Is Vegan Diet Healthy?
Adjust Your Vegan Diet if You Exercise
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When you begin following a vegan diet, you don’t want to put too much pressure on changing all the habits in your life. This may mean taking a short break from your fitness goals until you adjust to the diet itself. However, when you do feel ready to get back to exercising, it is a good idea to make slight changes to your vegan diet to accommodate those workouts.
Here are some simple ways you might want to adjust your vegan diet when you are working out more.
Add in More Protein
If your purpose for working out more is to gain muscle, then protein is going to be your best friend. It is not only an essential nutrient everyone needs, but it is important for muscle growth. Protein can not only help you to build muscle, but also to maintain the muscle you have when you are losing weight. Otherwise, you would burn muscle and fat together, not helping at all with muscle growth.
Some plant-based foods that contain protein include rice and oats, quinoa, most nuts, black beans, edamame, tempeh, soy, tofu, and seeds like hemp seeds and chia seeds.
Make Sure You Are Getting Enough Calories
A mistake many people make when they are exercising and eating a vegan diet is not eating enough. If you are not trying to lose weight, then the more you exercise, the more you want to eat to fuel your body. Even if you are not someone who regularly counts calories, it might be a good idea just to see where you are at if you are planning on starting a new fitness routine.
Just track a few days of typical eating days on your vegan diet, then see what your calories are. Compare those numbers to your TDEE, which is your total daily energy expenditure. This will give you a good idea of where you are at, and whether you need to increase your calories or not.
Vegan diet for athletes – How is Your Energy Level?
Pay attention to how you feel when you start exercising more. Are you low on energy, having trouble getting through your workouts, or exhausted for the rest of the day? This might be a sign that it is time to tweak the nutrients you consume.
If you are feeling okay when you start working out, your current vegan diet is probably nutrient-dense, and should be just fine.
Vegan diet bodybuilding
Pre and Post-Workout Snack Ideas
For vegan diet for bodybuilding friendly pre-workout and post-workout snacks, here are some options:
Multigrain bread with nut butter
Banana
Fruit smoothie
Coconut or almond milk yogurt
Oatmeal or overnight oats
Handful of nuts with a piece of fruit
Veggie wrap
Veggie burger
Vegan diet before and after
Affordable Vegan Food Options
Among the different misconceptions about following a vegan diet, one of the more common ones is assuming this is a more expensive lifestyle. It can seem that way in the beginning, but with just a few tweaks to what you eat and where you shop, you can make it just as affordable as any other way of eating. Take a look at our list of affordable vegan food options.
The vegan diet benefits – It’s All in the Seasonal Produce
Quite a bit of the food you buy when you are on a vegan diet is fruits and veggies, which can get up there in price when you eat a high amount of them. The best thing you can do is try to stick to produce that is currently in season.
For example:
In the spring, apricots, avocado, fennel, carrots, and asparagus are in season.
In the summer, pineapple, plums, cherries, zucchini, bell peppers are in season.
In the fall, cranberries, squash, pumpkin, sweet potato, and pears are in season.
In the winter, apples, broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower are in season.
You can get these any time of year depending on where you live, but you tend to spend less when you stick mostly to the in-season produce. By doing this, it also switches up your recipes throughout the year, helping to make everything more interesting.
Vegan Foods You Can Buy in Bulk
You can also save money by getting your plant-based foods in bulk, when available. This includes your flour, grains, spices, herbs, nuts and seeds, beans, and legumes. These food items are going to be cheaper in the long run when you purchase big bags of them.
In the beginning of your vegan diet journey, you may want to stick to the smaller bags just until you know which grains, beans, and nuts you enjoy eating the most of or that you will definitely use. Once you choose your staples, buy in bulk as much as you can to save money.
Foods You Can Make in Big Batches
While you will spend a little more on the ingredients in the beginning, making food in big batches saves you money in the long run. Buy as much as you can in bulk and on sale, then make batch foods like casseroles, slow cooker meals, chilis and soups, and other dishes that will last longer in your refrigerator or freezer.
Cheap Vegan Meals
As far as meals that you can make easily and won’t cost a lot of money, here are a couple of easy options.
Pasta with sauce – One of the simplest vegan meals is just pasta and tomato sauce of any kind. Most pasta is vegan, but do check the label just to be sure. You can make this simple meal in 10-15 minutes, and boost the protein by adding some meatless ground in the sauce.
Wraps – Salad wraps are basically salads in tortillas or whatever type of wrap you have on hand. The reason these are cheap is because you just use whatever ingredients you happen to have in the fridge. It is a great way to use up veggies before they go bad.
