Nutrition for Vegan cyclists

I’ll be right up front here I’m not a vegan. I like my red meat, eggs, butter, and dairy too much and know of their nutritional value for driving recovery and building performance.

That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate why athletes are starting to warm to a Vegan lifestyle choice, or understand what it takes to make sure your Vegan diet is healthy to support your sport.

One things for sure it’s very trendy at the moment. This could be a good thing for athletes seeking a healthier lifestyle choice, especially if previously they were not so health conscious.

Like every diet, you have to work at it. But when you chose to become Vegan you REALLY have to work at it if you’re serious about being a healthy athlete, drive recovery and performance.

As an experienced Triathlon and Cycling coach advising athletes on their nutrition and MNU student studying to be a Certified Nutritionist, I think I’ve got the credentials to point you in the right direction of what’s important to consider when going Vegan.

So let’s get started. 

Calories and Macronutrients: 

As an athlete, we need the energy to drive performance and recovery. Another aspect to consider is your power to weight ratios.

Your Calorie intake dictates both of these. Go over your Calorie targets, and you’ll struggle to get to your desired race weight. Go too hard under, and you’ll fight to drive any performance at all, and your recovery will be terrible.

Now, some of you may have been told that Calories don’t matter, Macronutrients do! 

Let me clear this up. 

When it comes to driving weight loss Calories are THE only thing that matter. I’d advise you to check out the ISSN Stand on Diets and Body Composition, so that sits firmly in your mind. 

When it comes to optimal body composition what you eat in terms of macronutrients can have a positive or negative affect. (Talking about that is for another time perhaps)

The Macro’s you eat in terms of protein, fat, and carbohydrate are the nutrients in food that load the gun for fuelling performance in training and driving recovery.

Why talk about Calories I thought this was about being Vegan?

As a long distance coach, I’ve seen way too many athletes eat a very low-calorie diet, and it’s harming their health and performance.

Striving for ever lower body fat levels might be their aim, but when you’re low on Calories it also means you’re low on health-giving nutrition.

From my experience, if you want to drive fat loss and high performance, fat loss needs to be done over time working on a sensible deficit. That way you can eat plenty of healthful whole foods with good vitamin and mineral content, and fund energy levels while moving toward your desired body weight.

Calories are important for performance and health!

Fiber and Pre Biotic Fiber:

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Surely Vegans hit the recommended daily intake of 30g a day all day long. If they’re eating a broad range of vegies, grains, beans, and pulses you’d be right but given the fact some Vegans eat a lot of processed rubbish maybe, not so much.

So it’s worth highlighting this now. Hitting your daily intake of 30g per day is essential for digestive and bowel health.

Be mindful that you don’t fall into the trap of buying lots of Vegan manufactured foods, high in Calories low in nutritional value and miss out actually being the whole food healthy Vegan you probably set out to be.

Protein:

Protein is in EVERYTHING at the moment. But don’t worry I’m not jumping on the bandwagon because it’s trendy. 

For ALL athletes it’s a vital Macronutrient not just to drive recovery and build lean muscle but to support immunity, build strong bones, connective tissue and increase aerobic enzymes which increases mitochondrial capacity – AKA the powerhouses of your performance.

The problem is Vegans can struggle to get enough total proteins if they’re NOT combining and eating a broad range of foods to get all the branch chain and essential amino acids to make a complete protein. 

Even if they are hitting the Protein RNI of 0.8g/kg (The Recommended Nutrient Intake = minimum amount to avoid deficiency) I think it’s way too low for a hard training, long-distance athlete for the reasons mentioned previously.

Given the current evidence from Philips et al. (2016) I think we should be aiming closer 1.6g/kg to 2.5g/kg per day to drive health and recovery. 

The higher end of which older athletes should aim for because of Sarcopenia which is now regarded by Breen and Phillips et al. (2011) as protein resistance within the muscle which starts to develop age 30+ (Yes 30 and up).

Being mindful of this total protein target is essential but its only part of the story.

To drive maximal muscle protein synthesis, Vegan athletes need to eat all the essential amino acids and a minimum of 2 – 3g of the essential amino acid Leucine.

That’s kind of hard to do if you’re not eating and combining a broad range of whole foods high in protein with a good Leucine content over the day, every day so it could be wise to supplement with Pea and Rice protein fortified with Leucine at least a couple of times a day.

Let’s quickly address the myth that protein is bad for your kidneys.

It’s NOT! That’s been shown in this Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Iron:

Iron deficiency can impact training performance because it decreases red blood cells or haemoglobin leading to tiredness and fatigue, reduced endurance capacity, muscle weakness and shortness of breath.

The fly in the ointment for Vegans even if they’re eating plenty of non-haem iron-rich foods such as whole grains and legumes is its insufficient absorption from these foods.

This can be impacted if Vegans are partial to coffee and tea as the polyphenol tannins reduce iron absorption further. 

Supplementing or eating foods fortified with Iron and eating plenty of vitamin C rich foods to aid uptake of iron would be a prudent measure especially for females. 

The current RNI is 8.7mg per day for men and 14.8mg per day for women.

Vitamin B12:

As a non-meat and dairy eater, it’s hard for Vegans to get Vitamin B12 into their diet. It’s essential for energy creation, production of DNA, red blood cell, neurological and nerve health.

Deficiency can cause fatigue, feelings of faintness, breathlessness, and headaches.

To avoid deficiency Vegans should regularly consume fortified B-12 foods such as fortified cereals, non-dairy milk such as oat milk, and Marmite or take a B-12 supplement because plant foods don’t contain enough active B-12. 

The RNI for men and women is 1.5ug per day – Sadly not as much Marmite as you’d expect.

Iodine:

Iodine is a trace element and is an essential component of thyroid hormones T3, T4 that regulate metabolic activity, protein synthesis and enzyme activity.

Low or high Iodine intake can affect Thyroid function negatively so it is important to be aware that you are not over or under your targets. 

Iodine can be found in cod, tuna, dairy yogurt, dairy milk, egg and dairy cheese which clearly is problematic for Vegans.

It can also be found in fruit, potatoes, bread, and seaweed but be careful as seaweed can deliver a potent dose.

The problem with plant sources of iodine is down to the iodine soil content it’s grown in and how its farmed.

That alone flags up how many calories of food you need eat to hit your RDI targets and, can you be sure you are actually hitting them?

Supplementing is a sound recommendation as long as you take into account what I’ve talked about above.

RDI is 150 mcg daily for adult’s

Calcium:

Calcium is necessary for blood clotting, nerve transmission, muscle stimulation, bone health, and vitamin D metabolism.

Getting enough calcium is problematic for vegans. Whole foods that contain calcium are hard to get an adequate amount of calcium required to support health because of their poor bioavailability through digestion. 

That’s does not mean it’s impossible, but it would be advisable to make up your diet from a combination of whole foods such as Broccoli, Boc Choy and Kale with calcium-fortified foods such as Tofu, Soy and Nut Milk which provide easily absorbable forms.

The RNI for Calcium is 700mg per day for men and women. 

Myth Buster:

Protein weakens the bones! Nope, in-fact protein and calcium work mutually to improve calcium retention and improve bone metabolism.

Vitamin D3 (Cholecalciferol):

Vitamin D plays an essential role in immune health, muscle strength, skeletal muscle function, calcium, and bone metabolism.

For Vegans, Vitamin D levels depend on sunlight exposure just like every other athlete, but it’s hard for Vegans to get an adequate intake from foods as they don’t eat fish, beef, cheese or eggs.

During the winter months in the UK, you can imagine how low these levels can get which has negative ramifications for athlete’s performance and health.

You could surmise that during the winter months when Vitamin D levels are low-stress fractures from running could get underway.

Luckily there are plenty of fortified foods and Vegan-friendly Vitamin D3 supplements to help get athletes back to normal levels.

The RNI for Vitamin D is 10ug per day or 400IUs per day for men and women.

Omega 3’s, 6’s, ALA, DHA and EPA:

Omega fats are a family of polyunsaturated fats. 

Omega 3’s and 6’s are essential fats because the body can’t make them by itself. EPA and DHA are conditionally essential although current thinking is that DHA is now seen as essential 

EPA and DHA:

EPA and DHA come mainly from marine foods such as salmon, sardines and herring hence the name Marine Omega 3’s.

ALA:

ALA alpha-Linolenic acid Omega 3’s are found in vegetable oils, flax seed, flax seed oils and grass fed animals.

LA:

Linoleic acid Omega 6’s are found in nuts, seeds, hemp seed and flax seed

Omega 3 is the poster boy of good fats.

It’s been shown to lower blood serum triglycerides, ease inflammation, improve weight loss, testosterone in males, increase mitochondrial health in older athletes and suppress abnormal heart erythema’s.

An impressive “Nutraceutical” that clearly plays an important role for overall health and performance.

It’s why current thinking is to focus on Omega 3 intake and not a 3 – 6 ratio which remains scientifically unknow.

Marine Omega 3’s EPA and DHA are the most bioavailable through digestion. Unfortunately, Vegans and non-oily fish eaters for that matter consume less omega 3s in their diets and, ALA Omega 3’s found in vegetable oils, nuts, walnuts, flax seeds, flax oils and leafy vegetables are used primarily by the body for fuel making the conversion into DHA and EPA from these foods limited if eaten sparsely.

Non oily fish eaters will find it hard to hit the daily recommended Omega 3 intake without supplementation.

As a Vegan or Vegetarian it would be wise to combine whole food sources of ALA Omega 3’s with a Microalgae supplement 1- 2g per day or 2 – 4 capsules in most commercial supplements.

Current Recommendations 

Omega 3, EPA and DHA at 500mlg per day for individuals without underlying overt CV disease and at least 800 to 1000mlg per day for individuals with known CV disease 

Healthy fat recommendations should sit at between 0.5g -1.2g/kg of body weight with 0.5g being the lower end when running on a long term caloric deficit.

It would be prudent to eat a variety of foods so you get a broad range polyunsaturated, monounsaturated and saturated fats from natural sources.

Creatine: 

I wasn’t sure whether to talk about this, but I recommend it to most of my athletes to improve performance, so I decided to include Creatine into this list.

It’s found in everything that Vegans don’t eat and its muscle stores are reduced with training, so it’s prudent to replace it using a Creatine Monohydrate supplement.

I believe it’s an important ergogenic aid to drive high-end performance in threshold work, maximal muscle contraction in strength work and has been shown to increase lean mass and cognitive function.

I recommend that you supplement daily with 5g of Creatine Monohydrate.

Wrapping up:

Becoming a Vegan may well be very popular with athletes at the moment. The diet, however, isn’t that easy to get all the nutrition needed to drive performance and health.

Partly because the foods in the diet are limited in providing all the broad range of nutrients required and it’s hard to liberate their bioavailability through digestion. 

Now I’m not saying it’s impossible. 

If you’re 100% invested in learning what foods you need to prepare and eat to stay on top of your RDI of vitamins and minerals, fiber and prebiotic fiber, keep an eye on your total protein and Calorie intake it can be done, and it can be done well.

But as I said at the start.

If you don’t work at it, being Vegan could be a very bad choice for health and your performance.

All my best, Simon 

Performance & Nutrition Director
2 X Winner of Gym Based PT, and founder of VPCC