[bane]

When I was younger and training very heavily in some sports, I experimented a bit with different diets. Bottom-line the more meat heavy my diet, the faster I would heal from injuries -- radically so. For a while I went on a low-carb diet and ate a very heavy animal protein diet. I shed pounds, had absolutely unstoppable stamina, had far fewer injuries, stretching improved, basically never bruised, and healed from sports injuries that would have taken weeks in days. I felt like Wolverine.

I also felt like a grease grenade all the time and got tired of the diet which is why I stopped, but it was definitely superhuman for me.

I felt the worst in this sports context was when I experimented with a vegan/vegetarian diets. The effects were virtually the exact opposite. I'm sure with a nutritionist and more dedication I could have overcome many of these issues, but I found building a decent diet harder and required more effort.

[asoneth]

I found similar results when I tried a vegan diet. Like you, I suspect that I could have made it work if I spent the effort to figure out what was missing. If I actually lived my life according to my personal ethics that's what I'd do.

For now I've found vegetarianism significantly easier and a satisfactory compromise between ethics, health, and nutritional laziness.

[arcturus17]

I lift heavy about 4x week.

A lower-carb calorie-restricted diet makes me more alert and focused. On the other hand, I sleep like shit, my anxiety levels skyrocket, and I also feel moodier, particularly in the mornings. I also lose strength fairly quickly.

Eating at a surplus with carbs makes me more lethargic, lazy and less focused, but I sleep far better, and I’m in a happier, more social, mood. And of course I can make strength gains.

I tried surplus keto a while ago but didn’t enjoy it and didn’t see any of its touted benefits.

If I found a diet that was all positives like you described, I would probably hold on to it with my dear life.

What did your it consist of? Did you eat at a surplus or a deficit? And what made you quit?

[bane]

This is going on 25-ish years ago, but it was basically the Atkins diet. I didn't monitor calories in any way, but I lost about 35ish pounds eating that way (and exercising). I stopped because it was getting boring eating that way and I felt really greasy all the time. Plus it's kind of expensive and I was a poor college student.

[ddorian43]

Seems normal carnivore diet to me. Check out Shawn Baker for more.

[dempseye]

What do you mean when you say you felt like a grease grenade?

[bane]

Just very very greasy out of my pores. Oily all the time, 2 or 3 showers a day to keep the grease out of my hair. That sort of thing.

[lupire]

Did you ensure that you maintained protein level when you went vegan/vegetarian? It's easy to eat much less protein if you aren't careful.

[bane]

I tried to but I'm very sure I didn't balance my macros the correct way at the time. I tried to eat lots of soy protein powders and things but have some kind of bad reaction to too much soy for some reason. By that time I had lost interest in eating that way and the noticeably negative effects on my sports training made me go another direction.