Can You Build Muscle & Strength as a Vegan or Vegetarian?
Are you a vegetarian or thinking about becoming a vegetarian but also want to build and maintain muscle?
Has someone told you that it’s impossible to do?
Let’s set the record straight.
According to a 2018 Gallup poll, about 10% of Americans report that they are vegetarians. Vegetarianism can take on many different forms but the most common is to eliminate meat, fish and poultry. “Lactose-ovo vegetarians” typically eat eggs and dairy.
Some make the decision to eliminate meat for moral reasons while others do so based on the belief that it will improve their overall health. We will write another blog post about that topic at a later date.
So can you get big and strong as a vegetarian?
Can you get a physique that will turn heads and make your friends jealous if you aren’t eating things like chicken, beef and whey protein shakes?
You 100% absolutely can, but not without applying the information you’re going to read in this post.
A 2009 study done in Finland confirmed the importance of animal protein in diet as it relates to muscle mass. This is why it’s critical as a vegetarian to know what you’re doing. Apply the nutritional and training concepts here and you’ll succeed.
Let’s start with some basic principles that need to be addressed when it comes to building muscle regardless of whether you’re going to be a vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian or a carnivore. We wrote in this post below about the importance of energy balance and how you can manipulate it to gain and lose weight, fat and muscle.
The Secret to Your Success
We know that calories are our energy source.
The main factor in weight gain or loss is calories in vs calories out (it’s really that simple).
If you want to maintain your body weight you need to eat around the same number of calories that you are burning.
If you want to gain muscle you need to be eating more calories than you are burning.
If you want to lose fat, you need to be eating less calories than you are burning.
The bottom line is that if your goal is to make gains (get some muscle up on you) than you need to be in a positive energy balance.
You need to be eating more calories than you're burning.
Don’t take for granted that there’s more than one side of this equation. On one side is the food that you’re eating and on the other side is the number of calories that you’re burning. If you’re currently doing a lot of cardio each week you could potentially limit that side of the equation while keeping your food intake the same as it is now and build muscle. This is true even if you aren’t a vegetarian.
Alright, we’ve addressed the need for some excess calories in your life in order to build muscle as a vegetarian.
Let’s look at the single most important nutritional factor when it comes to building muscle as a vegetarian.
Protein Intake
I hope we don’t have to convince you that a high protein diet is the most effective diet for building muscle. It’s been researched to death and the jury is in.
High protein diets crush low protein diets when it comes to getting big and strong.
As a vegetarian you can’t eat meat.
The part about that that we need to overcome is that animal protein is the most convenient and effective way to get the amino acids that our bodies need to make and maintain muscle.
If you’ll remember, there are 21 amino acids required to sustain our existence. Our bodies can make all but 9 of those. Those 9 that we cannot make on our own must be obtained through the food that we eat.
We call those 9 the Essential Amino Acids (EAAs). They are: histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan and valine.
One of these EEAs in particular is important when it comes to muscle growth. Leucine.
When we eat sufficient leucine in a meal (about 3g) it sends a signal to our muscles to get to work building and repairing themselves. This process is known as “mTOR” or muscle protein synthesis. We recommend shooting for 3-5 meals per day that hit that 3g of Leucine threshold to maximize your gains.
So what’s the big deal? A lot foods have protein.
True, but how much time do you have for lunch (or breakfast or dinner) because not all protein is created equal.
Not all sources have the same breakdown of those amino acids we talked about, and not all of them are digested and absorbed as easily as others.
This is known is their “bioavailability”.
So while just about every fruit and vegetable available on the vegetarian diet DOES have essential amino acids, they might have VERY LITTLE.
Let’s look at a real life example comparing an animal protein to a vegetables and other foods.
3g of Leucine - 4oz Chicken Breast
3g of Leucine - 19 cups of Kale
3g of Leucine - 3 1/4 cups of Pinto Beans
3g of Leucine - 6 cups of quinoa
I don’t know about you but I’m not interested in cancelling my plans for the day so that I can eat all of that kale and beans.
The fact is that most vegetarians don’t adjust their food intake appropriately to make up for this lack of quality protein when they switch to a vegetarian diet.
This transition to a low protein diet ultimately leads them to muscle loss, strength loss and an overall “loose” look.
If you already have a lot of muscle mass it will probably take longer to notice than if you were really small to start with.
But lucky for you you’re reading this article and we can help you still make gains on a vegetarian diet.
If you’re a lactose-ovo vegetarian you can still eat eggs and dairy. That’s good news because they are easy to get your hands on and they are both rich with high quality bio-available protein containing great amounts of leucine.
Here are some numbers for you:
Milk - 1 cup - 10g Protein - 1g Leucine
Cottage Cheese - 1/2 Cup - 14g Protein - 1.2g Leucine
Greek Yogurt - 1 Cup - 23g Protein - 1.3g Leucine
Egg - 6g Protein - .5g Leucine
Those are some great options to start with if you want to build muscle on a vegetarian diet and those are just some of the Egg + Dairy options.
Another useful strategy to make gains as a vegetarian is to combine multiple relatively high quality protein sources together in the same meal.
Let’s look at what some of those options that AREN’T dairy and eggs are.
Tempeh (fermented soy) - 3oz - 20g Protein - 1.4g Leucine
Lentils - 1/2 cup cooked - 9g Protein - 1.3g Leucine
Black Beans - 1 cup cooked - 15g Protein - 1.2g Leucine
Chickpeas - 1 cup cooked - 12g Protein - .9g Leucine
Not a bad starting place huh vegetarian friends?!
Remember, not all of your protein in a meal has to come from one single food source. You can combine foods to get to those magical numbers. Is it going to be a little tedious? Maybe at first but once you find a few combos that you like you can go from there.
So if those are some of the the whole food protein options for vegetarians, how about protein supplements and powders?
Whey protein is the KING of protein powders and we wrote about what to look for in a protein powder in THIS email.
If you’re a lactose-ovo vegetarian you’re golden since you can still have dairy (Whey is made from cow’s milk). But what if you’re abstaining from dairy? Can you still use a protein supplement?
Rejoice! You have options as a non-dairy consuming vegetarian! Not only do you have options, but if you’re serious about putting on size and muscle as a vegetarian I would pretty strongly recommend that you find a protein powder that you like to ENSURE that you’re meeting your daily needs.
Remember how we mentioned that not all protein is created equal both because of its amino acid content and its “bioavailability”?
One factor in a foods “bioavailability” is how well our body can absorb and use that food’s nutrients.
This is something we want to pay attention to when choosing a veggie protein powder.
The most popular vegetable based protein powders we see are pea, soy, rice and hemp.
Hemp protein in particular is not as well absorbed as the other three options listed above and for that reason we would not recommend it.
All of these 4 options are good choices when it comes to amino acid content, HOWEVER, we do recommend researching the particular brand that you’re interested in as supplement companies are notorious for diluting blends down with fillers to save money which ultimately leaves you with a product that has less of what you need. Even though these 4 options are good as far as protein, there is a mountain of research with a ton of conflicting information and confusion around soy protein. The claims against soy protein range from the large quantity of GMO soy on the market, to claims that men using soy have elevated levels of female sex hormones to increased risk of cancer with high soy intake.
We can’t tell you if all of the “scary” things about soy are true or not. There’s just too much conflicting information and people with skin in the game to say for sure. We choose to abstain from supplementing with soy protein because there are just too many other proven options available.
Our personal preference when choosing a veggie based protein powder is pea protein because of its availability, proven track record and its protein content.
Your mind should be spinning with ideas now of how you as a vegetarian can start making sure that you can get enough protein in your diet in order to build and maintain muscle, but you might be wondering how much protein is enough?
I’m glad you asked!
Recent research has shown that the sweet spot for most adults is between .8 and 1.2g per day, per lb that you weigh.
So if you’re a 125lb woman, that would mean getting between 100 and 150g of combined protein per day.
We wrote a post about how to optimize the timing of that intake.
Optimizing Protein Timing
See, when we eat protein, and eat enough of it, we cause an anabolic response in our bodies. In other words, we tell our bodies to heal and grow new tissue. This is called muscle protein synthesis (MPS). This only happens when we reach a certain threshold of protein that contains the right amino acids. All of the 9 essential amino acids must be present, but the branched chain amino acid leucine must be present in a quantity of 2.5-3g to cause MPS.
➡️This translates into about 25g of protein from a quality source.
Benefits (small) have been seen in quantities up to 40g per serving. Eating 100g of protein at a meal doesn’t cause “extra” MPS even though the calories are absorbed.
So what does this mean?
There’s 3 more things that we want to make sure that you know when it comes to making gains and putting on size.
The first is your training.
If you’re not doing the right things in the gym you’re only going to get so far.
Our MUSCLE GROWTH 101 article went into depth on what you need to be doing to grow muscle. You should read it.
Muscle Growth 101
If you want to make your muscles grow, your training needs to be biased in that direction and it needs to have a few key components and considerations which we will dive into today.
The first principle that we need to establish is that:
You can’t make your muscles grow unless you’re giving them the fuel to do so.
I’m talking about food. Calories. More calories than you are burning. Unless you are a rank novice to lifting weights, you need to be in a caloric surplus to build muscle. More specifically, you need to be eating a total number of calories that exceeds your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE).
How much more you ask? Well, as with many things, it depends.
You need to be focusing on lifting weights. Heavy weights that get heavier over time.
You also need to be working in sets that bring your muscles pretty darn close to failure.
You also need to be placing an emphasis on the compound lifts that involve large groups of muscles that can be loaded heavily.
These compound lifts are the Squat, Deadlift, Overhead Press and the Bench Press.
If your planning on building much muscle and don’t take these things into consideration you’re going to be disappointed!
The second is carbohydrate intake.
Research shows that higher carbohydrate diets support muscle gain and retention better than low carbohydrate diets.
If you’re putting in the work in the gym you’re not only going to want those carbohydrates to meet your energy demands but also to support recovery and building new tissue.
That brings us to the last point which is recovery.
It’s easy to think that all of that fatigue and muscular damage that you feel happening when you’re in the gym is making you bigger and stronger.
The truth is that when we’re in the gym lifting those weights we are damaging our muscles. We’re breaking them down further and further with each rep.
The only way we get bigger and stronger is by recovering from those damaging workouts.
Recovery means many things but the keystones are SLEEP and NUTRITION.
Free Recovery: Sleep
Sleep! Almost no one is making sleep a priority when it should be first on the list when looking to make improvements in your physical and mental life. Remember, when we are in the gym throwing barbells around and working up a sweat, we are breaking our bodies down. The food we eat, and the sleep we get are the things that actually allow us to make improvements after the time in the gym.
Stress the body —> Recover ——> Adapt
Most people need about 7 hours of sleep to take advantage of the stage of sleep where hormones are released and muscle rebuilding happens.
So what are the consequences of not getting enough sleep?
When This Clicks for you It Will Change Your Life
You’re fighting a losing battle by working against yourself every hour that you're not in the gym. It’s a “two steps forward, one step back” thing. It’s not that you’re lazy, it’s just that you don’t see what you’re missing because you’ve never been taught the importance of the one thing and then put that knowledge into practice.
I’m talking about your nutrition.
The food you eat and the drinks you drink.
If you’re neglecting either of these you are leaving muscle on the table so to speak.
Take care of your recovery and your body will reward you.
We covered a lot of ground in this article so let’s recap the main takeaways if you’re trying to continue to make gains as a vegetarian.
#1 - If someone tells you it’s impossible to get big and strong as a vegetarian don’t believe them. It is however going to take more planning and attention to detail than your carnivore friends.
#2 - Be sure you’re eating enough calories. If you’re trying to grow and aren’t eating more calories than your body needs you’re not going to make progress.
#3 - Replace the protein that you’re missing from eliminating meat.
#4 - Pay close attention to the amino acid content of your main sources of protein. Shoot for 3g of Leucine 3-5 times per day.
#5 - Use the right protein supplements as needed (Whey, Pea, Rice)
#6 - Get enough protein - .8 - 1.2g per day per lb that you weigh
#7 - Train right - Focus on compound lifts that get heavier and heavier over time
#8 - Eat Carbs - Carbs help build and maintain muscle as well as provide the energy needed for lifting.
#9 - Recover - Get 7-8 hours of sleep and pay attention to your overall nutrition.
There you go and now you know!
If you choose to be a vegetarian you can move forward with confidence knowing you’re making the right choices to get and stay big and strong!
If you have any questions or comments send us an email!