Thanks for writing this piece! This motivates me to rescue a draft about “how to eat more plants and do it successfully” that has been in the works for too long. Hopefully, I will complete it soon-ish; fingers crossed!
But briefly —
His argument, as I understand it, boils down to the idea that he needs to eat animals in order be fit, strong, and healthy.
I had similar concerns before going vegan. It didn’t take me that long to realize that killing, consuming, and using animals the way we do is morally abhorrent. The environmental and public health issues from intensive farming were easier to buy into. But, I was unsure if I could sustain a healthy life and build muscles without eating non-humans.
I was getting into strength training back then, and Ireally wanted to build muscles and not have a scrawny figure anymore. Nearly all the jacked influencers on social media/YT promoted a meat-heavy diet; chicken breast and whey protein seemed like the necessary ingredients for getting lean and building muscles; vegan food was often labeled as rabbit food and thoroughly dismissed. Another subset of folks attracted my attention: people who stopped being vegan. The severity of the health problems they claimed they experienced while eating plants was alarming.
All this made me pretty hesitant to adopt a plant-only diet. I won’t spend much space in this comment elaborating on how I escaped the jacked influencer memeplex or what made me skeptical of the alleged severe harms of a plant-based diet, but I am glad I did. In one line — I realized that being buff had little to do with eating or not eating a plant-based diet.
I have been vegan for three years now, and I have been able to:
Build muscles and strength and gain weight
Retain muscles and most of my strength and lose weight
Retain most of my muscles while not exercising at all for months
I am not as jacked as you, but I am in good shape and health and pretty happy about it! At my best, I made tracking calories, nutrient intake, and strength training progress a habit. It seemed like a simple math problem, and the results were pretty deterministic. I think I would have had similar success with a plant-predominant or meat-focused diet.
Overall, I would say my experience has been “normal,” and I would recommend it to the vast majority of people who want to get bigger or be in better shape.
This is great, thanks for sharing. The jacked influencer memeplex is soooo focused on animal protein, it can be really hard to step out of that sphere of influence.
I was also highly sensitive to the reports I read from people who stopped being vegan because it didn’t work for them. There’s a good lesson in there about making sure to try things for myself in the real world instead of reading endless reports and then simply assuming I’d have a certain outcome.
I look forward to reading your post about eating more plants!
Thanks for writing this piece! This motivates me to rescue a draft about “how to eat more plants and do it successfully” that has been in the works for too long. Hopefully, I will complete it soon-ish; fingers crossed!
But briefly —
I had similar concerns before going vegan. It didn’t take me that long to realize that killing, consuming, and using animals the way we do is morally abhorrent. The environmental and public health issues from intensive farming were easier to buy into. But, I was unsure if I could sustain a healthy life and build muscles without eating non-humans.
I was getting into strength training back then, and I really wanted to build muscles and not have a scrawny figure anymore. Nearly all the jacked influencers on social media/YT promoted a meat-heavy diet; chicken breast and whey protein seemed like the necessary ingredients for getting lean and building muscles; vegan food was often labeled as rabbit food and thoroughly dismissed. Another subset of folks attracted my attention: people who stopped being vegan. The severity of the health problems they claimed they experienced while eating plants was alarming.
All this made me pretty hesitant to adopt a plant-only diet. I won’t spend much space in this comment elaborating on how I escaped the jacked influencer memeplex or what made me skeptical of the alleged severe harms of a plant-based diet, but I am glad I did. In one line — I realized that being buff had little to do with eating or not eating a plant-based diet.
I have been vegan for three years now, and I have been able to:
Build muscles and strength and gain weight
Retain muscles and most of my strength and lose weight
Retain most of my muscles while not exercising at all for months
I am not as jacked as you, but I am in good shape and health and pretty happy about it! At my best, I made tracking calories, nutrient intake, and strength training progress a habit. It seemed like a simple math problem, and the results were pretty deterministic. I think I would have had similar success with a plant-predominant or meat-focused diet.
Overall, I would say my experience has been “normal,” and I would recommend it to the vast majority of people who want to get bigger or be in better shape.
(N=3 now!)
This is great, thanks for sharing. The jacked influencer memeplex is soooo focused on animal protein, it can be really hard to step out of that sphere of influence.
I was also highly sensitive to the reports I read from people who stopped being vegan because it didn’t work for them. There’s a good lesson in there about making sure to try things for myself in the real world instead of reading endless reports and then simply assuming I’d have a certain outcome.
I look forward to reading your post about eating more plants!