Can you go without animal protein in powerlifting and progress? If you are also concerned about this issue see the practical overview. If you ask the security officials if it is possible to do bodybuilding and powerlifting, adhering to a vegetarian nutrition program, then most of them will answer in the negative. Let's take a look at the relationship between powerlifting and vegetarianism.
Features of vegetarian food
Most nutritionists claim that eating only vegetarian food can harm the body. This is due to the fact that plant foods contain a small amount of protein compounds, and everyone knows about the needs of security officials in this nutrient.
However, for some reason, they forgot that they used to advise people to consume soy protein. Probably someone else remembers about soy meat, milk and cottage cheese. The same nutritionists then convinced that soy products are very useful and can completely replace protein compounds of animal origin.
Thus, we can say that it is possible to do without animal food, but at the same time it is necessary to find a complete replacement for animal proteins. At this point, we are faced with the first problem. Here again you should return to soy. It turned out that the protein compounds that make up this plant are defective. In addition, soybeans used to create artificial milk, meat and other products turned out to be genetically modified. Now everyone has recognized it.
We will not talk about gene modifications now, since everything is clear with this issue, but protein compounds are necessary. If you check the amino acid profile of soy protein against that of fish, eggs or meat, it is easy to notice the absence of methionine. More precisely, not the complete absence of this amino acid compound, but its low content. In this, soybeans are almost three times inferior to products of animal origin.
This fact can only say that the body will poorly absorb soy protein. To get the same effect, you need to consume three times more soy products than meat or fish.
For those people who do not want to consume soy products, there are several options. But it must be remembered that plant foods contain few protein compounds and methionine. So powerlifting and vegetarianism are not compatible? In fact, everything is not so catastrophic. Some plants contain complete proteins, for example, buckwheat, potatoes, millet, cabbage, oats, etc. However, another problem arises, namely the low content of protein compounds. To satisfy the body's need for protein compounds, an athlete needs to consume one kilogram of buckwheat, 1.3 kilograms of rice, 1.2 kilograms of wheat, 4 kilograms of potatoes and 6 kilograms of white cabbage daily. It should be remembered that after cooking porridge and cereals, you will already get 4 kilograms of food. Nobody can eat that much porridge. The situation is somewhat better with potatoes. If you fry it, then from 4 kilograms of the product you get one and a half kilograms of the finished dish. This is more real. In addition, there are legumes that contain defective protein compounds, but in large quantities. To meet the body's needs, it is enough to consume 550 grams of beans or 800 grams of peas per day. Again, remember that after cooking it will turn out to be a very impressive portion and you will have to eat pea porridge all day.
To get a decent vegetarian diet for an athlete, it is necessary to combine foods based on their methionine content. For example, you can eat about 2.2 kilograms of cabbage along with 350 grams of peas or one and a half kilograms of cabbage and 350 grams of beans. Also, if the cabbage is stewed, then its volume will significantly decrease.
We will now give an example of one vegetarian dish made from beans and cabbage. Beans should be soaked before cooking. After that, it must be boiled and at the same time cut one and a half kilograms of cabbage and two large onions.
After that, pour sunflower oil into a saucepan and put on fire, adding onions. When it turns rosy, add 200 ml of water and toss in the cabbage. When the beans are ready, they should be added to the cabbage. Spices can be added to the dish if necessary.
You also need to pay attention to vitamins, adding carrots to the diet. This product contains a lot of vitamin A, and other beneficial substances are found in beans, onions and cabbage. There are a huge number of delicious and healthy vegetarian dishes, and they will not have time to bore you.
Now let's see why all this is necessary for security officials, and how powerlifting and vegetarianism are combined from a different point of view. Animal products contain many substances that are not used by the body, but accumulate in the form of slag. As a result, they become toxic and poison the body.
No animal product contains as much arginine as legumes. This amino acid compound accelerates wound healing, regenerates tissue cells and has a rejuvenating effect.
If the athlete uses vegetarian principles in his diet, then his body will be able to recover much faster from high-intensity training. At the same time, a huge amount of energy will not be spent on processing substances that are not necessary for the body.
In addition, endurance will increase and the athlete will be able to conduct training sessions more often and, as a result, will be able to achieve their goals faster. Everyone decides for himself which nutrition program to adhere to, but if you use vegetarianism, then with the right approach you can achieve no less results in comparison with meat eaters.
For more information on the compatibility of sports and vegetarianism, see this video:
