No fitness pursuit spawns so many dubious health claims as bodybuilding. The community is filled with cartoonish characters following fringe diets. Many of the best-known bodybuilders court tragedy by relying on anabolic steroids to achieve huge gains in musculature. These are pretty much the last people suited to offering sensible nutrition advice.
Let’s not forget about the Liver King, a guy who amassed nearly 4 million TikTok followers while eating an “ancestral diet” including a pound of liver daily, plus eggs, some vegetables, and, um, raw animal testicles(!) Naturally, he also peddled his own brand of protein powder, all while claiming his imposing physique was naturally attained. He responded to steroid allegations by saying, “I don’t touch the stuff.”
But it turned out he indeed touched the stuff. Joe Rogan correctly called it: “He has got an ass filled with steroids, is what that guy’s got.”
Months later, to nobody’s surprise, the truth came out: the Liver King ‘fessed up that steroids enabled him to develop his hulking physique.
The Rise of Vegan Bodybuilding
Against this backdrop of charlatans, a growing niche known as natural bodybuilding shuns steroids. Adherents seek to build muscles without resorting to steroids and related substances.
Even within the population of natural bodybuilders, vegans are still very much in the minority. Yet vegan bodybuilding has overcome immense biases, gaining respect and popularity. Here’s a set of pages featuring short profiles of some of the world’s top vegan bodybuilders.
A Vegan Diet that Promotes Muscle Gains
An ideal diet for bodybuilding isn’t a whole lot different than a well-planned diet for everyone else. The main differences are that bodybuilders need some extra protein and, generally, a lot more calories. You can easily meet these needs while following a vegan diet. If you need to take in extra protein, several excellent vegan protein powders exist. In particular, a company named Orgain makes an inexpensive organic product.
Thanks to a better understanding of nutrition, most bodybuilders today make a point of eating substantial amounts of fruits and vegetables. And a number of men and women have proven that following a vegan diet imposes no impediment to achieving a classic bodybuilder’s physique.
Two recent vegan bodybuilding books are Joshua King’s Plant-Based Diet For Athletes and Bodybuilders, and Samantha Shorkey and Amy Longard’s Vegan Bodybuilder’s Cookbook.
