Meal Plan- Please critique :)

[Pssyctdoll21]

Hi Everyone,
I am a vegetarian, just started back 2 months ago. I lost a little weight about 5 pounds from it, from 135 to 130. Right now due to surgery I can only do cardio for another month, so please take that in to consideration. I do elliptical for 40 min and legs 4-5 days a week. I feel like I am always hungry, what the hell!

2 cups coffee or 1 coffee, 1 tea in morning
M1- 1030am- oatmeal packet, 1/2 scoop of lean dessert pp or 2 plums or piece of fruit
M2 - 12pm- salad, lots of lettuce (tons), feta cheese (70 cals worth), 1 red bell pepper, 1 tomato, cucumber, Boca vegan burger (100 cal kind), 3-4 tbls honey mustard dressing (eat right brand from vons)
M3- 2pm- apple (preworkout)
Cardio
M4- 6-630- salad, lots of lettuce (tons), feta cheese (70 cals worth), 1 red bell pepper, 1 tomato, cucumber, Boca vegan burger (100 cal kind), 3-4 tbls honey mustard dressing (eat right brand from vons), 1 cup or 1/2 can of garbanzo or black beans or instead of beans a bag of caulfilower
M5- 10pm- NF greek yogurt w/splenda and cinammon or 3 plums


Help-any suggestions welcome
Im 5'3, 130 pounds

[solstice]

What time do you wake up? It seems that waiting until 10:30 to eat anything would set you up for major hunger the rest of the day. (It does for me if I don't eat fairly soon after getting up...)

Breakfast needs more protein- try scrambled egg whites (if you do eggs- if not, you can 'scramble' tofu or make up a breakfast rice and bean dish- maybe throw in some seitan....) with some toast and veggies or some oats with a whole scoop protein powder mixed into some plain yogurt...

I'm sure others have some more specific advice, but that's what I thought of when reading... Good luck!

Originally Posted by Pssyctdoll21

Hi Everyone,
I am a vegetarian, just started back 2 months ago. I lost a little weight about 5 pounds from it, from 135 to 130. Right now due to surgery I can only do cardio for another month, so please take that in to consideration. I do elliptical for 40 min and legs 4-5 days a week. I feel like I am always hungry, what the hell!

2 cups coffee or 1 coffee, 1 tea in morning
M1- 1030am- oatmeal packet, 1/2 scoop of lean dessert pp or 2 plums or piece of fruit
M2 - 12pm- salad, lots of lettuce (tons), feta cheese (70 cals worth), 1 red bell pepper, 1 tomato, cucumber, Boca vegan burger (100 cal kind), 3-4 tbls honey mustard dressing (eat right brand from vons)
M3- 2pm- apple (preworkout)
Cardio
M4- 6-630- salad, lots of lettuce (tons), feta cheese (70 cals worth), 1 red bell pepper, 1 tomato, cucumber, Boca vegan burger (100 cal kind), 3-4 tbls honey mustard dressing (eat right brand from vons), 1 cup or 1/2 can of garbanzo or black beans or instead of beans a bag of caulfilower
M5- 10pm- NF greek yogurt w/splenda and cinammon or 3 plums


Help-any suggestions welcome
Im 5'3, 130 pounds

[Kai2008]

How many calories is that? It doesn't seem like much food.

[precisou2004]

IMHO, it doesn't seem like alot of carbs though. Maybe you should calculate your macros (fat/carbs/protein %). If you need help, let me know. Just figure out ur total fat, carbs and protein in grams along with the total calories and I can check it out for you.

Usually if one is fairly active, they should intake about 0.8g per lb of bodyweight of protein, about the same in carbs and half of that amount for your fat.

So you are 130 x 0.8 = you should have approximately a total of 104g of protein about the same in carbs and ruffly 50g of fat which would put you at a ratio of 40-40-20. If you lift heavy and you want to bulk, same principle but take ur weight and multiply it by 1 to 1.5g, which would give you 130/195g of protein. Doesnt mean your fat intake should be at 100g in that case I wouldnt go that high at all's pecially if you want to lower your bodyfat%.

that's my take on it

[Twerp]

Just started back being a vegetarian, or just started back training? It can be done, Robert dos Remedios is a pretty phenomenal strength coach and he's a vegetarian as well, so it's possible.

You're dangerously low on protein. Whether it be 1g/1lb bw, 1g/1lb lean mass, or 0.8g/1lb bw from what I read you're nowhere near it! I can't find 100-130g of protein in your meal plan. Excuse my ignorance, but are you the kind that can you eat eggs and milk?

In any event, the nice thing about being a vegetarian is that most food choices are healthy. You eat a lot of veggies and fruit, and that's something that's missing from the diets of a lot of carnivores. So, to get started, find out how much protein you need (macro wise) and divide it over the number of meals you eat. For simplicity, say you need 120g of protein then you would need 20g of protein in each of your 6 meals. Then you pick your diet - I've been reading a lot of people who like a zone type diet (40-40-20), but personally I've always like lower carb diets (40p-40f-20c or less). If you can eat eggs/milk (and I guess you can since you have whey & cheese), then some additional protein choices would be cottage cheese, eggs, peanut butter, and soy. You'll find that by upping your protein intake, it'll satiate your diet a little more.

What do you think?
Andrew

Originally Posted by Pssyctdoll21

Hi Everyone,
I am a vegetarian, just started back 2 months ago. I lost a little weight about 5 pounds from it, from 135 to 130. Right now due to surgery I can only do cardio for another month, so please take that in to consideration. I do elliptical for 40 min and legs 4-5 days a week. I feel like I am always hungry, what the hell!

2 cups coffee or 1 coffee, 1 tea in morning
M1- 1030am- oatmeal packet, 1/2 scoop of lean dessert pp or 2 plums or piece of fruit
M2 - 12pm- salad, lots of lettuce (tons), feta cheese (70 cals worth), 1 red bell pepper, 1 tomato, cucumber, Boca vegan burger (100 cal kind), 3-4 tbls honey mustard dressing (eat right brand from vons)
M3- 2pm- apple (preworkout)
Cardio
M4- 6-630- salad, lots of lettuce (tons), feta cheese (70 cals worth), 1 red bell pepper, 1 tomato, cucumber, Boca vegan burger (100 cal kind), 3-4 tbls honey mustard dressing (eat right brand from vons), 1 cup or 1/2 can of garbanzo or black beans or instead of beans a bag of caulfilower
M5- 10pm- NF greek yogurt w/splenda and cinammon or 3 plums


Help-any suggestions welcome
Im 5'3, 130 pounds

[Twerp]

A debate on the men's forum ages ago re: building muscle and being a vegan.

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=2790731

[Pssyctdoll21]

hi everyone, thanks for your responses!! Im going to read over everything. I do know quite a bit about nutrition but i cant seem to follow my own damn advice and I get confused with all the information. Right now i cant lift at all, which SUCKS, so I can only do cardio without too much upper body movement. I have at least till end of this month with that. I was lifting before and did gain muslce and was eating lots of chicken. But now that im back to being a veg, I find it harder to get my protein needs in. I also read some info from some books, like Eat to Live by Joel Furhman, that protein is a big myth and we dont really need that much? I guess I am dumbfounded. He also advises against not eating dairy. So all that conflicting info gets confusing!! I find that I am really hungry all day and nothing seems to satisfy at times.

I am going to try the formulas, and add in more protein. I do eat eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese, not much milk as it makes my stomach hurt. Another issue, I eat really huge salads, I tend to use lots of dressing, shoudl i take out salads and replace with something else? Should I eat bread or just leave that out?

[CPX]

The veg*n low protein nonsense got to me to. It isn't really nonsense for a nontraining veg*n but if you want to build muscle don't listen to any of that advice. Shoot for 1g of protein per lb of your target bodyweight.

I start my day off with a tropical fruit and protein powder smoothie. Just a suggestion if you get tired of oatmeal and a plain protein shake.

I have a couple gigantic salads too. One of them is topped with 1 cup chickpeas, beets and carrots and a delicious homemade orange vinaigrette from here http://www.vinaigretterecipe.com/ , its naturally oil free so its super low in calories.
Another salad I would make is what I call a burger salad. I wanted to get rid of the bun so I put everything I put on a burger in a salad, pickles, onions, tomatoes, avocados, Amy's Texas Burger and top it off with plain old yellow mustard. Its incredible and gets rid of the dressing calories.
And ANOTHER salad option is a mexican salad with greens topped with taco seasoned beans, avocado and salsa instead of dressing.

Your pre and post WO meals need to be more substantial. You don't HAVE to use protein powder but it does make it easier. Look into a gemma protein if milk products give you indigestion. Before workout you can blend some with a little bit of fruit. Same thing after a workout.
If you want to eat food before and after, then add a big handful of walnuts or almonds to your fruit before your workout. Afterwords maybe try to have a TVP and bean chili made, like this http://www.seeveggiesdifferently.com...l.aspx?id=2167

You might also benefit from taking 5g of BCAA before and after weight training. It will give you even more protein as well as help your progress.

Hope this helps!

[Officer1570]

Hey Im a veggie too...for a little over two years now. Another great site to check out is veganbodybuilding.com. The guys over there are great and are really willing to help you out and answer any questions you may have.

[Pssyctdoll21]

Seriously good info!! Yeah all that info out there gets confusing. One says eat protein other says dont worry about protein... I am not lifting right now so I figured I was okay being low on it. I just had oatmeal and 1 whole scoop of protein powder. Lets see if this makes a difference!