The Vegetarian Sports Nutrition Guide: Peak Performance for Everyone from Beginners to Gold Medalists

PART ONE

Food as Fuel

1

The Plant-Based Sports Engine

At age 64, Ruth Heidrich should be an inspiration to us all. After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1982, Ruth participated in a research project with Dr. John McDougall, a pioneer in the use of nutrition as medicine, and transformed her diet and exercise program. Ever since, Ruth has found no challenges with being a vegan, completely animal-free. In fact, she says it gives her more endurance and speedier recoveries from the six ironmans and over 700 road races, triathlons, and marathons she has completed.

In 1997 alone, Ruth completed 63 races, including the Senior Olympics. She’s run the Great Wall of China, the Ironman New Zealand and the Ironman Japan (placing first in her age group), the Moscow Marathon, and other races all over the world. In her spare time at home in Hawaii, she hosts her own radio show, Nutrition and You, and has written two books, A Race for Life: From Cancer to Ironman and The Race for Life Cookbook. She has also given over one hundred talks every year since 1988.

Ruth takes no medications, alcohol, or even supplements. Her daily diet includes oatmeal, greens, Ruth’s Ironwoman Pho (Vietnamese soup, which is her favorite one-pot meal; see page 149 for the recipe), brown rice, vegetables, baked potatoes, carrots, popcorn, and apples. Her favorite prerace meal is a special blend of brown rice, kale, banana, and blackstrap molasses (see page 37). Her favorite snacks include air-popped popcorn, sweet potatoes, apples, and carrot sticks.

I chose Ruth as the first vegetarian athlete to spotlight in The Vegetarian Sports Nutrition Guide because she inspires even the best athletes in the world and anyone else with an appreciation for the energy one needs to fight and overcome disease, let alone begin an admirable sports career at the age of 41. To me, Ruth represents the ultimate plant-based sports machine.

So, how does Ruth make the best use of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins in her vegan diet? How does she convert the energy from food to fuel her body for training, sport, and life? How does her vegan, plant-based eating program enhance her body’s ability to compete at peak performance and recover quickly for everyday tasks?

Let’s begin to tackle these questions by learning how the body uses and translates the nutrients from food to energy.

Warmup Session

Get ready for a condensed version of Energy Metabolism 101. I have tried to simplify some complicated terminology, but like cars, some of the words are not convertible. After you read this section, you’ll have a better appreciation for the impact and necessity of a plant-based diet for peak sport performance.

Picture your body in continuous motion—from bed to shower, work or school to sport, meals to reading, TV to sleep. To support these activities, the body is in constant need of energy, or calories. In addition to fueling the muscles to contract and relax for exercise, calories are used for

digestion, absorption, and assimilation of food

glands such as the pancreas and thyroid to secrete hormones like insulin and thyroxin, which help your body to function at rest and during exercise

proper electrochemical messages from the brain to pass through nerves and stimulate muscles to contract and relax

the synthesis of new compounds, such as protein for building larger muscle tissue through strength training

Though calories are found in carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, the body cannot unlock energy directly from these nutrients. Instead, the immediate source of energy is a chemical found in all cells, adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP is composed of a molecule of adenine and the sugar molecule ribose bonded with three phosphates, each consisting of phosphorus and oxygen atoms. When the outermost bond to the last phosphate is broken, it releases a tremendous amount of energy, so much energy that Johns Hopkins University researchers call ATP one of the tiniest and most powerful motors ever identified.

ATP energy enables an athlete like Mark McGwire to hit his next home run, Wayne Gretzky to hit his last winning hockey goal, and Lance Armstrong to sprint for the finish of his Tour de France victory.

Only three ounces of ATP can be stored in the body at one time, which allows only a very short period of 0 to 4 seconds of high-intensity exercise. Fortunately, the supply of ATP can be rebuilt.

The ATP Energy Roadmap

Your body has two major energy systems that stimulate the transformation of ATP to fuel exercise: anaerobic and aerobic metabolism.

System 1a: The Power System

Primary fuel: high-energy phosphate bonds of ATP and creatine phosphate (CP)

Examples of sports fueled: heavy weightlifting, field events in track and field, and vaulting in gymnastics

The power system is the first one to kick in when energy is needed immediately. It feeds off ATP and creatine phosphate (CP), which supplies the backup phosphate needed for ATP to release its energy. CP has five times more energy than ATP and is on call 24 hours, but it is also in short supply. The body’s specialized use of CP is the reason some athletes take and may benefit from creatine supplements to juice up these limited energy stores. Several athletes profiled in this book use creatine as a sports supplement. (see chapter 8 for information on creatine supplementation for short-term power exercise.)

The ATP-CP team is why we can produce a tremendous burst of strength or speed—in football, tennis, track and field, golf, volleyball, karate, baseball, weightlifting, you name it—without taking a breath. In this anaerobic environment, and as activity continues for several seconds, carbohydrates are the only nutrient that can provide energy for the formation of ATP through glycolysis. Hence, high-intensity exercise relies on carbohydrates for energy.

System 1b: The Speed System—Anaerobic Glycolysis

Primary fuel: glucose (sugar)

Examples of sports fueled: running 200-800 meters, swimming 50-100 meters

If the demand for energy persists longer than a few seconds to a minute, ATP and CP stores become depleted. With specific enzymes, though, glucose in muscles can break down to another compound called pyruvic acid to produce new molecules of ATP.

Even so, this energy system, which is anaerobic because it doesn’t require oxygen, supplies only a small amount of ATP. Large amounts of ATP needed to sustain a prolonged effort can only be generated by providing the muscle with more nutrients and oxygen. That’s where the body’s next energy system kicks in.

System 2: The Endurance System—Aerobic Metabolism

Primary fuels: carbohydrates, fats, and protein

Examples of sports fueled: marathons, long-distance swims, century bike rides, ironman triathlons, and other continuous events such as cross-country skiing

Although most energy is derived from anaerobic metabolism at the initiation of exercise, as activity continues the proportion of energy derived from aerobic metabolism increases. In fact, with oxygen, about 50 times more ATP can be made from stored muscle glycogen than with the two anaerobic systems combined.

Aerobic metabolism works by using hydrogen donated from fats and protein as well as acetyl Co-A, which is converted from pyruvic acid. Acetyl Co-A has a passport to the cell’s powerhouse—the mitochondria, where more than 90% of ATP is produced. In this system, two vitamin B-containing enzymes called flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) and nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide (NAD) are required to direct the production of ATP This process is also known as the Krebs cycle, named after the chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1953 for this discovery.

Knowing that ATP is the primary source of muscle energy can and should impact how you exercise and eat. This is true whether your goal is to improve your general fitness or reach a new competitive level. The key is improving your ability to generate ATP.

Muscle Sense

Now that you understand how energy is generated for your power, strength, and endurance, you can find out how your muscles play a role in how you use ATP energy.

Genes largely determine muscles. We all have a genetic code for specific types and distribution of muscle fiber in all parts of our bodies. These individual muscle differences are responsible for producing elite marathon runners, sprinters, and gymnasts.

There are two types of muscle fibers:

White or fast-twitch fiber. This class of muscle cells is best able to contract anaerobically. These so-called sprinter’s muscles work twice as fast as slow-twitch fibers, depend almost entirely on anaerobic fuel for energy, and work great for short-term sprints and all-out efforts. Fast-twitch fibers, when exercised, will increase in size and in their ability to generate ATP. The overall result will be a bigger and stronger muscle. You know you have predominately these types of muscles if your specialty is power, strength, and speed.

Red or slow-twitch fiber. These fibers are best able to provide ATP from oxygen and nutrients; in other words, to contract aerobically. The best endurance athletes in the world have these marathon muscles. People with well-developed slow-twitch fibers are more energy-efficient and can train long hours because their muscles have more mitochondria (the metabolic portion of the cell) with more oxygen and enzymes for aerobic metabolism. Slow-twitch fibers, when exercised, will increase their capacity to produce ATP without increasing in size. Many of the athletes in this book, such as Ruth, Dave, Ben, Jane, Gary, Jonathan, and myself, are slow-twitchers.

Think of your body as having an ice cream parlor of muscle flavors. Although the flavors never change, they can be mixed to create new ones. In other words, even though we are born with a specific muscle fiber code, training can improve the flavor of muscles we possess.

The chart on page 15 shows the energy systems used for a variety of activities. You can cross-train with other sports or activities to improve your weaker energy system and muscle groups for your favorite sport. For instance, if you are great at sprint sports, or the Power and Speed system, and want to improve your aerobic system, endurance training can increase the amount of blood the heart pumps every minute to supply more oxygen to exercising muscle, which allows you to use more aerobic fuel or food energy, and can increase the mitochondria content in muscle, which increases the quantity of enzymes to use more food fuel, especially fat.

Fueling the Machine

Exercise and training improve the efficiency of the body’s energy systems. However, you still need to fuel the machine.

As research and the athletes in this book demonstrate, a vegetarian diet can be the body’s best fuel—with ideal proportions of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and many of the vitamins and minerals necessary for sports and daily fitness activities. No, it’s not as easy as swearing off meat and eating only vegetables. Peak performance requires effort and knowledge, no matter what the endeavor. For vegetarian athletes that means ensuring an intake of nutrient-dense plant-based foods critical to sports performance.

Caloric Needs of Vegetarians

There has been little information published regarding the actual dietary intake and eating behaviors of athletes. One study in 1984 examined the wide range of caloric intakes of athletes. In general, the size of the athlete and demands of his or her sport influenced the number of calories consumed each day. In this study, female dancers consumed as little as 900 calories per day and football players consumed the highest amount (11,000 per day).

Major Sports and Their Predominant Energy Systems

If you excel in power sports that are 50% or more fueled by ATP and CP, such as

you can benefit from cross-training with sports that are 50% or more fueled by anaerobic glycolysis, such as

or you can train the endurance system with sports that are 50% or more fueled by the aerobic system, such as

Endurance athletes can also benefit by training the power and speed systems for strength and faster times for running, swimming, cycling, skiing, and rowing.

* These sports are a blend of the aerobic and anaerobic systems, depending on duration

Not surprisingly, the energy needs of vegetarian athletes also vary according to the athlete’s body size, weight, and composition, as well as gender, sport, and training program. (In chapter 2 you will learn how these factors and exercise increase the amount of calories you use daily.) In a recent study, caloric intake of vegetarian athletes was shown to be about 11% higher than in meat-eating athletes. Some explanations may be increased appetites of low-fat, high-carbohydrate vegetarian eaters; the increased metabolic efficiency of vegetarian athletes; or perhaps that vegetarians can just eat more than other athletes. As an added benefit, while we’re eating more nutritious food, we’re getting more vitamins, minerals, and other substances the body needs for peak sports performance.

According to the one-day dietary analysis of the spotlight athletes profiled in this book, they consumed between 1,100 and 5,028 calories per day and have no difficulty in meeting energy and other nutrient needs except when traveling (more on this in chapter 10).

Carbohydrates

The plant-based, high-carbohydrate diet has special advantages for endurance athletes. For years, solid research has shown the benefits of high-carbohydrate diets for sports performance as well as the detriments of low-carbohydrate diets. High-carbohydrate diets maximize muscle and liver glycogen stores, optimize performance during prolonged moderate exercise intensity, and improve intermittent, short-duration, and high-intensity exercise (see chapter 3).

Carbohydrates benefit sport performance because

Liver and muscle glycogen are the predominant fuels for continuous running, swimming, and cycling and extended, mixed anaerobic/aerobic sports such as soccer, basketball, and repeated interval running.

Exhaustion during prolonged hard exercise is related to low muscle glycogen stores.

Low carbohydrate stores prevent maintenance of high-energy output. Because fat cannot fuel high-intensity exercise, a high-carbohydrate diet is essential for System 1 a- and 1 b-level (power system and anaerobic glycolysis) sprint sports.

Muscle glycogen stores fluctuate and deplete rapidly during strenuous training. No matter what your diet, a two-hour workout can easily use up valuable fuels. However, a high-carbohydrate, plant-based diet can help to postpone depletion. Training at 60 to 80% of your VO2 maximum aerobic capacity (see box below) will lead to depletion after 100 to 120 minutes. Exercise at 80 to 95% VO2max will lead to depletion even sooner. A consistent plant-based, high-carbohydrate diet of 70% of total calories or 8 to 10 grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight is guaranteed to make a difference for daily endurance-trained