Enough protein for you and your baby
Once you’ve conceived and you know that you’re carrying a child, you’ll probably start to worry about getting all the nutrients you need for you and your baby. But protein really isn’t your biggest concern – as we’ve already covered, most people already eat too much protein. If you’re eating a healthy diet consisting of a variety of foods, you’re probably getting plenty of protein from whole grains, beans, legumes and either dairy or soy milk.
A greater concern is that you get enough omega 3 fatty-acids – a nutrient that plays an important role in brain function and development – as well as calcium, folic acid (folate), iron, zinc, and vitamins B12 and D. If you’re a pesco vegetarian (one who eats fish), you can get plenty of omega-3s by eating fatty fish like salmon. If you don’t eat fish, add ground flax seed (found at natural food stores or your supermarket) to your meals, or take a supplement. The rest of the important nutrients should be plentiful, if you follow some simple recommendations:
Eat four servings of cooked dried beans and peas each day – they’re full of zinc, iron and protein. Munch on nuts and seeds, but be careful of eating too much fat.
Include four servings of calcium-rich foods. Read labels on dairy and milk substitutes, and try to get 30 percent of the RDA of calcium – that’s 300 mg of calcium per serving. Use soy and rice milks that are fortified with Vitamin D, which helps your body process calcium.
Eat from five to seven servings of vegetables and three to five servings of fresh fruit each day, for energy, vitamins, fiber and antioxidents.
Include six to eleven servings of whole grains, like bread, cereal, brown rice and oatmeal.
Get your vitamin B12 by eating at least one serving each day of or more servings of B12-rich foods like milk, fortified soy milk, miso and tempeh.
If you find yourself eating too little and you need to consume more calories, shakes an smoothies are tasty, easy to digest and full of nutrients.
High performance from plant foods
If you actively train for a sport, you’ve probably already heard that you can’t reach top performance on a vegetarian diet – and a vegan diet, well, that’s right out! But it’s not. Many world-class athletes are vegetarians, including some very famous names. Baseball legend Hank Aaron, exercise guru Jack LaLanne, professional skateboarder Steve Berra, football player Jopw Namath, three-time Ironman champion Ruth Heidrish, Olympic track star Carl Lewis, and tennis greats Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova are among thousands of pro athletes who built their bodies in vegetarian and vegan diets.
Athletes are among the few vegetarians that actually need to worry about getting enough protein in their diets. When animal products are removed from the diet, considerably less protein is being consumed, and a highly active body requires more protein than that of the average person. When there’s too little dietary protein, carbohydrates enter the bloodstream faster, causing insulin levels to rise quickly, and then plunge a short time later. This is the dreaded "sugar crash" that we’ve all experienced, and it’s a killer for athletes who depend on a steady supply of usable energy. Additional protein in the diet balances the carbohydrates, heading off the sugar crash by releasing energy into the bloodstream at a more efficient rate.
Protein is also important to athletes as it’s used to rebuild muscle tissue during training. The way in which muscles are grown and strengthened is an ongoing process of breaking down tissue and them building them back up again – without enough protein, the taxed muscles won’t rebuild themselves.
It’s a simple matter to add protein to a vegetarian diet. You’ve already read about the amazing variety of plant foods that provide adequate protein. Adding one or two protein rich snacks each day can boost your protein intake by 10 to 25 grams – a cup of vegetarian chili over rice, a bowl of whole grain cereal with soy milk, a whole-wheat roll with peanute butter, a large baked potato and a cup of soup are all great protein-rich snacks.
Scientists, physicians and sports trainers all know that a high-carbohydrate diet is best for athletes, as the carbs provide necessary energy and stamina. Sugar that’s stored in the muscles for their use is called glycogen, and your body uses these stored sugars when performing both endurance activities like running, swimming and biking, and lower-intensity activities like sprinting, skiing and snowboarding. The vegetarian diet , with its emphasis on whole grains, legumes, fruit, and vegetables, offers the necessary high intake of carbohydrate.
A vegetarian diet should provide all the vitamins and minerals that athletes require, but if you’re training hard you should make sure you eat enough foods that provide vital nutrients like iron and zinc (found in fortified breakfast cereals, legumes, nuts and seeds) and vitamin C to enhance the absorption of iron.
There is some concern that vegetarian or vegan diet puts female athletes at a higher risk for amenorrhea (irregular menstrual cycles) and osteoporosis. Some studies have associated high-fiber, low-fat vegetarian diets combined with extremely high levels of exercise with reduced estrogen levels. The consensus among scientists, though, is that the fault lies in low energy intake – not eating enough calories – rather than being a problem with the vegetarian diet. These same studies have found that female athletes have normal menstrual cycles when they increase their caloric intake.
