Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - Forks Over Knives (Or, the Western diet vs. a plant-based diet)

thebigfert · 12-24-2011, 02:23 PM

I've been a longtime lurker on here, since I found this board to get some tips on FOF years ago... I noticed there were far more viewers on the Off Topic page so I checked it out, and have been using this board as a major source of news from everything from the whole conference realignment fiasco to politics to music and so on and so forth... This place was kinda like a collection of blogs for stuff that interested me, before blogs were really all that common. Never felt compelled to sign up and post anything til now, but this subject is something near and dear to my heart...

I've been meat-free for about two years now, most of that being a completely plant based diet (vegan). Before this I could count on being sick to varying degrees about 6 months out of the year, as I work a job where catching germs is pretty easy. I would have mild fits of depression and lethargy. I was about 230, 35% body fat. Just physically and mentally out of shape. Within 2 months of giving up meat I had dropped down to 190, and within 5 was down to 170 and about 8-9% BF. Recently, in order to prove to myself that I could gain muscle on a plant based diet, I've gotten up to about 210 at about 8%. I haven't been sick once since, nor have I had any feelings of depression and my energy levels are higher than they were when I was in my early 20's (I'm 33 now)... At a time in my life that my strength should be decreasing I'm currently throwing up 325 on the bench which is about 25 pounds more than I could get up when I was choking down chicken breast and egg whites at the age of 21... Moving to a plant based diet has essentially improved every facet of my life. I know its not for everyone, but I felt the need to pop in with my own testimonial, so to speak, for anyone that's thinking about dabbling in the lifestyle. Its been the best decision I've made for myself in quite a long time, and I don't say that lightly...

That said, I still haven't seen "Forks over Knives." Haha... I spent a lot of time reading up on related literature when I was first getting into a plant based diet and I've just put seeing the movie on the backburner... Since I'm already a convert, I think I'm just subconsciously saving it in case I ever start to wonder to myself, "Why am I doing this?" Not that I see that ever happening at this point...

12-24-2011, 02:23 PM	#8
thebigfert n00b Join Date: Dec 2011	I've been a longtime lurker on here, since I found this board to get some tips on FOF years ago... I noticed there were far more viewers on the Off Topic page so I checked it out, and have been using this board as a major source of news from everything from the whole conference realignment fiasco to politics to music and so on and so forth... This place was kinda like a collection of blogs for stuff that interested me, before blogs were really all that common. Never felt compelled to sign up and post anything til now, but this subject is something near and dear to my heart... I've been meat-free for about two years now, most of that being a completely plant based diet (vegan). Before this I could count on being sick to varying degrees about 6 months out of the year, as I work a job where catching germs is pretty easy. I would have mild fits of depression and lethargy. I was about 230, 35% body fat. Just physically and mentally out of shape. Within 2 months of giving up meat I had dropped down to 190, and within 5 was down to 170 and about 8-9% BF. Recently, in order to prove to myself that I could gain muscle on a plant based diet, I've gotten up to about 210 at about 8%. I haven't been sick once since, nor have I had any feelings of depression and my energy levels are higher than they were when I was in my early 20's (I'm 33 now)... At a time in my life that my strength should be decreasing I'm currently throwing up 325 on the bench which is about 25 pounds more than I could get up when I was choking down chicken breast and egg whites at the age of 21... Moving to a plant based diet has essentially improved every facet of my life. I know its not for everyone, but I felt the need to pop in with my own testimonial, so to speak, for anyone that's thinking about dabbling in the lifestyle. Its been the best decision I've made for myself in quite a long time, and I don't say that lightly... That said, I still haven't seen "Forks over Knives." Haha... I spent a lot of time reading up on related literature when I was first getting into a plant based diet and I've just put seeing the movie on the backburner... Since I'm already a convert, I think I'm just subconsciously saving it in case I ever start to wonder to myself, "Why am I doing this?" Not that I see that ever happening at this point...