Help me become more vegetarian without losing muscle

I am a vegetarian and I once weighed 225 pounds at 6"1' and could bench press four plates. I still can bench press three plates cold and I haven't trained the bench press for years. Right now I lift 6 days per week but a lot of it is weird stuff like atlas stones or jump squats. "Scooby" is a vegetarian and gets all his animal protein from whey and egg whites. There are a lot of guys like this. A guy in my gym squats 565 at 165 and recently won IPL worlds in his class, which i think is single ply. He seems to live off of fruit juice. There are a lot of straight up vegan powerlifters. They have some interesting info and seem to be mostly be based in Australia, of all places. I used to use whey isolate and egg whites, but I am not sure where whey isolate really comes from. I used "NOW" brand, which claimed to be organic, but I don't know what it meant for the cows. My eggs were "free range." However, to be honest I haven't eaten eggs since January. Unfortunately producing milk and managing chickens at scale are two of the yuckiest forms of factory farming, even if organic. Killing your own cow is probably more "humane" than what those animals go through on the daily. Much of it depends on your goals. Do you want to "get big?" Compete in what? Bodybuilding? Weight class powerlifting? I'm a bit skeptical that taking 150+ grams of protein is actually useful without taking steroids. I "got big" before ever really thinking about protein intake. I would guess I probably got 85 grams of protein. I mostly ate pasta. *shrug* Inadvertently, my approach to protein was sort of the opposite of what many espouse... I just got a little over the minimum, instead of blasting myself with the maximum. To be honest, I really don't like talking about diet with other lifters because they assume what I say is impossible. The guys at my gym who seem to be most obsessed about their macros are the worst lifters.

According to one study I read, eating small fish like sardines and anchovies has a much smaller ecological footprint than eating large fish like salmon, and because they are caught wild they are arguably much more humanely treated than e.g., poultry or cows.

psst: schroedinger is female

I did ethical meat/eggs/dairy plus heavy lifting and recreationally competitive judo for about two years. (It's a different story since I expatriated.) I think you are making the maximally awesome choice. Here's how I managed it. 1. Bulk happy beef and pork. Find a meatshare or grass-fed cow/pig farm around you, buy a half a dead animal, put it in your freezer. This allowed me the most latitude, since I got the highest quality cuts for the lowest price in the most reliable fashion. If you buy a half or quarter cow you should be shelling out approximately $7/pound for a variety of cuts. A whole cow might come down to $6. Be mindful of http://movablebeastfarm.com/how-to-order/. I really can't stress how awesome meatshares are. There's some initial work to find a supplier, gather some friends to pool money, and make the pickup but let me tell you it is worth it. Even if you can't afford expensive meat all the time, it can work if you save up. For instance, my friends were in a less favorable economic position than I was and simply stretched their quarter-cow share longer than I did. 2. Farm eggs every ding-dong day. I don't trust anything that's in the supermarket, even the organic eggs in the hippy supermarket, unless I personally know the farm. Labeling is not reliable for eggs. The better option is to buy two to four dozen eggs at the farmer's market from someone wearing a hand-knitted sweater. Eat these eggs every day for breakfast. Eat them when you don't have time to defrost the bulk meat. For me, this was the economical staple protein. 3. I didn't do as good a job with fish, because farm fish aren't good with regards to healthy oils and wild fish supplies are dwindling and therefore less ethically favorable. Either option is good protein, though. 4. When you don't have the money for meat or eggs, you can up your dairy intake. Grass-fed is the label I look for. Your best bet is to find a farm directly or through a farmer's market that supplies grass-fed milk and yogurt. Barring that, the local organic supermarket might have something. 5. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001FE2FMQ/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ is the happy, grass-fed supplement I used. I consider it a splurge purchase. I had a favorable financial situation at the time and so didn't scale back my protein intake much while using the above approach. However, I often lacked the logistical skills necessary to eat optimally, and I found that rice+vegetables+farm eggs was a fantastic diet for squatting and deadlifting. The ethics and price are pretty much ideal as well.

Whatever you do, don't cut out beef and replace it with factory farmed eggs. You'll be significantly increasing the suffering you cause, not decreasing it. http://www.utilitarian-essays.com/suffering-per-kg.html that may be useful to you which compares the impacts of different kinds of animal product. As you can see, if you are going to eat animal protein, dairy looks like the least bad option in terms of the impact of factory farming processes on animals. Farmed fish is worst.

Here in Philly there is, among other things, https://www.phillycowshare.com/.

The chickens and cows used to produce conventional eggs and whey are treated just as badly as factory farm animals, I'm sure. With fish, I assume it's more complicated, but as stated above I think wild caught fish is better in terms of treatment ( but again you have to consider sustainability, catching methods,etc, the http://www.seafoodwatch.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx referred to above is a good source). It's also true that sardines and anchovies are much more sustainable AND much more healthy (low in toxic metals, very high in omega 3s).

Wild caught fish is fine, as long as the stocks are sustainably managed. Monterey Bay aquarium is the go to to check on that, they publish a list every year and it's in their website. There are also seafood CASs all over the east coast, Google will help you find one.

Hi! I am crazy meat-eating powerlifter! I only eat meat from pastured animals. Yes, it is expensive. I don't eat quite as much protein as you, but I keep it to at least 120 grams or so. The folks above who are recommending a cowshare are right on. This is, bar none, the easiest way to get lots of high-quality animal protein for a low(er) cost. It does, however, require a mega-huge freezer. I lack a mega-huge freezer, so instead I bought into a meat CSA in my area. I subscribe to meat! Every month, I go fill my cooler up with frozen beef and pork from animals raised humanely and healthily. This meat lasts me fairly well. I supplement with pasture-raised chickens from another farm. (As an aside, "vegetarian fed" chickens are actually BS-fed. Chickens are omnivorous--vegetarian fed means "some guy fattened me up on corn and soy.") Money-saving tip: learn to like the things that most people don't want. Beef heart is wonderful, pretty much pure protein, and CHEAP. Sardines are full of omega-3s, very low in mercury, and are not in danger of overfishing. Do not eat supermarket eggs--"free range" means just about nothing. You can get pastured eggs at Whole Foods but they are insanely expensive--instead, hook up with an urban farmer in your area (backyard chickens are a Thing these days) and buy eggs from happy chickens that eat bugs and other good stuff. Two women in my downtown Atlanta office raise chickens--I buy eggs from them for $3/dozen and they are incredible. You will find happy eggs if you look. I eat a ton of eggs, consequently. I don't really do much dairy so I can't speak to that, but you can certainly get dairy from pastured animals as well. Whey protein is not a thing I eat, though I have seen grassfed whey protein. So here are my takeaways: 1. You will at some times have to fudge with Ethics, Cost, or Protein Intake. Decide which of those you're most comfortable with and plan for it. 2. Seek out farms, farmers' markets, CSAs, and the like. Get to know the people who grow your food. These are the people who should provide the bulk of your animal protein intake, not Whole Foods, etc. This *will* make grocery shopping more of a chore. 3. It is possible.