nutritional and supplementary considerations

I make sure I eat plenty of protein while I tramp, and when I get back. That said in general I eat a reasonable amount of protein as I exercise daily. Wouldnt say I have issues with muscle loss, not that I have all that much to begin with (scrawny build hehee), and tramps in general dont leave me much sorer than my usual run of exercise. Does depend what weight is carried etc etc, and Im sure on longer tramps than I tend to have time for, muscle degradation could possibly be an issue, but I cant say for sure, not having done enough longer stuff to have experienced it.

I've been training 5/6 days a week on the road bike for a couple of events at the end of the year and my already skinny legs are now approaching chicken proportions. I too keep an eye on my protein intake and try to eat at least 125g a day - hard to do when tramping which is why I'll usually take a protein powder and some form of dried meat on longer tramps.

its a myth that vegans are going to be deficient in protein, a bit of planning and you can easily meet your protein demands one part legumes to five parts rice will give you a meal balanced in amino acids and you can eat enough volume to meet your protein demands.. lentils are among the fastest cooking legumes with a good protein content. you also need proteins to think properly, and to signal the muscles to contract, neurotransmitters are made up of proteins. also fat is needed to repair tissue damage, theres a lot of fat in cell wall membranes. and you cant digest food properly without enough fat. debateable how much but i'd argue nothing less than ten percent of your calorie intake from fat and i prefer twenty to thirty percent, i know i function better on it, i avoid most vegetable fat, commercially processed vegetable fat is damaged by heat and light in the processing and latest research actually implicates it with starting out the whole process of clogging of the arteries but thats a whole different topic. coconut fat is extremely stable. saturated fat may not be as mad as the media have been making out as well. personally i eat a lot of my fat as saturated fat, my blood pressure and cholesterol is all extremely good. your ell walls are full of saturated fat, so is your brain. i dont eat any red meat, dont eat enough of any other animal products for my protein needs so i make up the rest in legumes. i dont take any dairy or fish on tramps. although i find i prefer to eat a higher volume of legumes to rice, i find i function better on it

Your mountaineers & distance runners are generally lanky/wirey. Excess muscle is excess weight. If you're trying to muscle-up, then you'd be aiming for at least 2.2g of protein per kg bodyweight per day. Then you'd have to adjust your exercise programme to influence hypertrophy. Strength training is different. Endurance is different again. Bio-availability of lycopene increases if you process the tomatoes & consume with a little fat. End of tramp double-meat hawaiian burger as health food ?.

"Matthew, chime in and tell us you're a muscle-bound adonis even though you're a vegan!" Ha! I wasn't one of those before I was a vegan either. My physique is largely a result of being a parent with a desk job and and not enough time to exercise. Sure, you have to make time, but time with my daughter comes first (which often means very slow walks). I have found since switching to veganism about 4 years ago I did lose some weight, I guess due to cutting out dairy. I have also had low B12, but that's it. I do eat a lot of beans -- every day. I should probably eat more greens actually.

i've read a lot of text books on nutrition. you dont need an especially high protein diet to develop a muscular physique. your body can't process much more than 150 to 200gm of protein a day for use in muscle.. a lot of body builders go into overkill feeding up on several hundreds of grams of protein a day. but a lot of that protein will be broken down and used as energy or excreted because the body cant store it or use it especially if its ingested in large volumes in big meals.. they just end up with their livers and kidneys having to deal with an acidic overload of protein, its a slow process digesting protein, and loading up on too much whey protein isnt necessarily the answer, that is absorbed quickler but to much can overload your liver and kidneys, i used to try it, the isolate form was the fastest absorbed but it made me sick and i couldnt even stand recommended doses. another issue with building more muscle tissue, is protein doesnt get laid down in muscle unless you have adequate blood sugar levels. so low using low carb diets to develop lean tissue are a myth, if you dont have enough stored body sugar your boy has to use the slower and inefficient method of converting protein to blood sugar, because fat cannot be converted to sugar in the body.

yeah, legumes are good unless one is following the auto-immune paleo protocol.

i wont go into detail on paleo, but a lot of paleo diets are based on falacies about the makeup of early human diets. they were eating a lot more carbs than some people are willing to believe... they had high energy demands and carbs worked well for quick digesting energy.

The body uses protein best while you're asleep. I used to take tins of tuna to up the protein count on my Back Country dinners. Then I found biltong, which is far better protein for weight. But I've been doing the maths on pork scratchings lately and I think they might take the cake. Quantity per serve Quantity per 100g Energy (kJ) 1171.5 2343 Fat - Total (g) 16.8 33.6 Saturated (g) 6.3 12.6 Protein (g) 32.35 64.7 Moisture (g) 0.04 0.08 Ash (g) 1.7 3.4 Carbohydrate (g) 0.05 0.1 Sugars (g) 0.25 0.5 Sodium (mg) 670 1340 Thinking of replacing my go-to trail snack (snickers) with these too.