Hello,
Since I have become interested in raw food diets, I came across you site on the internet. As I have found much of this information fascinating, I have also found it to be a great benefit in my quest to make myself as healthy as possible. I do have a bit of a problem I was hoping you may be able to help me out with. Well, since one of my goals is also to get as strong and as muscular as possible (naturally), I find the raw food diet will not be adequate in terms of receiving all the calories I need (especially since I am allergic to dairy products). I have compromised my diet with eating raw eggs, lean bison (cooked as little as possible), elk, salmon, tilapia, and various other game meats in order to fulfill my protein requirements. As for all my vegetables, I eat them raw and organic (mostly just sticking to broccoli and spinach). For carbohydrates I have been experimenting with sprouting grains and oats such as quinoa and oatmeal. Now that you know what I do, is this what you would recommend? Also, do you know of any good raw food recipe books?

Thank you for your time,
Brendan

Opinion:

-Your diet will naturally be compelled/fall into what your over-riding goal/vision/attachment is. There are many ways to get as muscular and and get as much absorbable protein as you need on a a fresh, raw, plant food diet! I'm sure some of the great folks on this board will make some book and recipe suggestions!

-Love & Support,

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

check out these raw vegans. they got buff without meat.

[www.livingnutrition.com]

[www.rawveganforever.com]

Checkout the website for Richard Blackman aka The Fruitarian One (on this site as well as others).
His site is [www.fruitarianfitness.com]

As pihourova said he got really muscular without animal products, if I remember right he only eats fruit these days.

Phil.

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"Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it" (Chinese Proverb)

Thank you for your responses. I am currently 5'8", 210 lbs, and under 12% body fat. I know this sounds unhealthy, but I would like to get my lean body mass in the 250 lb range. This requires massive eating on the order of some days in the 5000-6500 calories zone. I haven't seen one raw food person yet that has a serious amount of muscle on them. What would you suggest?

you should ask fruitarianone. i dont think he is as gigantic as what you are describing but i know he knows alot about this sort of thing. and if anyone would know the best way to do this it would be him. you should be able to get in touch with him on this forum or his website that phil put in the above post.

Brendan B Wrote:
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> Thank you for your responses. I am currently
> 5'8", 210 lbs, and under 12% body fat. I know
> this sounds unhealthy, but I would like to get my
> lean body mass in the 250 lb range. This requires
> massive eating on the order of some days in the
> 5000-6500 calories zone. I haven't seen one raw
> food person yet that has a serious amount of
> muscle on them. What would you suggest?


i'd like to see a picture of you, and i look forward to seeing you in mr olympia.

If i could figure out how to post a picture I would. But I no where near consider myself "Olympia level" and to get there I would have to use anabolics (something I would never, ever do). But, for the mean time, I strive to push myself as hard as possible everyday. Anyone know of any good raw cook books? Also, I am thinking of getting a juicer, and I here jack la lanne has a great one. Here is the link: [www.powerjuicer.com].

Let me know what you guys think.
B

Hi, if you want to post a pic, you need to upload it to a image hosting site like [www.photobucket.com]
Then come here and post the url of the image here

~ Tiffany

A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart,
and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words..

When the body is more acidic it holds more water to balance it out. So people who really huge are sometimes holding a lot of water which makes them look bigger. I would say that a lean muscled vegan can be just as strong as these people who look really big.
A lot of professional atheletes are turning vegetarian or vegan these days because they find that they perform better. That speaks for itself.

Phil.

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"Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it" (Chinese Proverb)

Brendan,

This is a raw vegan support forum. Questions about eating animal products are not permitted on this site. Any person responding with non-vegan advice will have their post deleted. There are non-vegan forums on the internet where you might be better served.

However, if you have questions about eating fruits and vegetables, please ask.

Brendan, that's hot, I wish all men lifted weights and aspired to look beefy. I used to do the bodybuilding diet myself (Im a girl) and find that exercising on raw is sooo much easier and more enjoyable. I have to tell you, though, as much as I wish it weren't so, on a raw diet the kind of mass you want just may not be possible, unless you have a naturally thick build. But that doesnt mean you shouldnt try it- you'll still look sexy, you'll gain incredible knowledge and become alot stronger, and then if you decide in a year that you still prefer mass as opposed to optimal health, you can always go back to cooked. But TRYING to gain mass on raw, like one does in bodybuilding, is futile. You'll get muscular from lifting weights, but just how bulky you can look will depend on your genes. I know how you feel, btw, because it took me forever to wrap my head around the low protein thing when I started raw. I would go to the gym, lift weights, then afterward not be able to let go of my protein shake security blanket. After a year Ive finally accepted that REALLY, TRULY all I need is fruit after lifting weights.
Good luck and enjoy your experiment!

xo
Sunshine

So sunshine, are you as bulky as you'd like to be or are you still hoping to increase your muscle ....... just curious about how raw affects muscle-building.

I know the whole "meat thing" is not considered expectable according to your diet (which i comprehend and respect). I gasp that high protein diets are not healthy. In fact, I know Americans have the most acidic urine out of any other country... and thus, associated with this, Americans have very very high kidney problems (mainly of course, coming from a large percentage of meat in their diet and lack of veggies and fruits). Although I understand this, I am still young, and, as ignorant as it may sound to you, I am going to do it anyway. but... I still want to incorporate all the benefits of a raw food diet. If I am going to do this, I want to do it as healthy as possible. I not asking you for meat advice, as I already know what your response will be. but... what I am asking for is for you to help me with the other aspect of my diet; the raw food part. Here are my questions:
1. What can I do to improve the raw aspect of my diet?
2. What kind of raw recipe books would you recommend?

B

Brendan

my personal belief is that you can't seperate 'the other aspects of the diet'

health comes from what you leave out, completely from your diet/lifestyle. It can only be as strong as your weakest link.

incorporating the benefits of raw food - other then the wholesome unadulterated nutrients that they contain - is therefore impossible, because only a cleansing diet will lead to being truly healthy.

of course, its a valid perspective, to 'do it anyway',

the best approach for you would then be to just add fresh fruits and vegies to your diet while:

simplifying your meals and research food combining

always having a large vegetable salad with your animal protein

and removing processed sugars and starches completely from your diet - without cheating


these steps will jumpstart you on the path that you seek, and you will probably be able to build/maintain on this approach...eventually like most BB's it won't be the optimal long term strategy, but it will be a 'healthy diet' indeed.

especially with this approach, you'll have no need for recipes, these are mostly for people who want to 'stay raw' by mimicing cooked foods

best

Given what you are trying to acheive here, I agree with Anaken here the best thing to do is replace as much of your diet as you are comfortable, with fresh, raw fruits and vegetables, it is going to be trial and error of course and you will just need to experiment and see how you feel.

Most of us here don't eat the way you do so it might be difficult for us to comment on what you are doing.

Phil.

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"Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it" (Chinese Proverb)

Brendan, more and more vegan raw foodist athletes are starting to get their protein from hemp. www.manitobaharvest.com seems to be a decent company.
by what I read, hemp seems to be a complete protein. Say, your last name wouldn't happen to be Brazier, would it?

Brendan Brazier the Vegan Tri-athelite from Canada? Doesn't sound like him to me.

Phil.

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"Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it" (Chinese Proverb)

VeganLife Wrote:
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> Say, your last name wouldn't happen to be
> Brazier, would it?

Nah, that guy is way too skinny to be me.

jadedshade Wrote:
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> Given what you are trying to acheive here, I agree
> with Anaken here the best thing to do is replace
> as much of your diet as you are comfortable, with
> fresh, raw fruits and vegetables, it is going to
> be trial and error of course and you will just
> need to experiment and see how you feel.
>
> Most of us here don't eat the way you do so it
> might be difficult for us to comment on what you
> are doing.


Well, other than the meat I eat, most all the stuff I eat would probably be considered raw except for maybe organic extra virgin olive oil, flax seed oil, Carlson’s cod liver oil, and sometimes Udo's oil. Maybe too the butter and sprouted bread that I eat, the cayenne pepper, and protein powder + supplements (egg white protein powder, glutamine peptides, branch chain amino acids, vitamin/mineral, coral calcium, vitamin E oil, trace minerals, and garlic/ginger). Other than that, everything else is either organic raw fresh fruit and organic raw veggies (sometimes I add Celtic sea salt, but I have been trying to steer away from that).

LOL, ok just making sure. Anyways, his website has a link to a vegan bodybuilder, so you might be able to get some tips from there. Also The Fruitarian One has a myspace page where there are other vegan bodybulders in the "friends" list so you might want to ask him for the myspace link.

supplements of any kind are the most refined foods. you have to ask yourself if one can really extract these things and have them still be usuable by the body. many of the BB ones I suspect work because they allow for the accumulation of more wastes. due to my experience where they took a long time to 'work' (toxify)

sounds like you are on the right track though. If your desire is truly to become more raw, you'll find yourself having meals of fruit, meals of vegetables with some fats, some cooked stuff.

if your goal is simply to build/maintain..this will manifest in less change, because some sacrifices will need to be made in this regard for your body to start operating differently

my opinions

AFAIK creatine gives you energy and also causes muscle cells to retain water so they end up swelling. As far as aother supplements, I heard that many of them do not work. The dibencozide form of B12 helps muscle building and the methylcobalamin form helps the brain. This is a vitamin that is extremely limited in a vegan diet which is ehy it is good to supplement. As far as protein, I heard good things about hemp protein. The purest form is only 50% protein AFAIK which means that it is somewhat, almost a whole food still.

"I haven't seen one raw
food person yet that has a serious amount of
muscle on them"

It makes me laugh when I see this....

Well the thing you gotta realise is that there aren't that many true raw bodybuilders because too many people don't want to lose the bulk/weight they think is muscle mass, so a lot of them don't go 100% raw, plus most of the people you see aren't even true bodybuilders, they don't train as true bodybuilders and they don't even have an interest in bodybuilding, take me for instance, I'm not a bodybuilder and never have been, I've no intention of competing and I don't train as a bodybuilder but I'm always labelled as one!

As far as I'm concerned I'm all about keeping fit and in decent shape!

As far as keeping muscle on a raw diet, don't count on it because your body has many things to take care of first like cleaning and healing....after that, the worlds your oyster!

The good thing about it all is that you will actually find out what was muscle and what was water/fat and you'll be really surprised to find out how small we actually are...

I actually don't think bodybuilding is natural anyway but to each his/her own.

Anyway be cooland be good!

F1

well said f1!! i was wondering you would weigh in on this thread.

i think the way you look is way more attractive than any of those body builders that have no neck. as a woman, i find it gross. and not only is it gross, its actually unhealthy. i mean, how could it be healthy? its so unnatural.

brendan, please dont think i am calling you gross or unhealthy. i dont even know what u look like. i just mean some of the really bulked up body builders look gross.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2007 09:35AM by pihourova.

pihourova Wrote:
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> well said f1!! i was wondering you would weigh in
> on this thread.
>
> i think the way you look is way more attractive
> than any of those body builders that have no neck.
> as a woman, i find it gross. and not only is it
> gross, its actually unhealthy. i mean, how could
> it be healthy? its so unnatural.
>
> brendan, please dont think i am calling you gross
> or unhealthy. i dont even know what u look like. i
> just mean some of the really bulked up body
> builders look gross.

I totally agree but unfortunatly when people think of the term bodybuilder they automatically think of the pumped up heavyweight guys they see in the magazines, plus most want to see much bigger examples of muscle and weight than people like me and that stops a lot of people/athletes from going raw!

It's sad but true....

F1

I don't want to look like this...


I much prefer this...


And I don't want to have to do this...


To look like this...


I'm perfectly happy with this...





But to each his/her own...

F1

YES! why be a freak when you can be a work of art?