Vegan Diet Plan for Building Muscle

I am not a vegan. But I am a bodybuilder and nutrition coach who understands one thing - quantity is king when it comes to macronutrients.

We get caught up in the semantics of where your protein, carbs and fat come from but a lot of us can't see the most important factor in building muscle: How MANY grams of protein, carbs and fat you consume per day.

Not when you eat them, how you eat them, where they came from? But how many. I have learned a few things in my career as a physique and athletic diet coach:

• Coaches who recommend specific foods at specific times are ignorant and don't know how to read science.
• People fall for some stupid advice.
• There is no such thing as a perfect diet.

Vegans are awesome. They live their life where the food they eat is for a purpose and let their beliefs in the treatment or mistreatment of animals dictate their menu. That is sacrifice. But what if this awesome person wants a vegan diet plan for building muscle?

Can you build muscle with a vegan diet? Can you become huge and ripped and awesomely sexy without meat? The answer is yes, and I will show you how in this vegan diet plan for building muscle!

Vegan Diet Plan Challenge - Complete the Protein!

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One issue with plant-based protein is it does not have a complete amino acid profile thus does not have everthing you need to build muscle. This is SIMPLE to solve, like REALLY simple! Simply combine protein sources to make it complete. For example:

• Rice and Beans
• Spirullina with Grains and Nuts
• Ezekiel Bread
• Buckwheat
• Peanut Butter and Grains
• Hummus and Pita
• Seitan
• Soy (YES, soy is fine, but not awesome)
• Quinoa

And the variable you should always have is a good protein. The best on the market is HPN Pro Zero that contains brown rice and pea protein but adds extra leucine to make the amino profile similar to whey protein and other muscle-building animal source protein. It is also very low in carbs and fat and tastes delicious.

Carbs

The one great thing about being a vegan is that carb choices are aplenty. The thing you need to realize is that although a calorie is a calorie is the grand scheme of fat loss and thermodynamics, you have to eat for more than being big and sexy, you need to eat for what a lot of vegans become vegans for? health!

Shoot for whole, natural, unprocessed foods full of micronutrients. Fruits, veggies, whole grains? All EPIC for health and your sexy body!

Fat

It would be a bad joke and proof that I have no idea what I am talking about if I told you to take fish oil. No, you don't need it! Vegan foods are super high in healthy fats! Nuts, Avocado and seeds are super high in the GOOD FATS, the mono and poly unsaturates and flaxseed oil and walnuts give you that Alpha-Linoleic-Acid, or Omega 3 Fats.

The Vegan Diet Plan - Putting It all Together

First, find your TDEE here. Once you find your TDEE, add 250 calories to it. This is your starting vegan diet plan for building muscle bulking calories.

So to determine your macronutrients, it takes some math. let's say you are a 22 year old male, moderate activity levels, 5?9? and 200lbs, you have 2,966 calories per day. First thing is to set protein to 1 gram per pound of bodyweight per day:

• 200 grams protein at 4 calories per gram is 800 calories per day from protein

Then we set fat at 0.5 grams per pound of bodyweight per day:

• 100 grams at 9 calories per gram is 900 calories

So that means 1,700 calories per day are from fats and proteins. Thus we subtract 1,700 from 2,966 and get 1,266 calories. We fill these with carbs.

• 1,266 divided by 4 calories per gram for carbs is 317 grams of carbohydrates per day.

So our final macros are:

• 200g protein
• 317g carbs
• 100g fat

You can set up a diet plan or measure as you go. If you want a 6 meal per day plan each meal would be:

• 33g protein
• 53g carbs
• 17g fat

So you can make your meals match this. We can do this with some free online programs:

• Myfitnesspal.com
• Fitday.com
• The Daily Burn on IPhone and Droid

All are free to sign up for and to use.

Also the dailyplate.com, nutritiondata.com and calorieking.com are websites in which you can find nutritional information on foods if they don't have labels.

Example Vegan Diet Plan

Note: To get your measurements use the calorie counter to adjust per your food preferences.

Meal 1

• Seitan
• Ezekiel Bread
• Tofu

Meal 2

• HPN Pro Zero
• Peanut Butter
• Frozen Blueberries
• Oatmeal

Make the most delicious vegan protein sludge.

Meal 3

• Rice
• Beans
• Broccoli
• Seitan

Meal 4

• HPN Pro Zero
• Peanut Butter
• Frozen Blueberries

Meal 5

• Garden Burger
• Buckwheat Bun
• Veggies

Meal 6 Bedtime

• HPN Pro Zero
• Peanut Butter
• Frozen Blueberries
• Oatmeal

As for food choices, in addition to the epic protein sources listed above, here are some more!

Carbohydrates to Select

• Plain oatmeal (LOW SUGAR)
• Whole wheat pancakes
• Whole grain/wheat toast, bread and bagels and crackers
• Whole grain cereals: Wheaties, Honey Bunches of Oats, Cheerios, Special K
• Baked yams/sweet potatoes
• Whole wheat/grain pastas
• Baked potatoes
• Black, pinto and kidney beans
• Brown rice
• Corn tortillas
• LOW FAT granola

Fruits to Select

• Apple
• Banana
• Black/Blueberries
• Cantaloupe
• Grapefruit
• Oranges
• Peaches
• Pears
• Pineapple
• Raspberries
• Strawberries
• Tangerines

Fats to Select

• Dry roasted nuts (almonds, peanuts, pecans, walnuts, cashews)
• Peanut butter, Almond butter
• REDUCED FAT butter spreads - Margarine, Benecol Light butter spread
• Avocado
• REDUCED FAT dressing
• Sunflower seeds: can be added to salads for additional GOOD FATS

All steamed vegetables with NO BUTTER added.

Green leafy vegetables.

Workout Nutrition

[caption id="attachment_18646" align="alignright" width="200"] Click here to order Carb 10.[/caption]

• Pre-workout - 45 minutes Pre: 1 scoop MTS Nutrition Carb 10, 1 Scoop HPN Pro Zero. Have your favorite shake 20 minutes pre-workout. We recommend HPN P3 and MTS Nutrition Ruckus.
• Intra-workout - 2 Scoops Machine Fuel, 1 scoop unflavored Carb 10.
• Post-workout - 45 minutes Pre: 2 scoops MTS Nutrition Carb 10, 1 Scoop HPN Pro Zero

*This does not count toward daily macros, these are consistent.

Vegan Diet Tips

On OFF or non-workout days, simply remove the post-workout (PWO) shake. If you look at this and it is WAY beyond what you eat now, even controlled, then just start at a lower level.

The key to the diet - adjusting!

Any idiot can write a diet. The key is adjusting as you hit stick points. What is a stick point? Well, when dieting it is when you do not lose weight or bodyfat for two straight weeks. We are aiming for one to two pounds a week and if you do not average that, it is time to adjust. The first variable will be carbs!

• Stick Point 1: Increase 240 calories (60g) from carbs
• Stick Point 2: Repeat Stick Point 1
• Stick Point 3: Add 10g Fat
• Stick Point 4 - forever: Repeat Stick point 1-3

Dietary Substitutions

You do NOT have to eat the same thing everyday. What is listed is recommended, but in reality, it can get boring. Simply look above at the food options list and you can make substitutions. Just take the equal amount of the alternative and BOOM - you are on point! The options are endless.

How to Cook Your Food

Cook your food in non-stick, no-calorie spray like ?Pam? or get a Misto brand sprayer and fill it with macadamia nut oil. You can also cook in a small amount of macadamia nut or coconut oil - just enough to coat the bottom of the pan!

What Can I NOT Eat?

You can really eat ANYTHING in moderation. Severe restriction will lead to quitting and binges. The free meal helps alleviate this, but not totally. So if you feel like having a Pop Tart?, do your best to fit it into your macronutrients and DO NOT make this an every meal thing.

I recommend a getting the diet on-point with the food choice at the end of the book at least 85%-90% of the time. That will still yield amazing results! Thus, NOTHING is ?off limits.?

What and How Much to Drink?

Pretty much unlimited NON-caloric beverages. Get most of your liquid from plain old water, but diet sodas, Crystal Light and even some flavored BCAA work. Coffee with artificial sweetener and no cream is also a go.

As for how much to drink, recent research shows drinking when thirsty works. With that said, I know a lot of people who hardly drink anything, so aim for one gallon of water per day, but no need to carry it around like a big meathead.

Alcohol

In moderation, maybe on a weekend or at a gathering, sure. Alcohol will slow your progress, period, but it is a social thing and once a week or two won't hurt a thing in moderation.

What if I train first thing in the morning?

Simply wake up, down a scoop of Pro Zero along with your pre-workout supplement, mix up your Machine Fuel for during training and get to work. This does NOT count as a meal. It is just enough to keep you from going catabolic and feeling like crap during training but will not hinder fat loss.

After training, move your post-workout meal to meal one and carry on.

Time to GET YOUR BEST BODY EVER? And that's not a game!