In Praise of Protein ... for Strength Training Males

So She’s Vegan. Good for Her.

If you’re a female, and interested in hearing your friends ooh and aah about how thin and weak you look, vegetarianism is for you. You really will get a healthy glow to your skin, and look plumpyhealthy with subcutaneous fat. Just don’t let anyone touch you or they’ll realize you’re as muscular as a stick of warm butter.

If you’re a strength athlete; especially if you’re a strength athlete and male, vegan is a bad word. 

If you’re a strength athlete, none of the “common knowledge” on nutrition applies to you. Forget what you read in the newspapers and hear on TV – these factoids apply only to a sedentary, flabby populace. If you’re a strength athlete, the nutritional guidelines will only make you sick, or weak, or crash.

In this country the American Dietetics Association recommends a high-carb, low fat, grain-based diet. This is a pro-inflammatory diet, counterproductive for muscle growth, recovery and performance. The food pyramid is a graphic representation of the same failed-and-failing nutritional model.

If you want to be skinny, or skinny fat, count calories and maintain a nutritional deficit. You can do oxidative training, or not, as you force your body to consume what muscle you have.

Are you a strength athlete? Vegetarianism is out. Eating a Balanced Diet is out. Weight Watchers is out. Carb loading is out. Cardio is out.

Male and a strength athlete? One specific Out is out: Avoid Soy.

Tofu isn’t a substitute for meat. Just as all carbs are not created equal, soy proteins do not sub for meat proteins. Repeat after me: Phy-to-Es-tro-gens.

Tofu was first used in monasteries in China about 2,000 years ago, in part to promote sexual abstinence, since the phytoestrogens in soy lower testosterone levels. – Soy Alert!

Testosterone being desirable for the male strength athlete, a key problem with soy is that it contains these phytoestrogens, which mimic the physiological effects of the endogenous hormone, estrogen.  So by consuming soy products, you’re eating is equivalent to feminizing your hormones, as if you’re taking birth control pills. The flush of phytoestrogens wreaks havoc on the surge of testosterone that happens in weight-training males. If your intent is to create girlishness out of your manhood, soy yourself up.

Because of their estrogenic effects, they act more like drugs in the body than foods. If your body needs estrogen, that may be fine. But for men, or pregnant (particularly vegetarian) mothers, there is evidence that even a very small amount of soy may contribute to problems such as low sperm counts or even testicular cancer and birth defects. – The Healthy Skeptic

Soy milk is the product of ground-up soy beans mixed with water. While soy milk has a similar amount of protein( 6.3 grams per cup - plant based proteins) as cow’s milk (7.9 grams per cup), the amino acid profiles are very different. Mainly, soy has about 1/3 the amount of leucine as cow’s milk. Leucine is responsible for an anabolic effect needed to build muscle. Soy is a poor source of protein because the proteins found in soybeans act as potent enzyme inhibitors. These “antinutrients” block the action of trypsin and other enzymes needed for protein digestion.

Strength training men, eat meat. Meat needs meat to build meat. Opt away from the green diet for the red diet. High Protein, no soy. Meat and milk and no soy milk. 

This is the case for anti-vegetarianism: it’s not for everyone. Vegetarianism is for everyone, just as the savannah is wide and grassy and crowded with herds of herbivores. The few, the apex predators, feed on meat. They live on the savannah but don’t graze there.