRETS FOR SUCCESS: VEGAN DIET AND NON-TRADITIONAL TRAINING

Regardless of who you were rooting for in the Super Bowl last Sunday (February 5 2017), you can’t deny that there were some pretty impressive plays on the field that night.

The other thing I can say is that Tom and I both attended the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, which means I naturally have an affinity for his work ethic.

Since that game, even casual football fans now know Tom Brady as the greatest quarterback in the history of the game, securing five Super Bowl rings and nearly a dozen other records.

But stats aside, there’s one thing that many sports fans don’t know about Tom Brady: he swears by plant-based foods.

Last year, Boston.com interviewed Tom Brady’s personal chef, Allen Campbell, who told the world about what the football powerhouse eats and why. As a chef, Campbell was obsessed with plant-based diets before they were trendy.

He introduced his food philosophy to Brady and his family, which is “that a plant-based diet has the power to reverse and prevent disease.” Campbell also shared, “So, 80 percent of what they eat is vegetables. [I buy] the freshest vegetables. If it’s not organic, I don’t use it.”

While 80 percent plant-based is, of course, not a true vegan diet, it’s still an impressive commitment that contributes to the 39-year-old’s longevity on the field. He sticks to a vegan diet for most of the year but adds some lean meat in the winter months. He’s never had a problem maintaining the lean muscle mass required to be competitive on the field.

This is the kind of thing I wish more vegans would appreciate, this lifestyle/diet doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing thing. As a society trying to wrap its mind around how to start eating better, any step in the right direction with going plant-based is positive.

Brady didn’t adopt the vegan lifestyle by accident. Everything he does, from nutrition to training and his sleep schedule, is carefully calculated.

Brady has shared that he uses resistance bands about 90 percent of the time instead of lifting weights and switches up his workout routine on land, sand, and water. He sticks to high reps and typically trains twice per day in the off-season and three times per day in-season.

Brady has also practiced muscle pliability training with his Chinese medicine-trained coach, Alex Guerrero. Bodywork exercises like these improve flexibility, mobility, muscle tone, and range of motion.

He meditates for heightened self-awareness, does brain exercises to improve his memory and sharpness, and sleeps by 9 pm in special athlete recovery wear. All of these natural methods of training complement the vegan lifestyle perfectly.

Dedication and consistency are what has kept Brady so level-headed all these years, both in his diet and training regimen. He’s gotten stronger and faster with age, which is certainly something that not every professional football player can say.

Brady even released a cookbook with meat-free favorite recipes and started selling his own brand of vegan snacks last year. Vegan cookbooks have been particularly hot lately, so it’s little surprise that Brady jumped on this trend. Vegan snacks in the box include cacao goji energy squares, buffalo almonds & ranch cashews, and dark cocoa coconut.

Tom Brady is just one of many famous athletes and bodybuilders who has embraced the vegan lifestyle, but he’s an excellent example of what the human body can do when fuelled by plants. Steal his secrets for success, and there’s no telling what you can accomplish too.

For topics related to vegan diet and athletic performance, watch this video - Why are so many ATHLETES going VEGAN? 🌱Director Interview w/ Santio Panico

Author Bio:

 

Chris Willitts (creator of V3), is the founder and owner of Vegetarian Bodybuilding.

 

V3 Vegetarian Bodybuilding System is a mixture of science and author’s advice, providing users with optimal diet and exercise. This system is designed for vegans and vegetarians only.

 

A lot of research has been put in this program. Furthermore, a lot of professional bodybuilders and athletes tried and tested the program, praising its progressiveness and efficiency.

 

The program is about taking control of your own body and health according to your potential and needs. And worry not; you’ll get plenty of proteins with this system. It will boost you with energy, and you’ll feel just a strong as any carnivore would (perhaps even stronger, depending on how much you invest in your exercise). It avoids vitamins deficiency and provides you with a lot of proteins, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. 

 

Instead of saying things like “I think a plant-based diet is good for athletes and bodybuilders,” the V3 Vegetarian Bodybuilding System claims “I know a plant-based diet is good for athletes and bodybuilders, and I have results to prove it.”

 

To find out more, visit the website at V3 Bodybuilding – Vegan Diet and Athletic Performance

 

What is the Best Way to Prevent Dementia and Alzheimer’s?

 

Click Here for Help with Alzheimer’s, Other Types of Dementia and General Memory Loss

Prevent Dementia and Alzheimer’s - Learning This Halts Dementia

I don’t think there is anything as widely faired as dementia.

Most of us would rather go fast than have our brains wither away.

A new study from York University therefore comes as welcomed news.

It proves that learning one thing can help you halt, even prevent the onset of dementia.

Researchers recruited 158 people who had all been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment. They ensured that all the subjects were similar in age, education level, and their level of cognitive function.

They tested their memories every six years over a 5-year period.

The researchers calculated how long it took them to progress from mild cognitive impairment to full-blown Alzheimer’s disease and compared the two groups.

Interestingly, while it took the monolingual people 2.6 years to convert, the bilingual people took only 1.8 years.

But does this mean that bilingualism is a bad thing?

It’s actually the opposite!

The bilingual patients actually had more neurological brain damage than the monolingual people had at the time they were all diagnosed with the mild impairment.

Their cognitive function was similar when diagnosed with mild impairment, but that does not mean their neurological damage was the same.

Bilingual people have a larger cognitive reserve than monolingual people.

By cognitive reserve, researchers mean that more of our brains get used more often, building stronger neural connections that can serve us well when parts of our brains start to deteriorate.

Language has neuroplastic benefits. Neuroplasticity refers to the process whereby our brains build new physical connections and pathways between neurons and synapses in response to our environments. These synapses can also change permanently if we continue to learn and develop.

We use language all day long and thereby activate regions throughout our whole brains and constantly strengthen those connections.

If we speak and think in two or even more languages, we multiply that benefit.

Doing puzzles or number games can also have a similar effect.

This is why bilingual people function as well as monolingual people do even if they have much worse neurological damage.

In other words, their mild cognitive impairment would have been diagnosed years earlier if they had not built up this cognitive reserve through their bilingualism.

Learning languages and doing puzzles is good for the brain, but to really prevent dementia and Alzheimer’s, you need to load your brain with one “ingredient” it’s lacking. I’ll explain this in details here…

Prevent Dementia and Alzheimer’s - These Delicious Foods Stop Alzheimer’s Development

Occasionally scientists stumble onto information that is promising not only for people who suffer from diseases, but also for those who just enjoy good food.

A recent study concluded that some genuinely tasty foods may be able to control Alzheimer’s disease even better than drugs.

If you enjoy researching natural health topics and following a naturally healthy lifestyle, you have probably heard of polyphenols, the chemicals found in red wine, red grapes, berries, and several other food types. They are powerful antioxidants, which explains why naturopaths recommend them so liberally.

An increasing number of researchers have become interested in the ability of one of these polyphenols to prevent and slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. It is called resveratrol, and is a prominent ingredient in red wine, red grapes, pomegranate, dark chocolate, peanuts, and soybeans.

In September 2015, Neurology distributed an article in which a team of American researchers demonstrated that resveratrol might be an effective Alzheimer’s disease treatment.

Researchers divided 119 Alzheimer’s patients into groups that either received resveratrol or a placebo. The resveratrol group started with 500 mg per day, escalated by 500 mg every 13 weeks, for an eventual total of 2 g per day.

By the end of the year, the resveratrol group had approximately the same levels of amyloid-beta40 (Abeta40) in their blood and cerebrospinal fluid as at the beginning of the experiment. The placebo group, on the other hand, had substantially lower levels, an effect that usually accompanies the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

An MRI scan also revealed that the swelling of the brains of the resveratrol subjects had diminished considerably.

While some participants complained of nausea, diarrhea, and weight loss, resveratrol was relatively free of side effects.

The authors warned that they had used a special pharmaceutical-grade resveratrol and claimed that you would have to drink about 1,000 bottles of wine to obtain the same amount. For that reason, together with their relatively small number of participants, they advised that their findings should be further tested, rather than immediately acted upon.

The way in which resveratrol manages dementia is still being researched.

A team at Oregon’s Health and Science University reviewed the literature in the journal Brain Research Reviews, and concluded that resveratrol activated sirtuin proteins, which also happen to be activated by low calorie diets.

These proteins have been shown to protect the brain cells of mice with Huntington’s disease, a disease that causes dementia and the degeneration of brain cells.

Another study by researchers at the Litwin-Zucker Research Center for the Study of Alzheimer’s Disease has established that resveratrol does not inhibit the production of Abeta, but rather promotes its intercellular degradation. In other words, resveratrol kills the Abeta between cells, instead of allowing it to form plaque inside them.

Pure resveratrol supplements are available from natural health stores, and you can further stack your diet with the foods that contain it. Who knows, altogether you might manage to obtain enough of it to protect your brain cells from age-related decline.

Prevent Dementia and Alzheimer’s - But there is only one method I know of that drastically improves brain function in both healthy individuals as well as people suffering Alzheimer’s and other type of dementia. Learn more and try it out for yourself here…

Prevent Dementia and Alzheimer’s - High Blood Pressure Causes Alzheimer’s

Research continues in the field of Alzheimer’s disease prevention, and new information comes to light almost weekly.

While geneticists are looking for pre-programmed links to developing the disease, other scientists have found that lifestyle indicators bear much of the risk as well- and those can actually be controlled.

For instance- there is a very strong link, newly discovered, between Alzheimer’s and high blood pressure.

In a recent study out of VA San Diego Healthcare System, researchers recently confirmed what others had suspected but had no proof of until now. Scientists there found that high blood pressure is directly linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

In the study, scientists looked at health indicators for people aged 55 to 100. What they found was that for those with hypertension in the middle-age group, (defined as age 55-70), a specific biomarker that is tied to Alzheimer’s disease is present. As the vascular damage increases, so does the biomarker.

The study looked at pulse pressure, which is found by subtracting diastolic (bottom) pressure from systolic (top). The higher the pulse pressure was in the participants, the higher the concentration of amyloid beta or p-tau proteins in their spinal fluid.

These are the biomarkers that are found to be responsible for cell death in the brain that leads directly to Alzheimer’s.

Reasons to act immediately to reduce high blood pressure mount almost daily, as the new study reveals. There are easy, drug-free ways to do it that don’t involve dangerous side effects or drastic lifestyle changes.

For more ideas to prevent dementia and Alzheimer’s, watch this video -  What you can do to prevent Alzheimer's | Lisa Genova

In 3 simple steps, blood pressure can be brought down completely to normal with this all-natural plan that anyone can do…

 

This post is from the Brain Booster Exercise Program created for the purpose of helping to reverse Alzheimer’s, boost memory. It was made by Christian Goodman Blue Heron health news that has been recognized as one of the top-quality national health information websites.  This is an all-natural system that utilizes the power of exercises to slow down, prevent, or even reverse memory loss and boost your brain with energy and power. These exercises work to deliver as much nutrition and oxygen to your starving brain as possible and begin the restoring of the damaged brain cells.

 

To find out more about this program, click on Prevent Dementia and Alzheimer's

3 Tips from 7 Experts on How to Build Lean Muscle on a Vegan Bodybuilding Diet

 

Click HERE to Find Out How You Can Build Muscle & Lose Fat By Eating Plants

PLANTS BUILD MUSCLE: 7 BRILLIANT (AND SLIGHTLY BADASS) EXPERTS EXPLAIN

I’m not entirely convinced going vegan is for everyone.

I am convinced we would all benefit by eating more plants and less meat. Our collective health, humanity, and planet would start to revitalize.

“But, Chris, why would you say going vegan isn’t for everyone?”

Careful observation, research, and a healthy dose of common sense. As it turns out, there are hundreds of individual differences in biochemistry, genetics, blood type, etc. Although the percentage of people who react unfavorably to a vegan or vegetarian diet is low, it matters to have integrity when talking about these things.

I don’t think a diet exists that’s perfect for 100 percent of the population.

I am also convinced that it’s possible to gain size and strength from eating a plant-based diet with proper training.

Despite the prevailing archaic belief we need to eat meat to build muscle, I know this from personal experience.

The good news is, it’s getting harder and harder to defend that outdated noise when guys stronger than Arnold in his prime are vegan. And I mean this literally. Two examples off the top of my head are world-record-holder strongman Patrik Baboumian and 300-pound NFL defensive lineman David Carter.

The problem is, most people aren’t aware that vegan athletes are performing at this level. VegetarianBodybuilding.com and our other friends mentioned in this article are trying to change that.

Interest in veganism is indeed on the rise, but the bodybuilding and fitness community at large remains skeptical and hesitant. This is mostly attributed to the profoundly effective and pervasive meat industry marketing machine.

You don’t have to look far to catch a glimpse at how powerful, even hypnotic, advertising can be. It has been over a half century since the disastrous health risks of smoking cigarettes was first suggested by scientists, and it’s just now finally dying off – sort of. There’s still over 42 million smokers in the US alone.

We will see a similar trend with meat eating, I believe.

Just like with the health risks of smoking catching on, many of us are waking up to the health risks of eating animal-based products.

With an emphasis on the way meat is being produced.

I caught wind of how truly unhealthy most of our food in the US is just a few years ago. And only then did I realize what was possible in the gym with vegetarian bodybuilding.

This article is for those who are as curious as I was back then about plant-based fitness. I put together an expert panel to address the following question:

Q: What are your top 3 tips for building muscle while using a vegan bodybuilding diet?

I hand-picked some of my favorite experts on the topic (I even make a cameo appearance); each one provides their three top tips for vegan bodybuilding.

Brenda Carey, founder of Vegan Health & Fitness Magazine:

TIP 1: First of all, work out with intensity and frequency.

TIP 2: Don’t get sucked into marketing hype about supplements. If you’re doing #1, you will get results.

Supplements are, at best, a waste of money. At worst, they can wreck your health.

TIP 3: Learn the nutritional content of your foods. Eat higher protein and less fat (and mostly, if not all, whole unprocessed plant foods that you prepare yourself – or find a very trustworthy source to prepare your foods the right way).

That means no oil, no chips or candy. Smoothies, salads, stir-frys, soups…

Robert Cheeke, best-selling author of “Shred It!” and “Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness,” two-time champion bodybuilder, and founder/president of Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness:

TIP 1: Effectively establish your true daily caloric expenditure. Determine what your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is, and combine that number with the number of calories you burn through physical activity.

A simple way to establish these figures, which evaluate your caloric expenditure based on gender, age, height, weight, and activity level, is to use a BMR calculator and a Harris-Benedict calculator. These calculators are easily accessible online.

For example, my BMR is 1,740, meaning I burn 1,740 calories just lying in bed and doing nothing else. When I factor in the calories burned throughout the day during my physical activities, from running errands to working out, my caloric expenditure nearly doubles at 3,230. That means in total, I expend more than three thousand calories each day.

Therefore, just to maintain weight, I should eat roughly 3,230 calories per day from nutrient-dense whole plant foods. The reason we establish this figure is so we can construct a nutrition program to aid in building muscle based on real metrics, to put ourselves in a position to succeed.

If I were to grossly under-eat in relation to my true caloric expenditure – say, consuming 2,500 calories per day while burning more than 3,200 a day – it is unlikely that I would put myself in an adequate position to build muscle.

“To effectively build muscle, we need to eat a surplus of calories beyond our minimum caloric requirements necessary to maintain weight, in order to gain weight (muscle).”

For these calories to go toward muscle gain rather than fat gain, we’ll need to ensure we eat nutrient-dense whole plant foods, not processed or refined foods, and of course, combine that effort with an exercise program, preferably one of resistance weight training.

TIP 2: Create a nutrient-dense whole plant-food nutrition program to follow with consistency, accountability, and transparency.

Once you have established how many calories you expend each day, you’ll want to construct a nutrition program that exceeds that figure and aim to have the majority of your calories consumed coming from whole plant foods.

In my case, since I am burning 3,230 calories a day, I aim to consume about 3,700 calories per day, combined with resistance weight training, in order to repair, recover, and build muscle tissue damaged from exercise.

Since the surplus in caloric consumption beyond expenditure (in my example, about 500 extra calories per day) is coming from whole plant foods naturally high in nutrient-rich carbohydrates and low in fat and protein, I am unlikely to have these extra calories hang around as fat, but rather go toward repairing and growing muscles.

“Five hundred extra calories daily is significant enough to see some changes in lean muscle growth over time, perhaps as soon as four weeks after starting your program.”

If you fear that this additional caloric consumption beyond your requirements to maintain weight might cause fat gain, simply add some fat-burning cardiovascular training in the morning a few days a week to put your mind and body at ease.

TIP 3: Build an exercise program and create a routine that leads to new habits. What goal setting and achieving really comes down to is creating productive and efficient positive habits.

Whether we’re talking about burning fat or building lean muscle, your likelihood of achieving success weighs heavily on your ability to create the habits necessary to attain the results you’re striving for.

“To effectively build muscle, you’ll want to focus on performing compound, multi-joint, free-weight exercises, using barbells, dumbbells, and your own bodyweight (such as pull-ups, push-ups, squats, lunges, and dips).”

My preference is to focus on one or two muscle groups per workout and train hard with free weights for 60-90 minutes. My current routine looks like this:

Monday = Chest
Tuesday = Back
Wednesday = Rest
Thursday = Legs
Friday = Arms
Saturday = Shoulders/Abs
Sunday = Rest

Most importantly, be safe and have fun. My motto is to train hard, eat well, smile often, and lift others up. It if isn’t fun, you’re unlikely to stick with it. If you find meaning and joy in your pursuit of elevated levels of health and fitness, you will look forward to exercising often.

Following these three tips with consistency, transparency, and accountability will help you build lean muscle on a whole-food, plant-based diet and help you achieve your goals. I wish you all the very best in health and fitness. Let’s get shredded!

Debbie Baigrie, founder of Natural Muscle Magazine:

TIP 1: Drink at least three plant-based protein shakes daily.

TIP 2: Always keep cooked beans on hand and eat them with brown rice for a complete protein.

TIP 3: Other great foods to eat for building lean muscle are:

• Quinoa
• Almonds
• Tofu
• Chia seeds
• Lentils
• Hemp seeds

Chris Willitts, founder of VegetarianBodybuilding.com and Mindful Muscle:

TIP 1: Although I derive protein from multiple food sources, my primary whole-food protein sources are quinoa, tofu, black beans, and veggie burgers.

I also utilize combinations of incomplete proteins to make up a complete protein meal, such as peanut butter and sprouted bread or beans and Brazil nuts.

I get 40 to 50 percent of my protein from vegan protein shakes to keep my carbs at bay (unless I’m bulking up).

And don’t assume you need a gram of protein per pound of body weight as suggested by many mainstream bodybuilding magazines. Some need less, while others need more.

Be willing to perform the diligence of learning about your body instead of blindly assuming what works for the latest bodybuilding expert will automatically work for you.

“Try starting with less protein at first, and then write a meticulous food journal for a period of three to six months to nail down the optimal amount of protein intake for you.”

Naturally, you will need to adjust your intake of protein as your fitness goals change as well.

TIP 2: Get enough quality calories. Eating only plants all day every day won’t cut it; you need calorie-dense foods, as well. If you want to build muscle, it doesn’t matter if you’re a vegetarian or meat-eater, you have to eat like a horse.

Ask any bodybuilder who’s trying to pack on mass. They will tell you that most of the time they eat until they’re full, and continue eating slightly beyond that point until it’s mildly uncomfortable.

TIP 3: Train hard! And be mindful of what your body is telling you. No book or magazine article can tell you what’s the best method of training, but your body can if you learn how to listen.

“Most of us require dynamic change in routine/exercises to stimulate the body for growth, while others respond better to slow and steady methods.”

I can’t tell you what will work for you. But I know of a process that will guide you there. Start with one credible strategy, remain consistent, and journal about your experience. Then allow enough time for change to take place without interrupting the process with the next cool thing you read in a magazine. Eventually you will discover the right path for you.

And even that path may change over time. The main thing is to get dialed-in to what your body is telling you. Meditation and mindfulness practices will fine-tune this ability.

Samantha Shorkey, first-ever vegan WNBF bikini pro and founder of the Jacked On The Beanstalk blog:

TIP 1: Not to go down the annoying, “where do vegans get their protein from” path, but vegan or not, I can’t stress the importance of getting enough protein in your diet.

Truth is, if your body can’t find enough to sustain itself, it takes it from your muscles, not your body fat.

“And if you don’t give your body enough protein, it will actually cannibalize its own tissue to get what it needs.”

TIP 2: Don’t consider nuts a main source of your protein. Yes, there is some protein in nuts, seeds, and nut butter.

And yes, they’re good for the heart and nutritious, but they’re also super high in calories, and a caloric surplus = fat storage. So consume them sparingly unless you want a layer of flab covering your hard-earned, plant-built muscles.

TIP 3: Just because you’re vegan doesn’t mean you can eat as much fruit as you want, either. Fruits are still carbs, which get used as your body’s main source of fuel, and yes, they are essential for providing energy and mental clarity.

But all carbs get broken down into glucose (sugar) and is either used immediately for energy, stored as glycogen in the liver and muscles (for easy access), or turned into fat for longer-term storage.

Eating too much fruit (like any carb source) will overload your system with energy it cannot use, and in turn, make you fat. So make sure to eat fruit earlier in the day or before your workouts to ensure you can burn them off.

Fraser Bayley, co-founder of Plant Strong Fitness:

TIP 1: Consume enough calories from predominantly whole foods.

Very often when switching to a plant-based diet or someone struggling to build muscle, people grossly underestimate how much more food they potentially need.

Make sure your total caloric intake is high.

Muscle will grow in an environment with a caloric surplus of predominantly whole foods, and you need to take into account how active you are with that, too.

If your energy expenditure is high, you will need more total calories to maintain a caloric surplus – which is the perfect anabolic environment for muscle growth.

It doesn’t mean add more protein necessarily; sometimes, you need to add more plant based fats and carbohydrates, which is usually the case.

TIP 2: Make sure you intentionally have some diversity in your eating regiment. Nothing says poor results like one-dimensional food choices.

If you want to maximize your amino acid profile uptake, maximize your phytonutrient/mineral/vitamin balances, which all assist the body in optimizing hormonal function, and in turn, help the body maximize how it uses nutrition.

Then get a bit more diverse! Add in chickpea-based meals, quinoa-based meals, rice-and-bean-based meals, etc. Use other variants of foods like tempeh, tofu, hemp seed, and a range of fruits and veg. Combine different nuts and seeds and mix them through a couple of staple recipes.

You don’t have to cook up 1000 different meal options, but you do want to add a colorful, diverse range of nutrition to each meal to really cover all your bases for maximal muscle growth.

TIP 3: Pay close attention to your own biofeedback. What I mean by this is that the kinds of foods you eat, the size of the meals, and when you eat them all have a variety of effects on your own unique physiology.

For example, if I personally eat too late in the day or my meals are too large, it can impact my sleep patterns, leaving me feeling very unrested and under-recovered.

This then slows my recovery from training the next day and affects my performance in the gym, which affects the nervous system and anabolic response for muscle growth in a negative way. Not ideal.

So play around with your meal timing; see what foods add energy and which ones leave you feeling bloated or tired. It could be as simple as removing a certain kind of bean and using chickpeas or sweet peas instead.

“All these little cues and signals the body sends us are so important in figuring out what foods/portions and timing we thrive on most. This creates a positive hormonal environment for muscle growth, fat loss, and recovery.”

Marzia Prince, IFBB Pro, former Ms. Bikini Universe, and founder of The Healthinista Blog:

TIP 1: It is often the main topic of conversation for many people that vegetarians and vegans “don’t get enough protein” on a plant-based diet.  But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“According to the World Health Organization and the American Dietetic Association, a vegan or vegetarian on a well-planned balanced diet has no trouble meeting their protein requirements.”

And if you really think about it, how many people do you know with a protein deficiency?

I know that I have never met anyone that was ever deficient in protein.

In bodybuilding and fitness world, the standard amount of protein is one gram per pound of bodyweight. You need to divide that number up according to how many meals you are eating a day.

Taking in the proper nutrients every two to three hours ensures that your muscles will always be fueled and nourished, providing the best opportunity for growth and achieving desired results. Remember not to exceed too much protein per meal. Your body can only assimilate what it needs at that time.

Like any of the macronutrients, if you eat too much, it will store as fat. So be careful on your macro portions. My favorite plant-based protein sources are vegetables (especially leafy greens), beans and rice, quinoa, amaranth, and plant protein shakes.

TIP 2: Besides proper plant-based nutrition, you need to have a consistent workout routine that incorporates weights. I train with weights five to six days a week at the gym to build lean muscle and feel strong.

Since I don’t compete anymore, I use the winter for my off-season and I eat more calories while I train, and I treat the summer as my stage and eat cleaner plant-based foods and less cheat meals to look leaner in a bikini. I play with my macros. Trial and error is the best way till you find what works for you. Progress pictures don’t lie!

TIP 3: Water! To this day, I still train clients who don’t drink enough water, and it blows me away they are even still alive. I had this client tell me she drinks two cups a water a day and then gripes about why she can’t lose fat and make gains.

Dehydration occurs when the amount of water leaving the body is greater than the amount being taken in.

The body naturally loses water through breathing, sweating, and using the restroom.

You have to replenish the body with a significant amount of water to make up for this loss. Our bodies are about two-thirds water, so that means every cell in your body needs water from head to toe.

Being 2 percent dehydrated for your body can have serious mental and physical functions. Being 15 to 20 percent dehydrated is lethal. Dehydration will reduce a person’s protein synthesis, which is required for building and repair.

That is why being hydrated is very important to fitness and fat loss. Chug it. I always suggest to my clients to aim for a gallon a day.

It’s Time to Get into Action

The well-informed suggestions by these experts will help build a solid foundation in vegetarian bodybuilding and plant-based fitness. Each expert clearly expressed a unique voice, experience, and path, and yet you can sense congruency within our collective experience.

“This is true in life, there can be different paths to the same destination. Now it’s time to discover your path.”

The collective community presented here are more than willing to help you on your journey to healthier bodybuilding. I encourage you to visit their respective websites and VegetarianBodybuilding.com on a regular basis.

Most importantly, do something right now/today to keep the momentum going!

For more ideas on how to build lean muscle on a vegan bodybuilding diet, watch this video - EATING FOR LEAN VEGAN MUSCLE | FULL DAY OF TASTY MEALS

 

Author Bio:

 

Chris Willitts (creator of V3), is the founder and owner of Vegetarian Bodybuilding.

 

V3 Vegetarian Bodybuilding System is a mixture of science and author’s advice, providing users with optimal diet and exercise. This system is designed for vegans and vegetarians only.

 

A lot of research has been put in this program. Furthermore, a lot of professional bodybuilders and athletes tried and tested the program, praising its progressiveness and efficiency.

 

The program is about taking control of your own body and health according to your potential and needs. And worry not; you’ll get plenty of proteins with this system. It will boost you with energy, and you’ll feel just a strong as any carnivore would (perhaps even stronger, depending on how much you invest in your exercise). It avoids vitamins deficiency and provides you with a lot of proteins, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. 

 

Instead of saying things like “I think a plant-based diet is good for athletes and bodybuilders,” the V3 Vegetarian Bodybuilding System claims “I know a plant-based diet is good for athletes and bodybuilders, and I have results to prove it.”

 

To find out more, visit the website at V3 Bodybuilding – How to Build Lean Muscle on a Vegan Bodybuilding Diet