{"id":39993,"date":"2019-10-02T18:00:50","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T22:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/?p=39993"},"modified":"2020-02-26T14:59:44","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T19:59:44","slug":"macronutrient-meal-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/macronutrient-meal-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"Muscle Gain on a Plant-Based Diet: How to Hit Your Macronutrient Numbers as a Vegan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Although most people know me as a runner, when I first got into fitness in college, my measure of success wasn’t miles \u2014 it was muscle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d always been a skinny guy, and thought that with the freedom and time college afforded me (not to mention an amazing fitness complex), I might be able to change that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem, I soon found, was that no matter how many hours I spent in that fancy gym — following programs from Men’s Health<\/em> to the letter — I just couldn’t put on the muscle that I thought I should be adding with all this heavy lifting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why not?
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had the wrong nutrition strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was eating for general fitness, when what I should have been following was a targeted strategy specifically designed to give me the nutrients I needed (and, importantly, in the amounts I needed), based on my body and goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I learned, over many frustrating years of failure, that nutrition is just as important as strength training<\/a> when it comes to building muscle and toning your body. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And once I nailed the nutrition, putting on muscle (and later, losing fat) became easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what kind of nutrition?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For most of my life, I thought that nutrition for muscle-building meant steaks, lean chicken breasts, and whole-milk protein shakes. The idea that you could get results in the gym from a plant-based diet<\/a> never occurred to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I’ll dive into that topic here, and share three example<\/g> vegan meal plans<\/a> to prove to you that it can be done — and I’ll show you how.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, Understand that the Types <\/em>of Foods Matter<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Most people know that if you’re trying to lose or put on weight, you’ve got pay attention to calories in versus calories out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when you’re trying to do something like add muscle mass, it isn’t just about the calories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accomplished vegan bodybuilders and coaches Giacomo Marchese and Dani Taylor<\/a> put it this way: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which macronutrients your calories come from will determine what kind of tissue you gain or lose (in conjunction with your training, of course). <\/em><\/p>

For example, you can lose 20 pounds by restricting calories alone, but without planning your macronutrients, and weight training appropriately, the weight lost<\/g> could easily be coming from muscle. <\/em><\/p>

Conversely, you can definitely gain weight by eating a surplus of calories, but without a plan of where they are coming from, and without strength training of some kind, you can easily gain more fat than you intended.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So we’re talking about macronutrients… does that mean we’re focusing on protein<\/a>? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While protein is a key ingredient<\/a> to muscle growth, understanding the macronutrient profile that fits your body and supports your goals requires looking at carbohydrates and fat as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a post they wrote for No Meat Athlete, Dani and Giacomo do a fantastic job outlining how to calculate your macronutrient needs for muscle gain and fat loss<\/a>. So that’s the place to start. (I’ll refer back to this formula a lot. Make sure you check out that post before finishing this one, so you know what I’m talking about.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the process is pretty simple: <\/p>\n\n\n\n