I´ve been cutting down on meat/fish and all the animal source food for the last 6 months or so and in the process of giving the next step towards fully abolishing all kinds of animal source food. No serious health or weight problem is the reason for me, but the constant tiredness and allergies are improving so far and i´m thinking in long terms.
All this started due to my wife having in the last few years several relatives with cancer and after some reading and research she realized eating healthier is the best way to improve our health and reduce the risks of getting some of the nasty diseases out there.
Now after reading the China Study and some documentaries like “What the Health” and “Game Changers” I’m more inclined than her to give that next step and going all the way. For her, has it is reducing about 80% on the animal source food is just fine so it wont be easy to stop eating meat/fish/eggs/cheese etc. from time to time if she is cooking 
Been thinking about this lately as well. I hardly eat meat now as it is and could care less about dairy except ice cream which will be the toughest one to give up.
With that does some of your meals look like? I definitely enjoy rice and beans but looking for ideas. Smoothies are also good which I enjoy.
What the Health has been debunked (you can find a more detailed review e. g. here), I do not think you should consider this to be a source of accurate information. Whenever someone claims you can cure serious diseases with a mere change in diet, you should be very, very skeptical.
Finding good, scientifically accurate information on nutrition is hard. And this movie isn’t a good source of information.
I’m in my second year of a plant-based diet and have been doing triathlons and Trainer Road for about a year. My wife, an oncology nurse, influenced me to join her in a plant-based diet. A plant-based diet starts to look good when you have a high prevalence of cancer in your family tree.
I struggled a bit at first to to learn variety in every day cooking, but I got the hang of it. During that time I’ve lost about 60 lbs (with another 20 to go) and increased my FTP from 188 to ~270. I no longer am borderline diabetic, no longer have high blood pressure, etc. I may not be a championship level athlete, but I feel much better.
I would also like to concur with the comments above from OreoCookie about the importance of seeking out evidence-based nutritional advice. Don’t rely on youtube. mayoclinic.org or kaiserpermanente.org have a lot of good information, and they’re legit.
Recipe wise I’d strongly recommend the thug kitchen book, despite it’s colourful language it’s a great book for vegan based recipes.
Just search for ‘Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook: Eat Like You Give a F*ck’.
Excellent
i have been an athlete my whole life im reatively new to cycling over a year now and i went full plant based 6 months ago and seriosuly i have been crushing my work outs! training 5 to 6 days a week and i always feel ready to go… im also an iron worker and have a very physical job but it never stops be from getting on TR… im just going to say the foods that work for me, but right after a tough work outs lots of berries and oats, always stay hydrated and dont be scared to carb up guys on organic grains only! i eat only organic and i love it and see an intense future for my passion of cycling fueled by an organic plant based diet! (btw everyone should go watch the new documentary on netflix called “game changers” its about plant based athletes who are killing it!)
I did watch game changers this week. Enjoyed it. I’m probably going to increase my veggie intake a lot. Reduce dependance (and intake) on dairy and meat a lot. My kids are super difficult eaters… We’ve witnessed them starving themselves if they don’t wanna eat a food they don’t like.
Wife is semi on board, and she ends up cooking most of the time due to our schedules. So i guess I’ll have to look at meal prep if I wanna get on board
I’ve been veggie for nearly 2 years. My wife is vegan. I rarely intake dairy products and actually try and avoid them. In these 2 years I’ve been sick once and have felt the best on the bike I have ever felt. I don’t miss meat at all and delighted to see it put into context in Game Changers. There’s a lot of myths out there and often get asked where I get my protein from. I don’t supplement as I don’t need to and I have more energy than I have ever had. Wouldn’t go back.
You can do almost everything that has meat on it without the meat (meat meaning both meat or fish) I’m folowing some recepies from books and articles but from Portuguese language.
There are several documentaries on Netflix besides that. Game changers, forks over knifes, the magic pill etc. All are about the same principals and I know that probably all of it isn’t 100% true at least as it’s presented, but the main principles that better health comes with a better diet and that a better diet means no or less animal protein, that I think is not questionable.
I don’t think it is as simple as that actually. I don‘t see a value in these documentaries if you already know they mix good arguments and garbage. How are you ever going to separate one from the other? How is that a good basis for your understanding of how to eat more healthily?
About two years ago I started researching scientifically sound nutrition advice. It is incredibly hard, most books are [insert name of fad diet] promotional pamphlets. I have learnt way more from the TR podcast about nutrition. I also ingested quite a few vegan sources as some have (by necessity) thought deeply about how to eat better. I‘m not vegan, but I plan to cut back on my consumption of animal products over time — mostly for environmental and ethical reasons, though.
Diet has many dimensions beyond whether or not you eat animal products or not. For example, when it comes to the major food groups, how much protein compared to fat and carbs do you eat? That was one of the major points that What the Health was criticized for: it promoted a very carb-heavy (vegan) diet, and as best as I know the most healthy way is to split it in the middle — neither keto nor carb-heavy diets are, on average, healthier. From a health perspective, you don‘t need to give up animal products. Quite the contrary, our brains wouldn‘t have developed the way they did if our ancestors hadn‘t eaten animal protein. Nor are there (to the best of my knowledge) native tribes we know of that have a vegan diet by choice. Of course, nowadays most of us (= people living in the developed world) eat too much meat, so we have room to cut down our consumption. Conversely, if you do it right and supplement, you can be vegan and live healthily. As far as I understand exercise, proper sleep and reducing stress have much more impact on your health than e. g. cutting out red meat.
30 years ago I was a vegan and animal activist.
I left the movement partly due to the extreme behaviours of the group and partly because of eating disorders.
I am not vegan as too rigorous food restriction is not good for my mental health. This is nothing to do with veganism of course, just my own personal needs. Even so eating sentient beings doesn’t sit well with me.
I am constantly surprised by the conversations I have with vegans who I consider Netflix documentaries like What the Health to be a pro vegan argument.
The link to the debunking video says it all.
You don’t need to buy into a belief system full of sweeping generalisations and pseudo science to be a “good” or influential vegan.
Sorry to bring back an old topic…first time reader.
I’m not sure I understand your point. It sounds like you said your ftp was down 2% on Saturday and that was (in part) due to vegetarian diet), but then did the same test 1 day later and went up 3% (and maybe you’re attributing that to bringing meat back in?).
Or were the Saturday and Sunday not back to back?
Also, did you drop weight? If so, is your wt/kg up even though your ftp is down?
I’ve only been vegetarian for 2 weeks, so trying to learn.
All of what you say resonates very strongly with my own experience: at least in my social circles, there is a huge difference in how vegan and vegetarian acquaintances behave. Most of them were obsessed about their eating habits. E. g. at social gatherings when two of them met, they’d stick together and just talk about their veganism. There’d be long discussions about edge cases (e. g. whether they’d be willing to drink wine when they weren’t positive it was vegan, or whether to eat mollusks). One of them repeatedly criticized his vegetarian girlfriend in public for what she ate. I cannot remember one vegetarian who has behaved similarly.
This zeal translates to other claims, like the healthiest diet is a vegan diet. Try living off of only French fries and vegan ice cream, and tell me how healthy you will be after a few years. As best as I know there is no single healthy diet, there are many healthy diets. A vegan diet can be healthy — as can non-vegan diets. Likewise, a vegan or vegetarian diet will not enhance your performance as an athlete, a better diet might.
That’s a great cookbook! I also enjoy recipes from https://minimalistbaker.com/.
Hi @Pbase,
Looks like I wasn’t clear in my explanation. I changed to plant based for about 6 months and I saw my FTP come down gradually during that period. At the end of those 6 months I finished my specialty phase. I then took 2 weeks off structured training and also went back to eating meat and fish. At the end of those 2 weeks I was ready to start the next training phase, so I took the ramp test. I took the test on Saturday and it didn’t go well. That’s not unusual given the previous 2 weeks of no training (you forget how much you can suffer). So, I took the test again the next day and this time I felt it was a good effort. The FTP I got was back to the numbers I saw before I went plant based. I believe the difference was made in those 2 weeks. I can now add that the rest of the race season went quite well.
However, there were 2 main variables I had to play with. One was the diet, the other one was fatigue. I am pretty sure I was overdoing it with my training. After those 2 weeks of rest, I continued eating fish and meat (for some reason didn’t go back to eating eggs and dairy) and I monitored my fatigue a lot closer. I felt fresher and stronger. So, was it the diet, overreaching in training or a combination of both? I don’t know.
I have now started winter training. I have plenty of time until my first A race, so I am doing traditional base first and planning to do SSB later. I have gone back to a plant based diet as I think it is possible to make it work (yes, I am that stubborn), but I am also checking my fatigue level and my FTP progress very closely. I started the 2nd part of the MV plan this week. I did the ramp test yesterday and happy to see my FTP has gone up 3% in the last 4 weeks.
Awesome. Thanks for all the info. I’m only in my 3rd week of vegetarian and so far so good, but it’s really early to judge. I love this thread and I’m learning from you all.
I find that I still have tons of energy and need less sleep, but I’m letting myself have lots of potatoes, rice, pasta, etc. as I ease into the change. We’ll see what happens when I start doing “no refined carbs” days. I’m still not used to all the beans and crucifers, that’s for sure!!
Congratulations on the 3% increase! Good stuff!
Vegan here. My weight hasn’t gone up much compared to my race weight while barely training and just enjoying the off-season.
Lots of rice, beans, veggies, the occasional black bean burger, and oh yeah, lots of oatmeal.
Literally my wife and I just made the switch to going Vegan, do you have any meal recommendations as we are currently working on identify some core meals that will be in our regular rotation. I am also curious to see how my performance is affected (I am guessing it will be mostly positive), has anyone made a recent switch and seen positive health or fitness changes?
Best,
GG