Can You Build Muscle After 40 as a Vegan? by Jerry Brainum 10/22

 

Why is it that most successful bodybuilders have not been vegans? Is there something inherent in vegan nutrition that interferes with the acquisition of massive muscles or strength? In truth, some notably successful bodybuilders have been vegetarians, though not necessarily vegans. One example of this was Jim Morris, who won the 1973 Mr.America by the widest margin ever seen. However, although Jim was a vegan in his later years, I don't think he was during his active competitive days. When I questioned Jim about whether he experienced any side effects or loss of muscle since becoming a vegan, he replied that he had not, and added that he felt better than he ever did in his life. Bill Pearl is another notable vegetarian bodybuilder. Pearl won the Mr.America contest in 1953 and followed that with four Mr.Universe victories. Among those he defeated in competition was Sergio Oliva, a phenomenal bodybuilder who possessed one of the most genetically gifted physiques in bodybuilding history. But Pearl, similarly to Morris, wasn't always a vegetarian and earlier in his career consumed plenty of animal protein foods. Indeed. Pearl was never a vegan, but rather he was a Lacto-ovo vegetarian, meaning that he consumed milk and eggs, but avoided meat. Milk and eggs happen to be the best natural protein foods, so Pearl wasn't missing anything by going on his diet.

Vegetarianism is a general term since there are various types of vegetarians. All have the commonalities of not consuming meat. This chart  illustrates the various types of vegetarians:

Most types of vegetarian diets would have little or no impact on building muscle. The possible exception is vegans, who consume no animal-based protein foods at all. Why are animal protein foods important for building muscle? Amino acids, the elemental form of protein, are vital for building muscle in that they produce anabolic or building effects in muscle. What's really important, however, are essential amino acids. The essential amino acids are histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. They are so designated because these particular amino acids must be supplied in food and cannot be synthesized in the body. Nine such essential amino acids exist, out of 22 amino acids. The amino acids deemed "non-essential" are so named because they can be synthesized in the body. This doesn't mean that they aren't important for health, but rather that only the essential amino acids are involved in muscle protein synthesis, the cornerstone of increased muscle mass or muscular hypertrophy. The 11 amino acids that we can produce are alanine, asparagine, aspartic acid, cysteine, glutamic acid, glutamine, glycine, proline, serine, arginine,  and tyrosine.

A few misleading ads have appeared over the years suggesting that some types of protein supplements, such as whey protein, are largely wasted . . .