Can I build muscles eating vegan food only?

With the increasing popularity of sports and fitness, the general knowledge has also increased. Perhaps the terms progressive overload (train intensity buildup) or hypertrophy (growth of muscle tissue) are still unknown to some, but ask the average athlete what it takes to build muscle and almost everyone knows it: protein!

 

How you can get your proteins is also common knowledge: meat and fish. But, that does not help the vegetarian, vegan or the occasional day-without-meat athlete.

 

The rise of vegan meat substitutes has facilitated this, but athletes are still facing one issue from vegan products: an incomplete amino acid profile. This causes you to not get enough or not the right building blocks to build muscle. Your body needs all 22 amino acids to make a useful protein. Your body creates 13 of these amino acids itself, the other 9 we need to ingest by eating food. This is easy to achieve as a vegan, you just need to know how.

 

In the vegan field, there are plenty of complete proteins that contain all of the amino acids: quinoa, soy, buckwheat, hemp and tempeh give you everything you need. Of course, there are many more sources of vegetable protein; think of nuts and legumes. You certainly don't have to ignore those, because by combining them (and that doesn't even have to be with the same meal) you can still get all the amino acids that you need to build muscle. A few examples:

    Wholemeal bread with nut butter
    Beans and whole grain rice
    Lentil soup with wholemeal bread
    Salad with nuts & seeds

 

Eat a varied diet as a vegetarian or vegan, with these tips you certainly don't have to worry about missing out on something. Gorillas, rhinoceroses and elephants are the strongest animals on the planet: if they can do it by eating plants, so can you. Enjoy your meal!

 

Tip: the Fitlyzen Protein Shakes and Fitlyzen Meal Shakes contain all essential amino acids, are vegan friendly and have been developed with a focus on the best ingredients!