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Originally Posted by thebigfert
Its ironic that you claim that soy will increase your levels of estrogen, while you yourself admit you get a lot of your protein from dairy based products... Soy does contain phytoestrogens, but these do not effect the actual estrogen levels in your body and certainly do not decrease testosterone. Dairy cows on the other hand are pumped full of estrogen, so that they can start producing milk earlier, which in turn ends up in dairy products. This is why over the last couple of generations girls are starting to mature earlier and earlier than they ever have, among other problems... so if you're actually, concerned about your testosterone/estrogen balance, you are much better off getting rid of dairy than soy.
Also, on the whole protein consumption argument. Even for an extremely active athlete 300 grams seems a bit excessive. Your body can only process about 30-40 grams every 3-4 hours anyway, and everything beyond that is stored as body fat or burned away as energy. You could probably easily get by with half of what you are taking in, and experience no loss of muscle (and you will lose body fat, provided you don't replace the protein with other foods). I'm currently sitting at about 215 lbs. right now at about 7-8% bodyfat and am lifting more than a lot of the dudes that are much bigger than I am at the gym, and I get by just fine on about 100-130 grams a day... Everyone is different, of course, but most people have had more protein equals more muscle driven into their heads repeatedly, and at a certain point this just isn't true. I could get into the effects of extreme levels of protein on your liver, kidenys, bones, etc, but I'll digress for now...
Because... the whole point of the movie, from what I've heard, isn't about weight loss or body composition, but on total health... People who consume little to no meat live longer, don't get heart disease, have lower cancer rates, and are just generally more healthy... A very small part of this probably has something to do with vegetarians and vegans having far, far less cases of obesity than meat eaters, but it is mostly because the human body isn't built to process the large amounts of meat that people try to cram into our bodies. For example, true carnivores have mechanisms in their bodies to deal with the high amounts of cholesterol in a meat based diet. Humans, however, weren't designed to eat a mostly plant based diet, so when we consume high amounts of cholesterol, it builds up in our arteries, and the complications go on from there...
What you want to put in your body, is your own choice, but to say that not eating meat is unhealthy is simply ignoring study after study that says the exact opposite is true.
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On the first part, I have read a lot of studies that say too much soy does increase estrogen levels. In fact I read a long one recently that advocated for soy, but still admitted that it does raise estrogen levels slightly. And I have read a lot about isolated whey and casein and have never read any research stating they raise estrogen levels (but if you have some, I would be interested in reading).
For the second paragraph, you are probably right that I don't need 300 grams a day (I actually average 240-300, but I had read a lot that stating it is good to take in 1 gram per pound of body weight, so I try for that and have had excellent results. Additionally, doing that keeps me content with my diet and helps me feel full throughout the day. If some of it is converted to energy then that is fine. And it's certainly not stored as fat. Before my bulking phase I had lost 35 pounds while consuming that amount of protein. But like you said, everyone is different. I didn't start with that amount, but have found that I have the best results with that. Regarding the negative impact of protein on your kidneys, liver etc... all the research I have read states that there is absolutely no negative health impacts on either of these as long as you drink enough water (with the 250-300 gram range I mentioned). I do know there are some people who take in 400+ grams a day and even I would admit that is way overboard.
I think a large issue is lumping in meat together. All these studies talk about animal products, but don't seem to be differentiating between the dozens of individual products. Yes, if you eat a lot of beef, pork, dark meet chicken, that is definitely bad for you. I exclusively eat white meat chicken, tuna and white meat turkey on a daily basis which has very little cholesterol. My cholesterol levels are good, at this point at least.
I have read a lot that says eating lean chicken, turkey and fish is good for you. None ofthe studies I have seen pointed out in this thread seem to specifically study the effects of specific animal products independently. If in the one study just talked about that extra 15% of animal products included whole milk, eggs with yolk, beef, etc... (as I would bet they did) then of course results would indicate that lowering animal products from 20% to 5% would be good
It sounds like you are in fantastic shape and and have a much better overall life after going with no meat, so well done. For me, having been significantly overweight much of my life, I am very happy with the results that I have had (even if I never reach 8% body fat). And again, this is something I've been dealing with since I was 6, so it's not like I don't have a body of work to measure the kind of results I have had. I think each person needs to do what works for them and I definitely don't think one thing works the same for everyone.