Health is not what you see!
The fact that I stopped eating meat doesn’t make me any healthier than the person who eats meat. Just like the person who eats veggies and fruits can be as unhealthy as the person who doesn’t.
Story time:
When I did bodybuilding competitions, I pushed my body to its very high limits. Doesn’t matter how smart and good a prep can be. Reaching extremely low levels of body fat in a short period of time (4-6 months is short). its fighting against our internal body temperature 🤒. I do not regret to have done competitions and I think my body forgot already what it suffered that is ready to go again 😂
to the point;
I lost my period for 1 1/2; And maybe not having a period is normal for many. But to me; it wasn’t! Because I reached my previous body weight (set point) and I still didn’t get it back; I was also having other problems that you all don’t want to know :)
Last year, I started vegetarian 🌱because I was tired of meat. Then I was vegan 🌱 because my carbs were 150 grams and I was always so afraid of going over it. I wanted to intuitively eat since I also wanted a break from 🥩 but I didn’t want to gain weight so I changed macros while calories were equally 😆 (ego doesn’t let us be happy). I actually increased calories and fats, not my carbs 😖
So I didn’t give me my period back. When I got my period I was already eating meat again, but I wasn’t exercising that much because I had a car wreck and couldn’t. My body got more calories! My hormones weren’t okay yet! I was continually breaking out and I was eating clean, healthy foods. Something in my macros need it to change:
Fats! Yes my healthy fats! Binging from before had already mess up with my hormones when you eat so much calories, hormones get crazy and if they are fats, in a women's biology raises our testosterone which takes period away, that’s why guys don’t have menstruation. Fats are a classed of steroids. (the normals, but the effect is similar)
(no wonder what I was breaking out) Of course higher fats on low calories are not bad because fats still low. (the problem is binging on them) Dieting for a normal lifestyle is not the same as a competition prep. Similar foods can be used, but it’s a different story!
I decrease calories as I decrease my fats and I lost my period 😫 again.
Carbs didn’t change..
intermittent fasting was good, but I didn’t like to feel bloated with higher calories in less meals. You can still eat plenty of food when losing weight. I wasn’t intending to lose weight, but fat while I built muscle.
I increased carbohydrates and keep my fats to minimal distribution which led me to keep calories in maintance.
i started eating for health! And as much as I wanted to get leaner I was focusing on getting my period back. I decreased fats and I increased carbohydrates, but because I had already been used to eating my low calorie carbohydrates, it was a little hard to find other type that sietite me so I started slowly vegetarian and somehow vegan. Then I went straight to vegan while constantly increasing calories. NO weight gained! 3 weeks after, I got my period back.
Experience of a 5 weeks vegan diet:
I enjoyed filling full (fiber). I was able to concentrate more on things I was doing. Most of my protein was coming from carbohydrates; lentils, beans, corn. I used tofu and meatless meat! I also had one protein shake at day and sometimes two.
I had no cravings!
Unfortunately, I couldn’t have my protein higher than .8 per body weight in lbs., which it was lower than 100 grams of protein. The days I got 2 protein shakes I had it at 105-110 (rare).
I could not set any PRs on my lifts even though some days I was so motivated to exercise. My strength decreased!
it does not necessarily mean that it was because I decreased my protein intake, but it could be one of the potential reasons. The way I will know will be by potentially increase my protein to what I had it used to. Don’t forget that because I feel like my body lifts better with higher protein means yours does too. Everyone has a different sweat spot! To find it you have to try.
Now I will add meats occasionally. More variation as well, since I was able to also increase my metabolic rate!
Because the goal here is to adapt the body to be lean as a second nature. If the body adapts (which is slowly) staying lean could be healthy. I can have nice abs and lets hope a sick pack without causing problems to my internal body temperature. (Calories are heat, and keeps the body warm to be able to survive). i think this is possible because there are so many people who are naturally lean, with abs and eat whatever. They are skinnier by default; not so much muscle. If we could do the part of having abs, but nourishing the body to still have muscles and actually protect our bones. We will do a win, win. Literally this should be possible!