You would like to have some sexy muscles but you don't want to eat a lot of meat and milk? You don't have to! Here's how to build muscle vegan.
A protein shake before training, one after, in between lots of milk, chicken and scrambled eggs in the morning and your muscles will grow.
If you want to have muscles, you have to eat meat and eggs and drink milk. This is one of the most widespread myths of all.
That you eat too little protein as a vegan to be able to build muscles is complete nonsense.
Because that muscle building works vegan, show more and more top athletes.
We'll tell you their secret and how you can build muscle with a plant-based diet.
Table of contents
What you should know: Just because someone eats a vegan diet doesn't mean they live a healthy lifestyle. Some vegans end up with a lot of sugar and white flour on their plates.
But this has nothing to do with muscle building.
If you want to build up your muscles vegan, you have to follow a few rules. Which are those and how you do not put your foot in your mouth, we tell you today.
Why muscles are not only for bodybuilders
For a long time, muscle building was associated exclusively with bodybuilding. But of course they are not that at all. They ensure that we keep our body upright, that we prevent tension and back pain.
And they burn a lot of energy. Even when you're lounging on the sofa for a day.
Muscles make angled arms disappear and turn your rear end into a banging butt.
If you want to give your body muscles, you need a calorie surplus, good sources of protein and carbohydrates.
What you don't need for this are meat, milk, eggs and co. Why? You'll find out now!
The XXL Guide for your muscle building!
How to build muscle vegan succeeds
There are always critical voices against vegan nutrition. Like a conventional diet, it can be both healthy and unhealthy.
It always depends on how far you go with it and how varied the food turns out to be.
There are now a whole range of very tasty shakes that help you build muscle. At first, they were all a bit questionable in taste. But fortunately that has changed a lot :)
Very high quality vegan shakes you can find at Foodspring. You can choose from 6 flavors and depending on the season, new and fancy ones are always added. The basis of these shakes are peas, hemp seeds, rice and sunflower seeds. Sweetened with stevia.
If you are interested in Foodspring products, I can give you a Foodspring discount code give. With the code WGW15FS you get 15% on your order!
1. the right proteins
Very many meat eaters are of the opinion that muscle building vegan can never work. Meat and dairy products are missing. Exactly here are the important proteins for the muscles in it.
But guess what? You can also find these proteins in plant foods.
What is true, however, is that for the growth of muscles you need protein. It is in fact a very essential component of our muscles.
Proteins consist of any number of amino acids. A distinction is made between amino acids that the body can produce itself and those that we have to take in through our diet.
Whether you eat a vegan, vegetarian, flexitarian or other diet, if you want to build muscle, these three amino acids are crucial:
- BCAA
- L-Arginine
- L-Cartinine
But how can muscle building succeed vegan, if you do not eat animal products?
There are many delicious foods that contain a lot of protein and amino acids. If you eat a vegan diet, you must pay attention to a lot of variety. Because otherwise it can be very difficult with the vegan muscle building.
You'll love these plant-based protein sources!
If you combine different proteins with each other, you automatically consume more different amino acids. And that improves the biological value of the protein.
Very good combinations are peas and rice or lupins and rice.
The amino acid lysine is abundant in legumes. Cereal products contain virtually none. Cereals contain cysteine and methionine, which are lacking in pulses.
Sounds totally complicated, doesn't it?
But actually it is not. You just have to remember that you have to combine vegetable proteins well. Cereals always with legumes. You don't have to go into much more detail.
2. carbohydrates
Carbs? Oh dear, they make you fat, don't they?
No, this is nonsense. Our body needs both proteins and carbohydrates to build muscle.
With low carb you will not be able to achieve the goal of muscle building vegan.
With carbohydrates, however, you must always distinguish between simple and complex carbs.
You can find simple carbs (explained in a very simplified way) in sugar and white flour. They taste delicious, but they make you fat and don't help you build muscle. They are also called empty carbs, because they do not provide any nutrients, but a lot of calories.
Complex carbohydrates keep you full for a long time and release energy slowly to the body. The blood sugar level remains stable, which you will quickly notice during training.
Because a constant blood sugar level ensures a controlled and stable insulin release. And that keeps the body in muscle-building mode.
Here's what you need to know about complex carbohydrates!
What foods promote vegan muscle building
The number of vegan products in the supermarket is constantly increasing. Almost every supermarket now has food labeled "Vegan Protein", "Vegan Snack" and Co.
But look very carefully here. Because just because a product is vegan, it is not suitable for muscle building and certainly not healthy. In many vegan processed foods there is a lot of sugar.
A healthy and varied mix of protein-rich and carbohydrate-rich (complex carbs) foods will get you there. These are not even fancy or rare foods, they are those that you probably already eat as a vegan anyway.
- Tofu in all forms
- Tempeh
- Soy drinks
- Sprouts
- Vegan yogurts like soy yogurt or lupine yogurt
- Spreads from legumes like hummus
- Legumes such as peas, beans, chickpeas, lentils
- Nut puree like almond paste, peanut butter
- Nuts, kernels and seeds such as almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, Cashews*, sunflower seeds
- Nut flours like Coconut flour*, Almond flour*
- Potatoes, rice, pasta, quinoa
- Spinach
- Broccoli
- Sprouts
And much much more.
This is how you train your strength in the living room!
Nuts? Legumes? They contain a lot of fat and calories - doesn't that make you fat?
Here you have to be a bit careful and differentiate. For the most part, these are healthy fatty acids. They keep you full for a long time and inhibit cravings.
This means that you eat more calories during the meal. But also that you are full longer and thus hardly take in more calories.
Of course, as with all diets, you should keep a close eye on your calorie intake. And choose the right foods at the right time.
That doesn't sound so easy, does it? To help you succeed, we have created a muscle building nutrition plan for vegans. Or in other words: You can create it yourself with our help. All you have to do is define your goal and your favorite foods.
We'll then create a nutrition plan for you with delicious recipes to suit you. Sounds good, right? :)
Create your personal nutrition plan here!
By the way, sprouts are one of the best sources of protein. Sprouts are real powerhouses and provide you with a whole range of nutrients. Include them regularly in your diet.
You can either buy them in the supermarket. Or even better, you simply grow sprouts yourself.
From radishes, arugula, cabbage, cress to broccoli, everything is possible. The sprouts taste mega delicious on bread, in lunch bowls and on salads!
How to grow mung bean sprouts easily yourself!
Beware of this myth
The more protein, the faster the muscles grow. This is one of the biggest superstitions of all. With our free BMI calculator, you can calculate both your micronutrient and calorie needs per day.
And how much protein you really need per day. New studies have shown that it makes little difference whether you eat 1.5 g or 2 g of protein per kg of body weight.
The right stimuli during training are much more important, which brings us to the next topic.
Why muscle building vegan succeeds only with sport
So with our diet, we give our muscles plenty of food that they need to grow. However, they can only grow if we challenge them regularly.
And for this, weight training is inevitable.
So, important to know: Protein alone does not make muscles.
Muscles always start to get bigger when we use them regularly. You may know this in the form of muscle soreness after a workout. In the first month you still have mega muscle soreness after the same number of repetitions.
If you continue to train diligently, the same exercise and intensity will bother you much less. The reason for this is your muscles. They have become accustomed to it and have grown.
The common thing is that our body gets used to the load relatively quickly. So if you want to build your muscles, you need to vary both intensity and exercises.
If you want to advance muscle building vegan, it's worth switching from bodyweight-only exercises and later to exercises with dumbbells and barbells.
By the way, nutrition accounts for about 80 % of your success in training. If you train diligently, but still eat unhealthy, you will not notice any progress.
This is how you prevent sore muscles!
Our conclusion
By the way, the best time to boost your muscle building vegan is after the workout. Refill your energy reserves 30 to 60 minutes after your workout with a delicious lunch bowl. Mix carbohydrate-rich foods like quinoa or brown rice with lots of vegetables, tempeh and legumes. Tastes mega delicious and makes your muscles happy! :)
Good luck!
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