Transitioning to vegitarian/vegan - feedback please!

Triathlon Forum
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I have been toying with the idea of going vegan/vegetarian for months now, but have been unable to make the leap so far. My reasons for wanting the change are both ethical and health related, and my hesitation to do so is based on convenience, cravings and performance/health concerns. I believe it is a transition that I will make eventually, and I’d rather it be sooner than later. At least I hope it will happen.

The degree of change is another sticking point for me. If my primary concern is the ethical aspect, then I can’t really justify eating any animal product whatsoever, be it beef (oh how I will miss you A1!), fish, chicken, eggs or the byproducts found in just about everything processed (gelatin, etc.) Ideally, I would choose the path of strict vegetarianism, but I just don’t see it as practical for ethical reasons, if you consider how many different products we consume daily that come at the expense of animals. You would have to be consumed with label reading on every single product to ensure that no animals were used or harmed, and even then, there are indirect effects of consuming even animal-friendly products, so really, it’s an ideal that is mostly unattainable in modern-day life.

So the question is where to draw the line, and based on what criteria?

My inclination so far has been to drop the beef, pork & chicken from my diet, but continue to eating dairy, fish, free-range eggs and not worry much about the byproducts that are found just about everywhere. From the ethical standpoint, it accomplishes very little in my mind, but I know if it’s not a reasonable transition, I may not stick with it for the duration.

I would like to hear some feedback from other athletes who have made the transition from omni/carnivore to vegetarian/vegan/other and how it affected your life overall - weightloss, performance, muscle mass, general health, grocery bill, etc. Links to useful online resourses would also be appreciated.

Thanks for the responses.

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I’ve been vegetarian (lacto-ovo) for 18 years now. My parents brought us up vegetarian - actually, it was a choice; but they were (mostly) and I remained. I get tons of advice from people on how to eat, but frankly, it has never been a problem. I eat plenty of tofu and tvp, take a multi-vitamin when I remember and generally eat normally.
today?
big honkin’ bowl of cereal this morning
fruit on the way in
tofu wrap for lunch
pretzels
quorn and steamed rice/sprouts for dinner

gotta find some apple pie

3

Well, I’ve been lacto/ovo vegetarian for 14 years and still don’t think I could go vegan.

Just do what you can and don’t try to do too much at once. The ethical problems go on and on anyway.

Oh, and as far as the weight loss is concerned, it’s not a given. You still have to eat right.

You can be a Clyde vegetarian with cholesterol issues, quite easily :wink:

But welcome!

Give it 6 months and you’ll stop craving.

The “decision” soon becomes a non-decision and then it’s a piece of cake and there is no point in going back.

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Sphere - do it! The two best things you can do for the environment are: not drive a car and be a vegitarian. Both my wife and brother in law are vegans, have been for years and they still debate on some things. I would think you’ve got the values for the perfect foundation, the next step would be to simply do your best. In terms of performance you still need to consume all the essential amino acids in a complete protein. This can be accomplished via combining of veggies or by taking an animal based amino acid supplement (again it’ll be your choice). Keep in mind that every move you make can be traced back to some ethical issue - even how workers are treated who farm the veggies we eat - so make your firm choices and go for it. Good on ya! Ian

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Sphere,

I’ve been a vegan for 16 years (I’m now 34) and raced as a Cat 1 cyclist while vegan when younger. And I knew a lot of successful cyclists at the time who were also vegetarian/vegan. Today, there are a whole host of very successful vegan athletes and triathletes, so there are no significant worries there (unless you have certain dietary requirements that preclude veganism; you should definitely visit a vegan-friendly nutritionist for some advice along those lines).

As for how strict your vegetarianism and veganism are, that’s entirely up to you. I’m an academic who writes on this issue at length, so I’ve studied it in great detail. I can say this much: no one will ever have a perfectly strict vegan diet. Animals and their byproducts are everywhere in advanced industrialized societies. The best you can do is to educate yourself and avoid animal flesh and byproducts as much as possible. I’m as strict of a vegan as they come, and even I have a hard time on occasion finding food that fits my diet.

And you are correct that a vegan/vegetarian diet raises its own set of problems. It is not always the most environmentally or socially friendly way to eat (although the vast majority of the time it is). No diet is perfect. I think the best you can do is articulate the values that are important to you and try to eat as well as you can given the context in which you find yourself.

With regard to drawing the line, and criteria for drawing it, that is a question that philosophers and social scientists have grappled with for decades. I’m sorry to say that no compelling answers appear to be immediately forthcoming. How to eat in a socially and ethically responsible way in contemporary societies is an enormously complex issue.

All of that said, I think a carefully planned and responsible vegan/vegetarian diet is, on the whole and in most circumstances, a far preferable diet to the standard American diet–both in ethical and nutritional terms. It won’t be perfect ethically, but it’s almost certainly an improvement over the standard American carnivore’s diet.

Best of luck and let us know what you end up doing.

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I’ve been a vegetarian for about 6 years. Where to draw the line? Decide for yourself. Draw the line somewhere and try it out, then see if you’re comfortable with it. Take solace in the fact that you’re doing something to make a positive impact.

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I’ve been a vegetarian for 17 years and vegan for 14. I’ve never had a problem with my diet holding me back and I have done 4 IM distance races.

IMO, the hardest things about being vegan are (1) eating out while traveling, and (2) finding good, non-leather bike saddles.

Good luck.

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Take solace in the fact that you’re doing something to make a positive impact.

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I have been eating a low-fat, near-vegetarian diet for over a decade. The emphasis of my diet is health and weight control. I eat a lot of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes with some fish, lowfat/nonfat dairy. Chicken is on occasion and beef is very rare (pardon the pun!). I don’t eat a lot of sugar/cookies/baked goods or processed foods.

My blood pressure has stayed low - even though we have a risk for high bp in our family - and my weight is just where I want it to be (BMI ~19). My cholesterol also stays low - around 160. I am F44 so that is a big deal if you compare me to all of my friends, even athletic ones.

With regards to my food bill - it is always lower when I cook more at home versus choose to eat out. I can feed 2 for about $250 per month.

Of course it helps that I love to cook and have a culinary background!!

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This is great and I encourage you on taking these steps…but beware of the many detractors you will ‘meat’…asking you if you wear leather, etc…I think any step to get away from eating/using animals is a positive step…it is very hard in today’s society. I could hardly believe Andy Ronney’s ‘rant’ last night on 60 minutes…it was I thought pretty progressive coming from ‘an old fart’…he said that maybe in 50-60 years people will look back on raising cows for food as being a primitve type practice…and I did think it was interesting how he said, how is eating a cow different than eating a horse? really when you think about it, its not…I am a vegetarian triathlete and ultrarunner, and try to do vegan as much as possible…I used to think it was ALL or Nothing, but every difference you make matters…I do agree…bike rather than drive if you can, recycle etc…but as for training and living like this, sometimes it is hard, but if you want to not really…I find (and there are MANY other threads about this! about how coworkers react to your lifestyle) if you do tris your coworkers and family already expect you to be a bit of a ‘freak’ so at least with me they expect that I am a vegatarian!

as for grocery bills, well beans, lentils and rice are cheap and throw in onions, garlic, etc there a tons of cheap, high quality and tasty food options out there…check out the many veg websites for ideas…and keep with your plan it is a good one!

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I think what you are wrestling with is trying to fit yourself into a category, and then making sure you follow all the rules of the category. I suggest you don’t try to do that.

What has worked for me is to forget about trying to be a pure vegetarian or lacto-ovo vegetarian. I still eat some meat products, but very rarely and only in small amounts. About once a month I’ll cook a steak, which I’ll divide into 3-4 pieces. I can then get my next 4 meals out of that one steak. Same thing with chicken, a chicken breast is usually good for 2 meals.

Works for me, and I have reduced my impact as much as I think I can. Certainly it is not perfect, but it is better (and cheaper) than eating a huge steak for every meal.

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They only reason that you’d need to draw a line is if you decide to use terms like “vegetarian” or “vegan” to describe yourself to others, which is a silly pasttime in my opinion. Eat what you are comfortable with morally and leave the self-descriptors to the insecure people that need the self-assurance of belonging to a group of like-minded “individuals”.

I actually went the other direction - I didn’t eat animal products for many years, but went back because it was too difficult to get the nutrition I needed. That, however, is solely a product of my desire to focus the energy I spent worrying about my diet on other things. So, you could call me a sellout.

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Hi! This is a very good life change! Natasha Badman has been a vegetarian for around 14years and seems to do very well for herself. The choice is a very good one as if you read the bible it was God’s plan for us to eat a vegetarian diet. The body doesn’t really digest meat as it typically rots in the intestines. Why do so many people have alot of indigestion after a big old steak. Even if you go beyond your ethics and look at the different issues that have come up recently around animal products such as beef, poultry, etc. It has been said in around the late 1800’s that sometime in the future we won’t be able to eat animal products because of some sort of tainting. Also remember that pig is a scavenger and is an unclean animal that has larva growing inside it. If you need help with types of food you can contact the ABC book store or depending where you are located try too find a local member of a seventh-day adventist church and they could point you in the direction of resources and places to locate proper food. If you want more information you also can email me. Great posting!

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i saw that last night, and thought it was funny too. it surprised me, coming from him.

thanks for the advice from others who have said don’t try to classify yourself. in the past i was hung up on this–trying to fit into the requirements of whatever group. i got tired of that and gave up on vegetarianism. perhaps i had it wrong, trying to fit into the classifications.

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I’m an ovo-lacto vegetarian, and have been for eight years (two of those years I was a vegan, but that was part of an eating disorder and now I’m back to o/l veg).

Eggs and milk are protein sources for me. I had a really hard time getting enough protein as a vegan. I’m much healthier eating the eggs and milk and yogurt and cheese - I get a fair amount of soy protein, too - and feel like I recover a lot better with the milk protein. However, part of that is just ED recovery and being healthier. It is much easier to be a vegetarian than a vegan, and it’s hard to get enough calories as a vegan.

My critera is I don’t like meat/poultry/fish, and the ethical thing that I am disgusted by the idea of consuming flesh.

Grocery bill - soy stuff is more expensive. Tofu, soymilk - not cheap. But I don’t know how much you spend on meat, so maybe it balances out.

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I have been a vegetarian for 13 years. From my observation of other people, being a vegan is quite challenging – especially in restaurants, other people’s homes, business gatherings, etc.

I would second the advice given above: don’t worry about labels. Develop your own “rules,” however flexible or inflexible you choose to make them and don’t worry whether they fit someone else’s notions of purity. You also may find, as many others have, that your ethical views can shift over time. I’ve seen people who became more flexible in order to accommodate the demands of living in a world with people who have different diets while others started out vegetarian and then decided they just couldn’t rationalize eating gelatin, eggs, etc., and became a vegan.

That said, in thinking about your criteria, I think there are two common approaches. One is to say that you won’t eat dead animals but you will eat the by-products of living animals. There is some logic to that. Although milk cows don’t live a great life, they do live. A second approach, for people who want to eat some meat and want to decide which animals to eat, is to consider how the animals are raised/killed. In that regard, fish caught in the wild are perhaps the easiest to rationalize – until the moment they are killed by humans, they live pretty much the same life as a fish killed by a shark. By contrast, most (not all) poultry live a really lousy life. The factories in which they live are pretty much unknown in the wild.

Good luck with whatever you choose.

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My signature says it all.

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The line is personal. You have to decide what you can live with. I think the key is to be honest with yourself.

It was easy for me to cut all meat from my diet except for fish. I only eat fish on rare occasions (usually when I go out to eat or when I’m abroad), but still feel somewhat guilty about it. One day, I may stop eating fish altogether. I’m getting closer, but I can live with my decision for now. I also consume eggs and some dairy. I don’t feel guilty about it because I do what I can to be responsible (cage-free, etc.).

I can’t really bring myself to stop wearing leather shoes, but I try to be as responsible as I can about it. I don’t buy them often. When I do, I buy well-made shoes than can be resoled and I take good care of them (I’ve been wearing the same two pairs to work for over 7 years and they still look good). I know this doesn’t have anything to do with diet, but it illustrates where I have drawn the line for myself. Some people (my vegan friends) aren’t willing to go as far as I am, and other friends can live with consuming more (by the way, you would think that my vegan friends would be the ones giving me grief about my choices, but they don’t. But the meat-eaters do. Be ready for their assault, especially since you are doing it for ethical reasons).

Performance: I have seen no evidence that cutting meat out of your diet decreases performance. There are a number of professional athletes/Olympians who are vegetarians (there is a long list in the book “Vegetarians for Dummies”). The key with diet (meat-eaters and non) is to get the right balance of proteins, carbs, and vitamins. Meat doesn’t have a monopoly on any of the three.

Grocery bills: It’s possible that they could increase, depending on the number of frozen meat-like products you buy at the store. Also, any time you start buying organic products, your bills go up (check the price of “real” cage-free eggs v. store-brand eggs). I’m paying more than I was when I ate meat, but I’m very picky about my food (to me, food is more than just fuel). It’s hard to say how much more I’m paying now versus when I ate meat. I would guess between $20-$30 per week. It really depends on where you live and what’s available (if you can buy directly from a farm or at a good farmer’s market, you’ll pay less than in the store).

Sources: I think the book “Vegetarians for Dummies” is a really good resource. The best piece of advice from the book is to cut things out incrementally (find your line) and allow yourself to cheat on occasion. According to the authors (and I agree), when you allow yourself to cheat, you’ll discover that you don’t really miss whatever you were craving, you’ll stop craving it, and you are much more likely to stay vegetarian long-term.

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I am not a vegitarian or vegan, so I cannot comment on your questions directly. However, I have a friend who is very well-read, and he recently sent me an email stating the the second most important book he has ever read is “The China Study” by Dr. T. Colin Campbell. I have not read it as yet, but have researched it online. It connects very well with this thread, and I suggest it would be worth a look. (Since he read the book, he and his wife have committed to try the vegan diet. They are not athletes, though, so I have not been able to ask them exercise related questions to their diet change.)

One concern I have had in considering the vegan diet, is how to get in enough protein? For my body size, when I am in ironman training, I have been told to take in approximately 90 grams of protein per day. I know of the soy protein products, but have read that soy protein is not the best protein for recovery.

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I’ve been a vegetarian for 10 years and have come from a background of powerlifting to triathlon. It has been stated before to slowly transition. I spent about 1 year going from eating steaks to fish to being a lacto and it worked really well. I would also encourage you that eventually if you find your transitioning going well to really give the vegetarian eating a go. No offense to other posters who talk about eating steaks or chicken but the benefits of vegetarian eating are built up over years of abstaining from meat. The other aspect I would suggest is to watch yourself. Live the life but don’t preach it. People who are interested will talk to you about it and those who aren’t might give you grief. I rarely ever tell someone that I am a vegetarian unless I have too. But let them eat what they will and respect it as you want your decision respected and it will be a much more harmonious choice for everyone.