Can Vegetarians Build Muscle?

One of Berardi's vegan meals.

I blogged a couple of weeks about Dr. John Berardi's experiment with a plant-based diet for building muscle. Now the folks over at T-Nation have become interested, as well, and have interviewed him about his project. Good reading.

I'm still undecided about following this course myself, but I am hoping Berardi has a positive outcome to help push me toward a plant-based diet.

On the humor side of things: "I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals. I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants." ~ A. Whitney Brown.

Can Vegetarians Build Muscle?
by Chris Shugart

The call came in at 2 a.m.

"Hello," I answered, still half-asleep.

"We have a code red," the voice on the other end of the line said.

"Who?"

"Dr. John Berardi."

"But that's impossible," I said. "Berardi is one of us. He eats, like, a whole cow a week. Chickens fall over dead at the sound of his name. Fish mommies and fish daddies tell their fishy kids stories about Berardi to scare them into behaving. He's their boogeyman."

"No mistake," the voice said. "Berardi has gone ... vegetarian."

I hung up the phone, threw on some clothes, and grabbed my passport. Something had to be done. I couldn't let one of our own go veghead. I had to fly to Canada and organize an intervention for my friend John ... and maybe a barbecue, or two.

Five hours later, I landed in Toronto. That's when I learned what was really going on.

Testosterone Muscle: John, what the heck are you doing, and why the heck are you doing it?

John Berardi: I've always been interested in the vegetarian thing, simply because of all the debate. I leaned toward the anti-vegetarian stance early in my career.

As an athlete and a weight lifter, I grew up around guys who liked to eat meat. It's beyond scientific question anymore. It's beyond any sort of reasonable debate. It's almost religious. Eat meat and you're good. Don't eat meat and you're an idiot.

The fascinating thing is that vegetarians and vegans take the exact same approach, just from the other side.

TM: So what gave you the idea to try it out on yourself?

JB: I was approached by a vegan in the gym who was having trouble gaining muscle. He was a big fan of this site and my work here, even said he'd read all my articles. My first response was, "If you've read all my articles, why are you a vegan? They all recommend meat!"

The guy turned out to be a little grainophobic, and as a vegan you need to include a lot of grains. There was no chance he was going to build any muscle. He just wasn't eating enough calories. So I helped him tweak his diet plan.

When I was done, I thought, this actually doesn't look bad. The food looked appetizing, and it looked like a fun way to eat, at least for a short period of time. I mentioned to my friends that I was considering trying it, and of course their response was, "Dude, you just can't build muscle on a vegetarian diet. It's impossible! In fact, you'll lose muscle!"

Well, that became a challenge. I'm the eternal self-experimenter. I love trying out nutritional theories on myself. So I decided to put this to a test. Let's see if I can eat a nearly vegan diet and build muscle while doing it.

TM: Wait, your goal is actually to build muscle on a vegetarian diet?

JB: Absolutely. The last couple of years haven't been about increasing my muscle mass. I'm in my mid-30s now, I'm focusing on my company, and I'm actually really happy with how my body looks. I've basically been in a maintenance phase. So now I'm thinking, what the heck, why not try to build some muscle, and try to do it like a vegan?

TM: What's your goal?

JB: Gain about 10 pounds of lean mass over the course of the next month or so. Maybe I'll take this out to two months. If it goes horribly wrong and I lose five pounds of muscle and gain 10 pounds of fat, then I'll just quit.

Berardi before his plant-based diet: 179.6 pounds, 5.5 percent body fat

TM: We've been saying "vegetarian" and "vegan" here, but I know you don't actually like those terms. Why?

JB: I use "vegetarian" because people know what that means, but I like "plant-based" better. Bodybuilders especially have this immediate, visceral reaction to the word "vegetarian." Maybe it's because the vegetarians they've met were all militant and called them "animal killers" or something.

There's often this moral, emotional, or philosophical attachment to not eating meat. I really don't have any of those issues right now. I'm doing this for the humans, not the animals!

Also, "vegetarianism" can mean eating a whole bunch of crappy, processed foods, just not eating meat. I've seen vegetarians eating boxed cereals, foods with processed chemicals, TV dinners. Their diets were defined by the absence of meat, not by what was included.

TM: Great point. So what is included? Is it all plant-based, or is there some animal food involved?

JB: I'm going to have three eggs in the morning and I'm including some honey, which I've recently learned is a no-no for vegans. I'm also taking a digestive enzyme supplement that contains about 15 milligrams of ox bile, so technically that's not vegan-compliant. The rest is completely vegan, so I guess that technically makes me a pretend lacto-ovo vegetarian.

TM: Is meat really bad to begin with? Are the vegetarians on to something, or are they just weird smelly dudes in hemp sneakers?

JB: I see good arguments on both sides. There's no question that eating the right kind of meat in the right amount fits into an overall healthy diet. You're getting high protein, high B vitamins, and important vitamins and minerals that you really can't get in any other way unless you supplement. Health and muscle-building are severely compromised if any of these nutrients are missing. That's the argument for meat.

But there's also a relationship between eating meat and cancer risks.

TM: I just heard the state of Texas scream.

JB: It's not just speculation. Over 100 published epidemiological studies show a link between eating meat and cancer.

TM: But what's the link? Can we buffer the risk?

JB: Well, in large part, the link exists because meat eaters tend to eat less of other healthy things. So their diets tend to be very high in calories, high in saturated fat, low in fiber, low in antioxidants, and low in vitamins and minerals.

The solution isn't to not eat meat. It's to balance out the meat with other healthy foods.

TM: This reminds me of your "Defeating Dietary Displacement" articles. The problem is that meat eaters are displacing things like leafy greens.

JB: That's exactly it. But it's not the only concern.

There's some pretty compelling evidence that potentially carcinogenic [cancer-causing] compounds are introduced into our bodies when we eat cooked meat. The most problematic seem to be processed meats — lunch meat, canned meats, jerkies — and heavily grilled or charred meat.

But again, saying we shouldn't eat meat because of this is a mistake. These risks can be managed.

Go read the rest of the interview (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

Tags: Can Vegetarians Build Muscle?, plant-based, food, nutrition, diet, weight training, fitness, health, Chris Shugart, John Berardi, T-Nation