Going Vegan After Gout Flareup

Diet and Nutrition
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Hello folks. Bapoleon here, back to lifting…

Really, friends, T-Nation is my go-to information source for everything fitness. And with fitness comes nutrition.

I don’t know about how you all are here with the vegan lifestyle, but obviously, Mister Thib doesn’t approve of it, as I recently read in a certain article of his that speaks against the show “The Game Changers” in Netflix. I really believe Chris Thib more than anybody, I really do. I’m not saying I blindly follow everything T-Nation articles have to say, but compared to other sources of information about health and fitness, I’m willing to trust T-Nation more.

But… I got my second gout flareup. Big whoop, it happened before. I just gotta adjust my diet, right? It turns out it ain’t that simple. Doctor told me “no red meat, no alcohol, not even excessive protein. The safe number for daily protein intake for your gout management is 80-85.” Normally that kind of news would break my heart. lol. But I don’t care. I can still get reasonably strong with whatever limits I receive. I’m tougher than that… But then, I went to google and did a search on gout diet, and holy smokes, THEY FRIGGIN’ RESTRICT EVERYTHING. They didn’t use the word “everything” but that was basically what they said. You can’t even eat sardines for Christ’s sakes.

Being that I actually do have some minor experience eating vegan and being familiar with plant protein, as far as how it tastes, where in the grocery store to get them, and how to cook them… Dude, can’t I just go ape-crazy and just be a full-fledged vegan? Yeah, I’ll end up fairly weak but what choice do I have? My diet genes are shit.

If you think retaining some meat-eating habits would be better and doable for my case, I might consider. But going full-vegan is sooo tempting because it makes things so much simpler. And I can make a mean, delicious lentil soup.

I’m at the 15-minute mark on the show The Game Changers right now. Mister Thib warned us all about how the show is biased propaganda, but what do you think?

lol. I’m so glad I switched to boxing as my main sport endeavor. Because if I still had that powerlifting and Olympic lifting passion, I’d be devastated. (I still have my 500-pound squat goal though. But it’s definitely gonna be harder because I’m also doing cardio now…)

Thanks a lot, folks and friends! Any good input is appreciated!

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I tried to be vegan for 1 month after listening to this bullshit worst fucking idea of my life ! Vegan suck and it will always suck , if you want to be a men, you gonna eat what real men eat

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I’d be vary of deficiencies such as iron, B12, D-vitamin, Zinc etc. Get an app that helps to track this. Think you can find one if you look up Clarence Kennedy, veganism and app as your keywords. Getting adequate cholesterol is also apparently a challenge. Good luck.

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Then do it.

It really is that simple.

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I don’t eat meat, but game changer indeed is biased propaganda.
Anyway, you really don’t have to consume so much protein, you will be just fine.
Focus on QUALITY of your nutrition, vegan or not, eat as much possible unprocessed food.

And, after all, although we all here adore iron, remains the fact that health is most precious, not some weightlifting goals.
Enjoy lifting and enjoy boxing and enjoy exploring all possible aspects of nutrition. There is truly so many worlds in it.

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It’s biased as fuck.

That aside nothing wrong with eating vegan, just be smart and fill gaps.

I was vegetarian for 2 years with absolutely no issues.

I’ve been eating vegetarian again for the last month just to eat more veg.

Just fill any nutritional gaps you might have, but tbh I’ve never ever had any issues. None.

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I’ve been vegan more than 2 years now. I’m much stronger than I was before I went vegan. Before I went vegan, I had around a 315 squat, 245 bench, 365 deadlift. Now I have a 275 paused bench, 405 squat, 450 deadlift (I also weigh less). And I hit all my biggest numbers after I reduced my training from 4 times per week to 2 times per week (because I started doing MMA, training 4x per week was too much).

In terms of performance, I haven’t noticed any sort of difference. Some people argue that performance is better on one or the other diet, but I couldn’t name a single difference (other than some non-performance-related stuff like feeling better on a day to day basis and having better shits).

You can have success on almost all sensible diets provided you put in the work to do the diet correctly. It doesn’t matter whether you’re vegan, keto, vegetarian, whatever - you can get strong if you put in the work.

Put in the work, and you will get better. Who cares what some documentary says? The documentary (like many documentaries) got some stuff right and some stuff wrong. But literally - who gives a shit? If you train hard and eat enough food, you’ll get better. Period.

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If you thrive on a plant-based diet, fair play to you. There are plenty examples of people who do.

I haven’t watched the documentary, but what cannot be disputed is the hard science showing many plant products are actually toxic. It took me some time to realise, for example, that the very substances that are touted as ‘anti-oxidants’ are actually the polar opposite, i.e. they are pro-oxidants which then cause an anti-oxidant response in your body as it responds to said toxins. Then there are more sinister substances like lectins, which are responsible for triggering all sorts of autoimmune conditions such as celiac disease. This is now well-established in the literature yet national diet guidance still pushes grains. Finally, polyunsaturated fats have now been outed as potentially harmful while saturated fat was not the villain all along. Yet, good luck in finding a doctor who will encourage you to swap out your veggie oil for lard.

However, the point in the intro stands. If it works for you. After all, Michael Phelps defied belief with his achievements - and on a junk food diet!

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so why are you vegans if there is no difference ? you hate meat ?

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Could be morals. I mean, me personally, I will only go vegan or meatless if it’ll make me healthier. But when it comes to animals, as long as I know the meat I’m eating didn’t come from a tortured animal, I have no qualms.

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I prefer them to be tortured. More anabolic.

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I’ll often have a meatless meal and just add a protein shake. I know the shake makes it not vegan, but the real food is often vegan and not that difficult to make taste really good.

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Hello. Sorry for the bump. But I guess it’s better to write here than DM you because of accessibility reasons.

that the very substances that are touted as ‘anti-oxidants’ are actually the polar opposite, i.e. they are pro-oxidants which then cause an anti-oxidant response in your body as it responds to said toxins.

This, from a biochemical standpoint does not sound very logical to me. Do you have any citation to back up this claim?

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That’s a whole thread in itself. But the underlying issue is phytoalexins, or plant pesticides. And it actually makes perfect sense, logically, because its a plant’s natural defence mechanism to ward off predators.

In terms of citations, Bruce Ames paper “Dietary Pesticides: 99.99% All Natural” is a good starting point.

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FWIW protein does not raise UA per se. Cellular forms of protein with lots of DNA like meat do. Milk protein and eggs and protein powders have very little purine.

Gout is raised primarily by eating purine rich food (animal flesh and particularly organ meat and shellfish) fructose/sucrose and alcohol. Alcohol and sugar have about 3-4x the effect size as organ meat and shellfish, and organ meat and shellfish are about 3-4 times more UA raising than other meats including salmon, red meat etc.

The one other thing that has a lot of purine is non alcoholic beer and “dark” liquor. Regarding alcohol, it doesn’t turn into uric acid itself. The “dark” residues in beer and liquor are largely composed of yeast DNA. The alcohol though can be problematic because it makes it harder to convert fructose into glucose because they use the same enzymes, and fructose ends up yielding uric acid.

75% of UA levels are due to sugar and alcohol and about 20% to organ meat and shellfish. It is highly unlikely to make a impact on UA to reduce any other food if those 4 are already minimized.

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