I know this is an ongoing question, but I guess I just want a fresh opinion on taking my protein levels up to 10%. I'm not asking about going over 10%.
I've been following 811 for 10 months now and have experienced many benefits. In the beginning I wasn't tracking calories and was under eating, and lost a lot of weight and strength. I didn't let that stop me, because I was committed to it, and it paid off. I learned the ropes so to speak and got a pretty good handle on it after I read the book, read about 1000 different threads and watched about 500 video's on 811, and muscle building. I'm 100% vegan, and I've gone months at a time without eating cooked food. But living 100% raw just isn't a personal goal of mine. I like going out and having some rice and vegetables once a week, or a vegan hummus pizza every few months. But about a month ago I started to get curious about protein. The standard recommendations for protein according to my dietician text books (I'm a student) are for a person at an ideal bodyfat level to eat 1G Per Kilogram of body weight. For me at 190 ibs that's 86(g), which isn't too difficult on 80/10/10 assuming you eat the recommended calories and eat a reasonable amount of greens everyday. But for building muscle they recommend adding about 25% to that (107g total).
My goal was to see if eating 10% of my calories from protein would be beneficial in muscle/strength building (and it has been). To do this I first used lentils and rice on a daily basis, instead of a weekly basis, but that got old pretty quick. So last week I started using a sprouted brown rice protein in my banana/date smoothies, and a soy based protein w/just bananas. Just as much as is necessary to get to 10%. Using the powder and counting the cooked foods I eat weekly, my diet is 90-95% raw based on cooked calories Vs. Raw calories.
I'm a bit timid about it, but for the purpose of muscle building, my progress in strength has definitely seen a noticeable rate increase. So my major question is, does anyone else have experience or just educated opinions on the matter? And also about cooked whole foods vs the sprouted rice powder/soy powder. I'm always open to new idea's and opinions, hence my willingness to stick to 811 even though my initial experience was mixed. Of course that wasn't 811's fault, but I didn't know that at the time. I had enough faith in it to look harder etc......
Again, if anyone has any further insight, I would love to hear it. I know there are folks like Chris Califano that have done great on 90/5/5, and Mike Valasity and Roman (last name?), but he supplements with Spirulina. So I'm aware of the folks that are out there too.
I am not an expert but what I have heard over and over in these forums and read in the 80-10-10 book is that it is strength training that builds muscle. Increasing your protein will not do it. And I don't see any problem with 10% protein since that is certainly within 811 but doing it for more muscle does not work. If you get enough calories with fruit, 1-2 pounds of greens and plenty of exercise and rest you should get all your nutrients to be vibrantly healthy.
No one here is going to advocate non-raw foods, expecially extracted proteins. Highly processed foods like this will just tax your system and not give your desired results. Hopefully Chris C. will pipe in here for you, if not I would pm him.
Permalink Reply by ednshell on As for USDA recommendations, I would not put much stock in them:
http://www.30bananasaday.com/notes/Frequently_Asked_Questions
Scroll down to C.
How do you know you have put on more muscle? Could it be water weight or fat?
You might check out:
My 3 Year Raw Vegan Bodybuilding Transformation Video!
http://www.vibranthealthandwealth.com/bookstore/bookstore-individua...
Permalink Reply by Justin Morgan on Those figures were based off of the American dietetics association. If strength equals muscle, then 10% protein as opposed to 5 or 6% gave me a fair boost. I wouldn't say it was a magical boost or anything, but instead of adding 2-3 reps per week spread out over 9-12 sets I started adding around 10 reps spread out over the same number of sets. I've had more than 4 weeks of the same consistent results.
It's not like I wasn't getting results on a strictly raw diet, excluding all cooked foods, but I wanted to see if something closer to 10% would make any difference. Mike Valasity told me on YT that he tried the same thing with quinoa/legumes for a little while and it didn't do anything for him. But I can't say the same thing for me.
Permalink Reply by Justin Morgan on Actually believe it or not, the USDA also recommends a daily protein intake of between 10 and 35%. Obviously 10 would be ok, and 35 would be way too high. But their protein suggestions at least allow for individualizes to make healthy decisions. I'm a dietetics student, and that's what they tell us anyway.
Unfortunately their fat recommendations are between 20 and 35%, and their carb suggestions are only 45-65%. They say for athletes to get a higher percentage of carbs 65-75%, but they only recommend that for carb loading.
I'm not saying any of that as a positive thing per se, but I did think it was a good move that they recommended a 10% protein intake diet.
Permalink Reply by Lee Price on Are you sure it's not just the extra calories giving you more fuel and not that you have more protein that somehow helps lift the weights?
Permalink Reply by Justin Morgan on That is a very intelligent suggestion. But I've kept my caloric intake the same. In fact previously I ate the same amount of calories regardless of my activity level. And recently I stopped trying to consume such a large number of calories on day's where I was sedentary and it didn't particularly change my results that I can determine from the weekly increase records I've kept. But either way no, my caloric intake has remained the same.
Permalink Reply by Bart M on Charlie Abel is a fruit based raw vegan bodybuilder who warns about the possibility of getting too little protein on the LFRV diet in his book. I'd be curious about how he would address your questions.
Permalink Reply by Justin Morgan on Charlie Able was born with a banana in one hand, and a barbell in the other. Legend has it that as an adolescent he once pulled a mango tree up by it's roots and bench pressed it for 10 sets of 100, and then ate the tree..... Banana's, bark and all.
Right now he is believed to be hunting fruit tree's so wild in the jungle heart of Hawaii that the trees spring out of the ground and fight back.
I say all that to say I'd be interested in his response too.
From what I've read he kept a high calorie diet (approx 4000/day) for a lot of years. But last I heard he he didn't believe it was necessary to have such a large caloric intake. I'm not sure of all the details on that and can't comment further.
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