There has been a lot of buzz surrounding going all-in vegan aka plant-based. A popular Netflix doc was made showing how athletes reported greater endurance, performance and so forth when switching over to a plant-based diet.
And this totally makes sense.
However, this led non-athletes to believe that they should copy the eating pattern of athletes, because “obviously“ this was showing to be the ideal way to eat.
Now this totally does not make sense.
Athletes typically have an energy demand of around 8000-10000 calories daily and require 1-1.5g of protein pr. kg. bodyweight. An average Joe might have an energy demand of around 2000-3000 calories daily and still require 1-1.5g of protein for optimal appetite control, bone health and muscle growth.
The athlete is thus needing to eat 3-5 x as many calories to meet their energy demand, yet their protein demand is about the same as your average Joe. This means the athlete is going to benefit from eating more plant-based food because they can easily reach their protein requirements from plants alone due to the high volume they are taking in daily.
Now if you downsize that food to about a quarter which meets the energy demand for the average Joe, you’re going to have great difficulty meeting your protein needs. And this will affect your overall health negatively: often weightloss resistance, cravings, muscle-loss, bone-loss and sagging skin even.
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