How Effective Are Vegan Diets for Muscle Growth?

traditionally it has been thought that vegan diets are ineffective at promoting muscle growth compared with diets that include animal-based Foods however is this really true or can vegan diets be just as effective as any other first we quickly need to run through some definitions so that we know exactly what we are talking about essentially this video is going to compare the effects of a completely vegan diet versus an omnivorous diet although the definitions may be different depending on who you talk to we are going to broadly Define each diet in the following way a vegan diet refers to purely plant-based Foods this means no animal or animal based foods again there are foods that are considered controversial as to whether they are truly vegan or not and different people may or may not include certain foods in their quote-unquote vegan diet but these nuances aren't really important for this discussion an omnivorous diet on the other hand refers to consuming both plant-based and animal-based Foods essentially there are no limitations to this diet for the purpose of this video so unless you are a pure carnivore a good proportion of your diet will likely be plant-based Foods too this is essentially going to act as our control diet we know that omnivorous diets permit great muscle growth so what we want to know is if vegan diets can be just as effective or if they are inferior the first area we need to explore is the effects of protein on muscle growth there are two protein related topics we need to discuss when comparing vegan and omnivorous diets total daily protein intake and protein quality it is well established that total daily protein intake has a significant effect on muscle growth but how much protein should we aim to consume the best evidence we have on this topic is this meta-analysis which aim to explore the relationship between protein intake and muscle growth 105 papers were included in the analysis and the relationship was analyzed in a few different ways most relevant for this discussion is probably this graph here which only analyze studies that included resistance training as we can see more protein generally results in Greater gains in lean mass however there appears to be somewhat of a diminishing returns effect consuming Beyond around 1.5 grams per kilogram per day of protein or around 0.7 grams per pound doesn't seem to yield as much additional benefit so as a general rule trainees should probably aim to consume at least around 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram or 0.7 grams per pound per day furthermore this minimum require environment should probably be further individualized based on your current body fat biological sex and diet preferences there will be a link in the video description on how to calculate your individual requirements and once you were hitting your minimum protein Target it may be further beneficial to increase protein intake to high levels but probably isn't going to have any major effects on muscle growth now that we have discussed the influence of total daily protein intake on muscle growth let's now explore how protein quality influences muscle growth more specifically we are referring to the amino acid composition of the protein sources that we consume protein ingested via food is composed of some combination of 21 different amino acids and of these nine are considered essential amino acids this name comes from the fact that they aren't able to be synthesized in the human body meaning they are required to be obtained from the diet whereas the other non-essential amino acids are generally able to be synthesized adequately to meet the demands of the body so every gram of protein consumed in the diet throughout the day has a different proportion of each amino acid and in most cases animal-based protein sources tend to have a greater proportion of essential amino acids whereas plant-based protein sources tend to have a greater proportion of non-essential amino acids this was seen in this research review which aimed to compare the effects of animal verse plant proteins this graph shows the proportion of essential amino acids of various different protein sources as we can see plant-based foods such as lentils beans rice and wheat generally have a lower proportion of essential amino acids ranging from around 30 to 40 percent whereas animal proteins such as whey beef eggs and cod have a greater proportion most of them around 40 to 50 percent and it has been proposed that foods with a higher proportion of essential amino acids are more beneficial for muscle growth compared with protein sources that have a higher proportion of non-essential amino acids however does the quality of our protein sources actually influence muscle growth outcomes and does this have implications for vegan vs omnivorous diets well there is some evidence suggesting that protein quality does influence the anabolic effect of the protein Source this is mechanistic data on muscle protein synthesis in general we find that animal proteins tend to result in a greater short-term increase in muscle protein synthesis compared with plant proteins which may be a result of the differences in amino acid profiles for example this study compared the effects of ingesting soy or whey protein on changes in muscle protein synthesis 30 elderly men performed three sets of leg extensions with a single leg one group consumed nothing the second group consumed 20 grams of soy protein after exercise while the third group consumed 40 grams of soy protein and muscle protein synthesis was measured over the following four hours in both the trained and non-trained legs this data was then compared to a previous study using the same protocol and a similar population only with whey protein it was found that ingesting whey protein resulted in greater increases is in average fractional synthetic rate in both the trained and non-trained legs and after ingesting both 20 and 40 grams of each protein source and this may be due to the differences in amino acid profiles between protein sources however when we start to combine multiple protein sources together more typical of real world meals this effect starts to fade out for example this study compared the effects of milk protein versus a plant-based protein blend 24 young healthy men consumed 30 grams of milk protein concentrate and 30 grams of a protein blend consisting of wheat corn and pea protein on two separate occasions muscle protein synthesis was then measured in the following five hours after consumption the goal of the plant-based protein blend was to try and minimize any large deficiencies in the amino acid profile that may be present with a single plant-based protein Source alone although the milk protein still had a greater total amount of essential amino acids compared with the plant protein blend however both protein sources resulted in similar changes in average fractional synthetic rate over a five hour time period this brings up the topic of complementary protein sources this refers to combining protein sources together to eliminate any large deficiencies in any of the important essential amino acids in other words to create a more complete protein Source This research review provided an overview of the effect of plant-based proteins on health and function the authors provided an example of complementary plant-based protein sources it was stated that while rice and peas are both considered lower quality compared with most animal proteins a combination of peas and rice together can be considered a complete protein Source furthermore it isn't always necessary to have complementary protein sources within each meal the author stated that amino acids remain available to promote muscle protein synthesis for up to three hours post ingestion so as you consume different protein sources throughout the day they may still be complementary to each other even if consumed within a few hours and this is more typical of how we eat we don't usually consume protein in isolation we more commonly eat multiple Foods together in a meal apart from when consuming isolated protein supplements so in most cases protein sources in the diet are probably going to be somewhat complementary to one another so from this mechanistic evidence you might be able to make a case that vegan diets will produce less muscle growth compared with omnivorous diets however we also have plenty of evidence which directly Compares muscle growth between these two diet strategies and in most cases we find that both vegan and omnivorous diets result in similar muscle growth if total daily protein intake is equated for example this study compared the effects of a vegan versus omnivorous diet on muscle growth during a resistance training program 19 habitually vegan men and 19 habitual omnivores performed the same lower body resistance training protocol two times per week for 12 weeks subjects habitual diets were assessed and each participant was provided with either soy or whey protein supplementation to try and bump their protein intake to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day and as we can see both groups ended up consuming around 1.7 grams of protein per kilogram per day in both groups despite total daily protein intake being roughly equated the vegans still consumed around 10 grams fewer essential amino acids shown in the blue compared with the omnivores shown in the orange although this didn't seem to influence muscle growth gains in Total Lean mass of the legs was similar between groups furthermore individual muscle fiber cross-sectional area of the Quad muscles increased in both groups with no significant differences between them so it seems that in the context of an entire diet with adequate protein intake vegan diets don't seem to be inferior for muscle growth compared with omnivorous diets total daily protein intake is probably more important than the quality of each individual protein source so this brings us to one potential issue with vegan diets for muscle growth it may be less convenient to consume a high protein intake with only plant-based Foods in general it seems that those following a vegan diet generally consume slightly less protein habitually compared with those following an omnivorous diet this was seen in this systematic review which assessed the habitual diets of plant-based versus meat containing diets it was found that protein made up around 16 of calories in meat eaters but only around 13 percent in vegans and vegetarians while this difference isn't huge it may have an influence on long-term muscle growth if conscious effort isn't made to increase it so this may be one indirect downside of a vegan diet for muscle growth although we also need to remember that this data is taken from a large general population sample so this isn't necessarily indicative of the dietary intakes of those aiming to maximize muscle growth it is definitely viable to consume an adequate Pro retained intake via plant-based Foods alone and further supplementation can be consumed to boost this intake to appropriate levels if necessary taking all this information let's now establish some practical recommendations in terms of protein quality it does seem that individual plant protein sources generally have a lower proportion of essential amino acids compared with animal protein sources and in isolation this may not Spike muscle protein synthesis as much at least not in the few hours after ingestion however when multiple different protein sources are consumed together most amino acid deficiencies that may be present in an isolated protein Source are largely eradicated and this is more representative of how we consume our food in multiple meals which combine multiple different foods so when we look at actual muscle growth outcomes via resistance training vegan diets seem to be just as effective as omnivorous diets if total daily protein intake is equated so it seems that total daily protein intake is more important than the quality of individual protein sources in isolation and this is one potential issue that vegans May face consuming enough total daily protein in general vegans tend to consume slightly less protein than those following an omnivorous diet it is definitely viable but it may take slightly more conscious effort to achieve a high protein intake when only consuming plant-based Foods if your goal is to maximize muscle growth thanks for watching and hopefully you got something out of this video check out flowhighperformance.com for online coaching training templates ebooks and more

Channel: Flow High Performance

Views: 15,268

Keywords: train, training, lift, lifting, muscle, hypertrophy, strength, weight, weightlifting, growth, diet, nutrition, calories, macronutrients, macros, carbohydrate, fat, protein, technique, bench press, squat, deadlift, powerlifting, bodybuilding, body, how to, exercise, fat loss, weight loss, composition, chest, triceps, delts, quads, hamstrings, glutes, biceps, lats, back, traps, build, workout, program, periodization, push, pull, legs, upper, lower, progressive overload, definition

Id: TJx1etoFtXQ

Length: 12min 28sec (748 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 30 2023