Interview with a Vegan strength coach

From
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1587252

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A Dose of Remedios
An Interview with NSCA Coach of the Year,
Robert Dos Remedios
by Alwyn Cosgrove


Robert Dos Remedios is the current NSCA Strength Coach of the Year.
When the biggest strength and conditioning organization in the world
says that someone is the best they've got, we should listen.
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T-Nation: What are your thoughts on nutrition? Also, as a vegan
yourself, any thoughts on vegan athletes?



Dos: I'm about as old-school as they come when it comes to nutritional
recommendations. For mass gain, eat! You have to have a calorie
surplus if you want to gain mass. Also, you need to train your behind
off! From my experience, most folks just don't understand what
training hard really means.

For fat loss, I'm a big proponent of interval-style training. Whether
it's running on a treadmill or spinning in a cycle class, you really
need to get out of your traditional aerobic state when training. It
just makes so much more sense to train this way as it's much more
calorically challenging.

As for vegan athletes, I only had a couple in my career and both were
female. I have some solid insight into this though since I've been a
vegan for over 18 years. For me, it's all about getting enough
calories from varied food sources. Like any athlete, a vegan athlete
should be eating all day long: snacking on fruits and vegetables, Clif
bars, trail mix, etc. Soy or other vegetable protein shakes should
become a part of your performance life.

I've had no problem maintaining muscle mass and strength and power on
a vegan diet. While I'm no longer an athlete, I do like to think that
I train pretty hard every day. A typical day for me looks something
like this: bowl of oatmeal and a banana for breakfast, post-workout
soy protein shake, Clif bar, two soy meat sandwiches and one-fourth
cup of nuts for lunch, couple of pieces of fruit, huge salad with at
least two to three types of beans, couple of cups of pasta with
marinara sauce, fruit, pea-rice protein shake for dessert. Guess
what, guys? You can get jacked and strong as hell without ever eating
a single animal product,
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Don't believe the hype, boys. It's always funny as hell when some 140
pound "bodybuilder" is concerned with eating anything that might have
traces of soy in it because he doesn't want it to negatively affect
his Testosterone levels. Uh, sorry pal, but you got many other
problems to worry about.

I've carried around 245 pounds with approximately 11-12% body fat for
many, many years now with no ill effects. If you guys saw how much soy
I eat, well, let's just say that I should be Roberta by now.
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