VEGAN 12 hr running

For a full story, read my blog!

In short, I have been eating plant-based, vegan, vegetarian, whatever you wanna call the 'no meat, dairy or eggs' approach to fuelling my 10-20 hour training weeks (STRAVA!) and ironman, Celtman and most recently, this 12hr run.

I go for a 50%Carb / 30% Fat / 20% Protein divide more or less for my racing, training and, well, life in general. I originally started high carb (easily done, as carbs are easiest to find in fruits and veggies) but found it did nothing for my waistline. In fact, whilst training in 15-20 hour weeks, I actually gained weight.

Lesson learnt, I've upped the protein (yup, had to convert to some protein powders these days too, like pea and hemp) and the healthy fats (avocados. Need I say more?!) and lowered the volume, meaning I don't have to, in a race situation, try and cram in a ton of carbohydrates, as fats actually provide more 'bang for your buck' calorie-wise for less mass.

 

What do you guys think? Do you have issues digesting those big marketed brand chemical stuff? Have you tried just having some bananas, almonds and TREK bars instead? 

I can safely say I've never had ANY issues with digestion during any of my shorter olympic triathlons or 10km runs, and especially not during my longer, iron-and-further 18.5hr races either.

 

Just some 'Food for thought' (Sorry, not sorry)

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Comments

  • 3 posts today and all three linking to your amazing blog...

     seems to me that you are not interested in opinions ort helping people on the forum.just looking for free advertisment for your blog....

    Those blogs that are any good do not need advertising and self promotion.....they grow from recommendation between friends

     

  • Oh, ok sorry. I'm just excited to talk about my latest big run and share my vegan experiences.

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    There's a few million people in the world who either have 'no' food of any kind, or are reduced to looking under stones for insects or scratching about on rubbish tips for left overs.

    I wonder what they would make of this idea that you can have so much food guaranteed, that you can actually play games with it.

     

    🙂

  • Play games? I'm just running... I would love to contribute to solving world hunger, did you know for example 37% of Bill Gates' net worth could solve world hunger? or just the amount Apple have in offshore funds, just sitting there in the Cayman islands, could also solve world hunger? Makes my toes curl.

    Instead, I'll do what I can though, perhaps save the deaths of a couple of chickens, cows and a pig every month or so that I would have eaten if I were a meat-eater.

     

  • JenTriVeg wrote (see)

    Play games? I'm just running... I would love to contribute to solving world hunger, did you know for example 37% of Bill Gates' net worth could solve world hunger? or just the amount Apple have in offshore funds, just sitting there in the Cayman islands, could also solve world hunger? Makes my toes curl.

    Instead, I'll do what I can though, perhaps save the deaths of a couple of chickens, cows and a pig every month or so that I would have eaten if I were a meat-eater.

     

    Unfortunately you didn't save them, they died anyway. You just didn't benefit from their death.

  • Beer; one whole pint of vegan-ness in a pint glass. Other volumes of glass are available

  • ZouseZouse ✭✭✭
    SideBurn wrote (see)

    Beer; one whole pint of vegan-ness in a pint glass. Other volumes of glass are available

    Sadly not for many brews. The use of isenglas (usually from fish swim-bladders) as a fining agent tends to rule out many ales (and wines) for veggies as well as vegans.

    Anyway, welcome enthusiastic n00b who wants to do their bit for animal welfare & the environment!

    (Some of us here don't have the usual cognitive dissonance on which to choke at every meal, so we tend to be friendly towards fellow herbivores....)

    However, introducing 'yet another running blog' will never go down well, unless there is something uniquely groundbreaking about it.

  • SideBurn wrote (see)

    Beer; one whole pint of vegan-ness in a pint glass. Other volumes of glass are available

     

    usually it isn't. As Zouse said.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-37350233

     

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    Animal protein makes up maybe 5% of the energy component of my diet, so I don't exactly go gorging on the stuff.

    I'd like to point out that millions of acres of land is intensively farmed and soaked in insecticides and herbicides to satisfy the dietary requirements of those who don't like animals being harmed.

    That's an irony isn't it?

    Millions and billions of invertebrates which feed the higher forms of life are murdered; even if they exist to start with.

    I guess only the big fluffy animals with sad sad eyes count.

    🙂

  • Blimey, a lot of hate for a vegan. I'm not one, but surely there are better targets for your bile?

  • ZouseZouse ✭✭✭

    RicF - what you have demonstrated there is what's known as the Nirvana fallacy, or perfect solution fallacy - an argument or solution is rejected because it is not absolutely perfect. Which is illogical.

    It normally involves constructing a choice which is not between real world solutions - a choice between one realistic achievable possibility and another unrealistic solution that could in some way be "better". In this case you have discredited the choice to not consume animal products because 'pest species' are killed during the growing of arable crops. You also seem to suggest that arable crops are grown just for those who choose a plant-based diet, when in reality 33% of the world's croplands are used to grow animal feed. The other 67% goes to feed all of us humans, not just those who don't eat meat.

    You have then taken this a step further to suggest that these consumer choices are made because it's only the big, fluffy animals with sad eyes that count, which kind of misses the point of veganism completely.
    It's all about making the choice to live a happy & healthy life whilst minimising any impact on the lives of other animal species, regardless of whether they are vertebrates or not.

    It's amazing what reactions the 'V' word can elicit from others.

     

  • Zouse wrote (see)
    SideBurn wrote (see)

    Beer; one whole pint of vegan-ness in a pint glass. Other volumes of glass are available

    Sadly not for many brews. The use of isenglas (usually from fish swim-bladders) as a fining agent tends to rule out many ales (and wines) for veggies as well as vegans.

     

    Unless you're one of those devoted folk who are "vegetarian apart from chicken and fish" image

     

  • HA77HA77 ✭✭✭

    I would've thought most mass produced ales and all lager is filtered anyway, meaning you wouldn't need flocculants. I'd guess it's only some cask ales that use the stuff. I'm really just guessing though. 

     

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    Can't say I gave the post much consideration apart from thinking about how Vegans constitute foody extremism to the nth degree.

    It's playing games with a choice which for many is no choice or an option.

    It's self indulgent crap packaged up as a holier than thou religion.

    Now fuck off and find some grazing, there's fields all around. But mind the insecticides and herbicides.

    🙂

  • ZouseZouse ✭✭✭

    It's horrible when folks challenge glib comments with logic, isn't it, RicF?

    Just for the shits & giggles, how about reading some academic research about why vegetarians are so resented by those who eat meat?

     

  • So meat-eaters resent vegetarians because they think that vegetarians look down on them? But vegetarians do look down on meat-eaters, but not as much as the meat-eaters think they do.

    Furthermore people tend to think negatively about identifiable minorities, particularly if ignorant of their ideas and values.

    Isn't human nature great?

     

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    It's just food isn't it.

    🙂

  • RicF wrote (see)

    It's just food isn't it.

    So it is; but there is still stigma attached to peoples eating habits and I don't get the lack of ambivalence towards them.

    I was berated by my normally chilled mother in law for becoming vegan after running the V3K this year. I had to explain that I was vegan (plus possibly non-vegan beer) for most of the weekend and now had a new understanding and respect for vegans!

    Her argument was that vegans were being cruel to animals because if we humans did not eat them (animals not vegans!) they would not be born in the first place?

    Hmmmm where to start with that one!

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    Her argument was that vegans were being cruel to animals because if we humans did not eat them (animals not vegans!) they would not be born in the first place?

    Now that's really stretching things.

    I'm somewhere between thinking humans became what we are because we ate meat, and also thinking maybe, because of that, they should have stuck to vegetation.

    Then again I think that since we're all just a collection of recycled atoms and molecules, we're eating animals directly indirectly all the time.

    I admit my system finds digesting meat a bit of a handful to the extent that one mouthful will suffice.

    Maybe meat eaters should have to earn a qualification to eat the stuff, which would be to kill an animal, and then eat it.

    I've done this, but would rather leave them alone.

     

     

     

     

     

    🙂

  • Well, if the criteria for success as an animal species is numbers and how far removed from the spectre of extinction they are, then it could be argued that to be a successful species you need to be tasty.



    Prey species are always far more numerous than their predators.



    And we, as an apex predator, make sure that we always have a plentiful supply of prey in the form of domestic livestock.



    Should we all turn vegan then in theory there would be nothing to control the numbers of said domestic livestock - except of course they would now be in competition with us for food. I think we all know where that would lead, bye bye all hens, cows, sheep, pigs, ducks etc



    Luckily for the animals that ain't gonna happen anytime soon.
  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    I find the way the oceans are exploited for food when it's a natural wild environment more than a little unsettling.

    We put nothing back, or do anything to increase numbers. There's no domesticated version (worth the mention) of commercial sea fishing.

    If we hadn't domesticated animals and bred them for consumption, every large land animal (mammal) would now be extinct under similar treatment.

    🙂

  • You are wrong about us putting nothing back into the oceans RicF, we put raw sewage, other pollution including mercury, nuclear waste, general rubbish, you name it really!

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    Of course, nothing of value back into the oceans. image. Then again, all that rubbish must have had a value once.

    Isn't odd how we treat rivers (Ganges a good example) and oceans as one vast dumping ground one minute, and then try to extract a living from it the next.

    Life after People! the rest of the planet can't wait.

    🙂

  • ZouseZouse ✭✭✭

    Well, we do at least try and restock a hell of lot of salmon streams to boost dwindling wild populations (even if is futile), whilst at the same time, breeding and genetically modifying fast growing strains for aquaculture.

    The argument that we are doing particular livestock species a favour by artificially amplifying their numbers so we can eventually eat them ourselves doesn't really hold much water when we consider what impact selective breeding does to their lifetime experience or their species continued existence.

    Creating varieties and strains of breeds that can't reproduce naturally (turkeys), grow too fast for their skeletons and cardiovascular system (meat/broiler chickens), are separated from their offspring too early (dairy & beef herds), and are kept in such dense populations that diseases spread like wildfire, to me doesn't smack of doing these species much of a favour.

    They would be far better off if we had left them alone in the first place, and instead limited our own population growth. It's a bit late now, though. image

  • The argument wasn't that we were doing them any favours, Zouse, just that if they weren't edible we'd have wiped them out long ago.



    I doubt if there are many species whose chances of continued survival wouldn't be improved by human non-interferance, but what chance that?
  • ZouseZouse ✭✭✭

    Let the cull begin!

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    The Salmon (Atlantic) is of particular interest to me as fishing was something I used to do.

    I don't bother now since I proved to myself I could catch anything that swam. But that's a side issue.

    The Norwegians stuffed the Salmon two fold. First of all, in the late 1960's they sent massive factory ships into the North sea and hovered up Herring by the 1000's of tons.

    I vaguely remember Scottish trawlers managed 35,000 tons per year.

    Norwegian factory ship nailed 320, 280 & 260,000 tons in consecutive years and

    nigh on wiped out the species. 

    They then had the idea of finding out where Atlantic Salmon went to feed when at sea. Once they had managed that, they cleaned those out as well. The fact that Salmon fed off Herring didn't help.

    It's also a biomass disaster. the turnover of nutrients sets up the food chain.

    The wiping out of the Cod (breeding) on the Grand Banks has resulted in a nil recovery.

    We'll all end up eating jelly fish.

    No wonder people become vegan.

    I doubt if there are many species whose chances of continued survival wouldn't be improved by human non-interferance, but what chance that?

     Only one where human interference helped. The horse.

    🙂

  • My understanding Zouse, is that less acreage of land is needed to feed vegans. Meaning that we do not need a cull or necessarily limit population just need the population to eat in a more vegan like way?

    This is what has converted me from thinking that a meal is not complete without meat to eating in a more vegan like way. This makes me feel better about the way I eat.

    Amusingly at work I cooked a vegan curry today with chick-peas and someone said, "You're not a bloody vegetarian are you?". I just replied, "I didn't realise that chick peas didn't have chicken in them!".

  • Wow, I was never a very active member here, but have been away for a year or more and saw this thread and thought- "that will be interesting for me, I'm a vegan runner too". Lots of ignorance in the replies, as well as some helpful facts, and not much attention to the point of the post!

    Jen, I use dates, nuts, homemade rice cake (team sky type ones without the cream cheese), bananas, and some of those Clif "pizza" pouches that are vegan and i, alone probably, find quite tasty. What else, oh- caffeine chewing gum on long night runs.

    I'm not trying to convert anyone, I still prepare food with meat for my family, I just made a choice that works for me and happens to have a low impact on the environment. I'm guessing we're all logging in here because we LOVE running in one form or another. I'm sure we can all get along whether our ultras are sausage powered or soy powered (don't get me started on soy beans).

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