Lately I have been hearing
about a lot of people going Vegan. I have always had my reservations about it.
I was vegan before, I
decided to go vegan while in high school. I had a dietitian and a doctor
watching my muscle mass and my coach watching my speed. I started slowly losing
muscle and therefore it impacted my speed. Not only did going vegan impact my
speed it impacted my body. I started losing my hair and it set me on slippery
slope of becoming anorexic.
Many people said I did it
wrong, I wasn't getting the proper nutrition, the proper protein. I believe
that is false since I had a dietitian assisting in the preparing of 90% of my
meals. Someone told me that maybe I was too young and competing at a high level
of swimming along with my age could have factored into the hair loss and muscle
loss. I was 16 years old and was already underweight.
However, I am not 100% opposed to trying it again. I started searching the
internet to find elite runners who are vegan. My search turned up none, but
that doesn't mean there isn't any, that just means it isn't documented and that
is normal I mean I don’t run around documenting that I love pickles!
I am interested in
speaking with a vegan female elite runner to see how they do it. The reason I am interested
in a vegan elite runner isn't because I believe I am elite runner but because I
am interested in speaking to them about maintaining and building muscle on a
vegan diet as well as how it has affected their speed. My BIGGEST fear is that
making major changes to my diet will have a negative impact on my speed and I
have worked too hard to get where I am to have a negative impact.
It is one step at a time
for me. At this moment I am giving up wheat. I recently learned that Gluten is
Latin for glue. I wouldn't sit down and eat glue so why am I going to sit down
and eat wheat. For me it is stepping stones. I have cleaned up my diet A LOT,
not eating anything that has more than 2-3 ingredients in it unless of course I
am making it myself and not consuming diet coke.
I am kind of superstitious and until I qualify for Boston in May and speak with an elite vegan runner I
don’t think I will be making any drastic changes.
What are your thoughts on
Veganism? Do you know any elite vegan runners I can speak to?
You should check out Rich Roll both on twitter and his podcasts. (@richroll). He is a vegan/plant powered endurance athlete. He's been my inspiration for eating healthy and not afraid to do it.
ReplyDeleteHe has a great book too that he talks about going plant powered and what it has done for him. It's called Finding Ultra.
Hope that helps some!
**He's obviously not a female, but def worth seeing what he does.