So recently I posted a picture on Instagram and Facebook.
Over 100,000 people saw it.
This was in January of 2015,
and this was a couple weeks ago.
So basically it caused a lot of people to get really pissed off,
accusing me of steroids and everything like that.
This before picture that I showed was completely real,
and here is another one a couple days later looking really really skinny,
and it’s not that I looked like normally.
It’s because I was depleted after a photo shoot,
I was cutting it at 1800 calories and that’s just how I looked
after binging on loads of cereals and
loads of carbs after restricting my carbs a lot.
I wasn’t photo-shopped.
I wasn’t off my cycle or something like that.
So after going vegan, without a doubt I put a lot of muscle mass.
Obviously there are still some skeptics out there
saying it’s not possible because the plant protein is not bio-available,
but most of you guys know that all these myths have been debunked.
One of the things that I think helped a lot
was that when I was eating a lot of meat,
not even a lot,
just the fact that I was eating animal products at all.
It kind of fucked with my digestion a lot
and some people can tackle meat a lot better than others.
I just couldn’t tackle it.
I was always constipated.
I couldn’t take a shit.
Sometimes it took me two weeks to take a shit.
So obviously your digestion and how your gut works
has a lot to do a lot with energy, your metabolism.
And when I went vegan,
all of these digestive problems went away completely.
I put on insane amount of weight after going vegan in the first two months
because I was so excited that you were able to order pizza from pizza hut
that was vegan without the cheese
and just veggies and stuff like that with barbecue sauce.
I was so happy with that I kept eating that over and over again,
and I blew up and my strength increased a lot
from clean whole foods and processed garbage.
So either way I was consumed a lot calories
and a huge amount of carbohydrate.
No, it’s not steroids,
but I can’t really tell you exactly the science behind it
because unfortunately there aren’t many studies that show this,
so I am just speaking out of personal experience here.
So, I remember right before going vegan,
I was doing bench-press with 120kilos for six repetitions
and now like one and a half years later,
130kilos for nine repetitions is the most that I have done.
And one of the reasons, I think I got a lot stronger in the gym after I went vegan
is because my workouts were getting a lot better as well.
They were filled with energy. I could give it my all.
Now in terms of muscle mass which is the thing I go for the most,
the strength is not very important for me.
Muscle mass is a lot more important,
and you know I am more about aesthetics than power lifting.
No, plant protein is not inferior in any way.
The only thing that I can say and back up by studies
is that that animal protein is obviously acidic,
but at my age with my testosterone levels,
the acidity in animal products shouldn’t really have set my gains back,
so I can’t really say it is because of that,
so I don’t know.
It’s just a combination of being on a caloric surplus for a very long time.
I am getting stronger which means I can push my weight.
It’s hard to get people to believe that
a vegan diet would do so much more positive.
A lot of people think that
you are going to be handicapped by going vegan that you’re going to be limited,
but for me, it has been the exact opposite.
I have been making more gains than ever
and will continue to make gains.
I don’t want to get massive. I am not a bodybuilder.
I am just going for the aesthetics
and just looking as good as I can look in my personal view.
Even for bodybuilding, if you want to get big massive, you can still be vegan easily.
You just need to take loads of growth hormone, insulin, testosterone
all that good stuff that all those big ass bodybuilders take,
and it won’t make a difference at all.
And one thing that I want to mention is that
when I used to eat a lot of meat,
I wasn’t getting a huge caloric surplus
apart from when I was eating junk foods
like Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream and fast foods and stuff like that,
and the reason is a lot of people when they are eating meat,
they are obsessed with protein,
"Oh, I am going to get 200 grams of protein, 250 grams of protein."
I have been making way way way more gains with 0.6 grams per lb. of body weight,
so in that sense,
I was able to fit in a lot more carbohydrates
and fill up my calories from healthy sources
without worrying too much about the protein
because protein is over-rated,
and yes, a vegan diet has a bunch of protein if you choose to,
you can eat 200 grams of protein on a vegan diet as well.
It doesn’t matter. It might be a little bit trickier,
but you don’t even need to,
and you are going to make more gains
having a higher percentage of carbohydrate anyway,
so why even overdose on protein? There is absolutely no point.
My diet and a diet that is recommended that I recommend to all my clients is high protein,
but people think that high protein is 300 grams.
The recommended daily protein level for guys is about 60 grams of protein,
and if you are doing bodybuilding,
maybe you will need twice as much or a little bit more than that,
and even that is like 120 grams
and I am getting about 140 to 150 grams of protein,
so that's a lot and I don't even need that amount
so that’s just my personal preference
because I eat a lot of tofu and tempeh and stuff like that
because I enjoy those foods and
automatically I get a lot more protein than I actually need.
So in terms of training and nutrition,
I kept my macros at about 60/20/20
loads of whole food grains, legumes big on beans and lentils tofu tempeh,
and in terms of training,
I have been doing the same as I did before switching.
I was just doing really high volume training push/pull/leg splits
rather than doing bro splits.
I am not a big fan of full body workouts
although it does work if you are only going to train about 3 times a week
but I train about 6.
So I just prefer splitting up like that.
Heavy weights combined with high repetition training as well.
I really try to change it up as much as I can.
And of course the most important thing of all
is being consistent with your diet and your training.
You can’t just cut out the meat products and go vegan
and expect to build a huge amount of muscle.
It takes a long time,
but within a year of very consistent training and eating the right foods,
you can see a huge huge change.
But don’t even focus on the end result.
Focus on the journey,
focus on bettering yourself day by day.
Make it life-skill not a goal,
and before you know it you will have made a big change.
So guys I think a lot of people know now
that the vegan diet is not inferior to build muscle.
And I’m just reminding you that
we do provide online training for people who are willing to try the vegan diet out.
Link in the description box below jonvenus.com.
So, if you are not sure
what to do and how to go about it and you need some guidance,
we are always here to help you guys.
Anyway thank you so much for watching
and I will see you very soon. Peace Out.