<\/p>\n
Fitness writer and competitive bodybuilder Nicola Joyce decided to eat a vegan diet for World Vegan Month. We asked her all about it\u2026<\/p>\n
If I\u2019m honest, mostly as content for my blog! November is World Vegan Month, and I thought it would be an interesting nutrition adventure. And as I\u2019m not prepping for a bodybuilding show right now, I can do it. I like experimenting with nutrition, seeing how it affects body composition, strength, recovery, and training. My initial thoughts are that a vegan diet is healthy, not harmfully restrictive, and won\u2019t impact macros or micros. We\u2019ll see!<\/p>\n
I went into this with no expectations, but no judgement either. I was simply going to eat 100% vegan, and try to stick to my existing macros and meal frequency if possible. Of course I wanted the diet to support my training, recovery, and energy levels. I didn\u2019t have a contingency plan if I ended up exhausted or wiped out! But I didn\u2019t honestly think that would happen.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m pretty creative in the kitchen and enjoy cooking, so I wasn\u2019t worried about getting bored. As an omnivore, I already prep and cook almost all of my meals from scratch. I also wasn\u2019t worried about nutrient deficiency; I believe that we can get everything we need from a good vegan diet.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not a bodybuilding cliche who eats masses of meat anyway. But I tend to have very real cravings for red meat around my period (I\u2019ve no idea if this is common or not) and wondered how I\u2019d cope if that happened. I thought I might miss fish (I eat a lot of it). And I wasn\u2019t sure what a diet without eggs and Liquid Egg Whites<\/a> would look like!<\/p>\n Well, obviously I removed all meat, fish, eggs, and dairy. But it\u2019s the less obvious things that surprised me. Traces of dairy or eggs in sauces, dressings, and \u201cnon whole foods\u201d items. Did you know that not all Quorn products are vegan? I didn\u2019t!<\/p>\n My first supermarket shop as a vegan was an eye opener. It took me ages, even though I ended up buying relatively little. I had to read the label on absolutely everything (except fruit and veg!) and large areas of the shop were now totally irrelevant to me.<\/p>\n It actually made me sympathise with people who are new to \u201chealthy eating\u201d. They probably take just as long as I did, to read food labels and work out which bits of the shop to buy from. This is something for PTs and coaches out there to think about. Healthy eating might be second nature to us, but it\u2019s completely alien when you do it for the first time.<\/p>\n I ate a lot of pulses, beans, lentils, and tofu! A lot of my meals were kind of beige. But then again, so is chicken and potato. I used a lot more herbs and spices, something I had got a bit lazy with as a meat eater.<\/p>\n A lot of my main meals were variations on curried tofu with veg, or veg and chickpeas\/lentils in a tomato sauce.<\/p>\n The main issue I found was in hitting my macros. With an omnivore diet, the macros are quite separate. If you want protein, you chop some chicken. For carbs, you add rice – and so on. But with vegan foods, the macros are all attached. Lentils are protein, but carbs too. Tofu is protein, but fats too. So I had to rethink how to construct a meal.<\/p>\n My breakfast didn\u2019t change – I still ate oats and protein powder<\/a> stirred in. But I had to leave out the egg whites (I usually stir in about 50ml Liquid Egg Whites whilst the oats are cooking). And I used Complete Vegan Blend\u2122<\/a> instead of whey. I actually prefer it, and will continue to use it. It\u2019s thicker and tastier in my opinion.<\/p>\n Complete Vegan Blend\u2122, which I used in my breakfast oats and as a post-workout (and sometimes pre bed top up!) I continued to use Creatine Monohydrate<\/a>. I don\u2019t normally take a fish oil<\/a>, but I do eat a fair bit of fish. So I used Omega Oil Blend<\/a>. I also enjoyed your Vegan Protein Bars<\/a> as a sweet snack (snacking as a vegan is definitely more of a challenge!).<\/p>\n Honestly, no different at all. Sorry if that\u2019s a boring answer, but I had no cravings and didn\u2019t miss any foods in particular. I felt pretty full from all my meals (possibly to do with the fibre, or the food volume?) Meal frequency had gone down (because I was finding it hard to invent snacks), and so meal size went up a bit.<\/p>\n I\u2019m only a week in, but if anything I would say I feel better. I\u2019ve had a great week\u2019s training. This could be down to any number of other factors, of course. But I haven\u2019t struggled to fuel my training sessions or eat a post workout meal. There was one day (when I\u2019d done a big leg session plus some conditioning work) when I was really hungry in the evening. If I hadn\u2019t been doing this vegan challenge, I probably would have done a late-night supermarket dash to get some snacks! (As it was I think I ate a Vegan Protein Bar and a second portion of whatever I\u2019d made for dinner!)<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t found it difficult at all, but I should point out that I live by myself, don\u2019t have kids, and I work at home. There have been very few times where I\u2019ve had to navigate a tricky social situation. But there are loads of vegan cafes and restaurants in my town, and I imagine it\u2019s the same everywhere these days. Shopping for vegan food and ingredients is very easy, if a bit limiting (compared to omnivore eating – but the clue is in the name there!)<\/p>\n Eating vegan has encouraged me to try new recipes, experiment with flavours, and eat some new foods as well (seitan – who knew?)<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t finished the month yet, but I think I\u2019ll continue with a lot of my vegan habits and recipes. I can\u2019t see myself buying dairy again, and I\u2019ll definitely use vegan protein powder. But I think eggs will be making a return to my life\u2026 we\u2019ll see!<\/p>\n Nicola Joyce is a fitness industry copywriter, competitive bodybuilder, and a regular contributor to The Core\u2122<\/a>. You can read more about her Vegan Month<\/a>\u00a0and find her on Instagram <\/a>or Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fitness writer and competitive bodybuilder Nicola Joyce decided to eat a vegan diet for World Vegan Month. We asked her all about it… We hear you’re eating vegan for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":13856,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[351],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diet-and-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bulk.com\/uk\/the-core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bulk.com\/uk\/the-core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bulk.com\/uk\/the-core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bulk.com\/uk\/the-core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bulk.com\/uk\/the-core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13837"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bulk.com\/uk\/the-core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25367,"href":"https:\/\/www.bulk.com\/uk\/the-core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13837\/revisions\/25367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bulk.com\/uk\/the-core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bulk.com\/uk\/the-core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bulk.com\/uk\/the-core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bulk.com\/uk\/the-core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How exactly has your diet changed?<\/h2>\n
Can you give us some examples of what you ate?<\/h2>\n
Tell us about your vegan supplement routine<\/h2>\n
How did you feel after one week of eating vegan?<\/h2>\n
How has your training and recovery been affected?<\/h2>\n
Is it difficult to make the change?<\/h2>\n