The supplements and protein a vegan athlete SHOULD be taking for muscle growth and fat loss

Being a vegan doesn’t mean that you need to supplement differently.  Anyone (vegan or not) who trains consistently in the gym, in my opinion, should be maximising their results by intelligent supplementation.

Are supplements necessary?  No. But if they can help you to build more muscle and burn more fat, as well as promoting general health, why would you NOT take them?

It drives me a little bit mad when I hear people evangelically spouting the fact that they don’t believe in taking supplements.

“All of my nutrition comes from food” they love to preach.

Well that is all very well and and good if you are an average person doing average things.  But most of the women working a Sculpted Vegan Program are anything but average.  They are training a-la-athlete style.  

And any athlete worth their salt knows that when you’re pushing your body harder than the average Joe or Jane, you need a little over the counter help.

In this week’s episode of Strong & Sculpted, I take you into my kitchen to show you the exact supplements I take, with exact amounts and timings, to enhance performance and promote muscle growth.

I also take you behind the scenes in my gym workout where we train back and discuss how to get the most out of every rep, to sculpt an hourglass figure that Marilyn Monroe would be proud of.  

Resources mentioned in the episode are:
The Protein Works Vanilla Creme &  Choc Mint Brownie
Leucine
Creatine
Glutamine
BCAA
Bulk Powders Vitargo
Nutribullet Blender

Training done at:
Elite Health & Fitness, Lisburn with Mark Getty

What are your favourite supplements?  Have you shied away from them in the past?

Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts.

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Strong and Sculpted – Episode 11

Kim:      Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Strong and Sculpted. I am just getting ready to go to the gym as usual and I wanted to show you guys my protein shake and also what I take in my water and things whenever I’m training so that you can know what you should also be doing to increase your recovery, to grow more muscle but also to make sure your muscles are not only get the food that they need but the amino acids that they need in order to stay healthy.

I drink about, I would say about 3 litres of water a day. I usually drink one of these in the morning whenever I first wake up and then I’ll probably drink another one of these whenever I’m on the step machine, on the stair mill and then I’ll drink probably another 2 to 3 of these during the day, so I would say a good 3 litres to 4 litres of water a day. So many of the world is walking around dehydrated and water is so important. Quite often when you’re hungry, you think you’re hungry, you’re not, you’re actually thirsty so very important to stay hydrated, so let’s go to the kitchen.

My office is upstairs in the house, it used to be a bedroom and then it was a yoga room when I taught yoga and now it’s my office. So I’m always throwing people in at the deep end. I’m going to introduce you to Gareth who’s the resident chef at team Sculpted Vegan, he’s like I can’t believe she’s doing this to me. Gareth is actually my brother in law, he’s married to my sister. Gareth is an amazing chef and he is actually responsible for a lot of the recipes that we create in the Sculpted Vegan, all of the high protein vegan food is Gareth’s creation here, he can’t believe how much I eat because I’m always shovelling the most incredible amount of food in my gob, the bin he calls me which is fitting. So any of the recipes that you see or enjoy, quite often Gareth has developed them or I have started them and he has finished them off but see here, thumbs up for Gareth.

So I’m just going to make a protein shake for post training. Every day post training I have two scoops of protein powder which is about 50g of protein powder with Vitargo which is a high molecular weight carbohydrate. Vitargo gets absorbed instantly by the muscles to replace muscle glycogen so whenever you have finished training, your muscles are very hungry for muscle glycogen, so any carbohydrates that you ingest directly after training won’t go into far store, they’ll just be used to replenish your muscles.

It’s quite dark in here, we live in a really old house so this is like our pantry. So the protein powders that I like to use are from the Protein Works, see I always cut the top off my protein powders because I find whenever you try to dig your hand in and get the scoop that you’re always getting yourself covered in protein powder anyway. I usually like the vanilla one for my oatmeal in the morning but I have the chocolate mint brownie post training. So I take two big scoops of protein powder and then in here, actually this is my Vitargo, so the Vitargo I use is from Bulk Powders, I always cut the top off it because it makes it easier. I usually have one scoop, one big full scoop on upper body day and I take two scoops on leg day, there’s about 300 calories per serving, so in 2 ½ scoops there’s about 300 calories. So the 3 main supplements that I take, again, a really good tip for you, chop the tops off your bag and then you’re not going to have to dig through the clasp. So the 3 aminos I take daily are Leucine, Creatine and Glutamine, I take a good big teaspoon, a heaped teaspoon because I am training at a higher intensity level than most people so I like to use a little bit more. The Creatine, I’m actually going to put into my water to take with me because I like to drink it during my workout.

Whenever I am prepping for a competition, I only ever put water in my protein shake because I don’t want the calories of milk but whenever I am …she talks to me, she goes [0:04:37 unclear], so this is a water machine we have, it changes your water, it runs through these electromagnetic plates and you can change the PH of your water right down from 2.5 which is really acidic up to 9.5 which is really alkaline. So we only drink this water, it’s ionised, electrolysed hypo hydration water, very expensive but very worth it. So I put water in my protein shake whenever I am prepping because I don’t want the extra calories from milk but whenever I’m not prepping, I will usually use some kind of plant milk but I like my protein shake to be quite thick as well so I’m just going to go over here and blend her up. If you don’t blend it, you quite often get lumps in it. People often say ugh how do you get those lumps and I’m like I don’t get lumps because I always blend mine. The blender I use is the NutriBullet, it does the job for everything.

So you know the downside of having a chef who works in your house, he makes things like vegan cookies for the kids and then whenever you’re prepping and there’s like these delicious chewy vegan chocolate chip cookies on the shelf, it’s very hard to resist them. I keep telling him not to bring things like this into the house but he keeps bringing them.

Okay so that’s the protein blended and then what I’m going to do is rinse this because I don’t want to be a dirty bitch and then I’m going to just add some of my supplements BCAA and some Creatine to my water. So I always keeps my BCAA here on the shelf, I usually keep my supplements here as well, so this is my pill mill. I keep all of my supplements in here and I sort them all out at the start of the week and that means whenever it’s time to take my supplements, I just tip out the day into my hand. This is my husbands, he has two of these, one for travelling, one here, so Ryan keeps his there, I keep mine here and it’s a pill mill, you’re like an old person but it really is the best way to keep your supplements all organised.

The best thing you will ever invest in, in your life is a funnel, I have several funnels of several sizes, then I will just add my supplements into this water and I will generally drink all of this while I’m training. So this is BCAA powder, I keep it in a biscuit tin, I keep it on the shelf because I use it all the time and I will use like that’s bigger than a teaspoon, so I will use a good I’d say it’s a good 10g, sometimes I put like 15g in, I just put a bit for extra. People ask me how much do you take and I’m kind of like, I don’t know I just whack it in, the same with the Creatine, so I will usually put about that much Creatine in and then I arrive at the gym and people go to me, oh my god what is that, this is my supplements, this is my special water. I think I’m ready for the gym. I want you to meet someone though before you go.

This is Lorraine, this is the second mother who lives in our house. Lorraine I am like the mother who sits upstairs and does all the work and Lorraine is like the mother who does all the work with the kids and looks after everybody, so this is Lorraine. People ask me how do you manage to do what you do. Okay we’ve talked enough, let’s go to the gym and train some back and leave these guys alone.

So Rory and I have just arrived at the gym slightly late but I’m always bloody late, so we’re going to go in now and train some back. Rory’s already told me he’s dreading the T-Bar Rows because yeah back is not my favourite day of the week. I think Tuesday when we train Glutes, also legs, quads is my least favourite day, Friday is my second least favourite day, it’s Glutes and Hamstrings and Wednesday is my third least favourite day because it’s back.

So Rory was asking me in the car over there about do I always do the same exercises and it’s funny because my answer is yes. I was telling him that we do the same exercises, I haven’t changed my back exercises since last April when I started training with Mark.

It’s incredible because what happens whenever you don’t change your back exercises or you don’t change any of it, we don’t change any of our exercises and what happens with that is your central nervous system develops a pattern of moment which means that, it’s like driving a car, when you first drive a car, you’re really kind of like oh nervous and where’s the accelerator and where’s the indicator and where are the lights and everything is just new to you whereas then driving a car becomes very easy, it becomes a very normal pattern of movement, you can drink while you’re driving, you can put on hand cream as I do and you eat your food while you’re driving and all of this, you don’t have to concentrate on driving anymore because it’s second nature.

So the reason we don’t change our exercises when we’re training is so they become second nature, you lose the fear of am I going to hurt my back, am I going to be able to do this right, where do I have to put my legs, where do I have to do this and your body just moves naturally into the pattern of movement which means that the only way you can go with that exercise is heavier and there are 3 ways to progressively overload the muscle.

One is through putting on more load, the second one is through more volume and the third one is through shorter rest periods. I’m not a big fan of more volume because why do 30 reps of something when you can do 6 and get the same results, so what we do is we concentrate always on more load and concentrating on more load generally means that you will build bigger muscle, you’ll rip down more muscle tissue and you’ll build bigger muscles.

So that’s why we don’t change our exercises, we keep them exactly the same so that we can add more load, build a really good pattern of movement for our central nervous system and grow really big fuck off muscles, it’s always the name of the game. So we’re going to go in and train some back now and you’re going to see the monster that is Mr Mark Getty.

So we’re starting today with wide grip lat pulldown. We usually start with wide grip lat pulldown because it’s a compound exercise which means that it works multiple muscle groups and not just single muscle groups. We usually start most things with compounds don’t we Mark?

Mark:    Yeah, yeah all the time, kind of work on the strongest exercises first that you can shift the most weight before moving onto more isolations. This here in my opinion, this wide grip tens will be the best for widening out your lats and adding that wee bit of thickness to that upper part of the back if you know what I mean.

Wide Lat Pulldown – 10 – 12 Reps

Machine Low Row – 10 – 12 Reps

Close Grip Pulldown – 10 – 12 Reps

T-Bar Row – 10 – 12 x Reps

Mark:    The main mistake people make is that they don’t get that from day one, even a row, even a pulldown, your initial thing with pulldown is you’re arching your back, you know you’re not sitting straight and going like this, you’re arching your back and your chest, that’s the angle, nothing else moves with the arms you know, it’s the same with a row, you’re arching your back so everything in the back comes from that movement and the biggest problem is people don’t lock into that movement straight away so the whole way through the exercise or the whole way through the workout is you’re off form right away. The other biggest mistake [0:11:52 unclear] …

Kim:      Do you say it’s better to go full range of motion down and then only get it to halfway?

Mark:    Yes if you look at my lats, I hold mine like that, that’s them contracted.

Kim:      Yes.

Mark:    The only way I’m going to get any further is by coming up so if you drop that bar, there’s my lats contacted whereas here, do you know what I mean?

Kim:      Yes right.

Mark:    You gather in tight and that pulls your chest in, that’s exactly the same with the back, push your chest out and it puts your back more into position.

Kim:      Yeah because we’re doing this.

Mark:    Hunching forward yeah.

Kim:      You’re not really doing anything, you’re just working your upper body but it requires personal honesty, like I want to pull my chest back so that I can pull my arms right back.

Mark:    Go on then.

Close Grip Row – 10 – 12 x Reps

Kim:      So that’s us we are done, third workout of the week over. Tomorrow we just have some shoulders and biceps to do and then Friday we have some Glutes and Hamstrings to do. How did you find that today Rory?

Rory:     It was good, I’ve learned a lot about training my back, trying to get my form a bit better.

Kim:      I’m the form police you see, I’m terrible to work out with, I’m like do this and do that and do this and Rory’s like dear god, this woman is like a Sergeant Major. So anyway, thanks so much for watching, I hope you guys enjoy this episode. If you have any questions or comments please leave them under this video as usual and we will see you in the next episode of Strong and Sculpted, take care. Bye from me and bye from …

Rory:     Me.

Kim:      And bye from.

Mark:    Me.

Kim:      See you later guys, bye.

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