My dad said vegetarians can't build muscle

2026-10-07 · Nik Varma

I was sixteen when I told my dad I wanted to start lifting. He didn't look up from his plate. "You won't build muscle on dal and rice," he said. "Not without eggs."

He wasn't being unkind. Half the uncles at every wedding said the same thing. And for my first year in the gym, they looked right. I trained hard and barely changed.

The problem wasn't the food. It was how much of it I was actually getting. Thin dal, two rotis and a lot of rice is a lovely dinner, but it's light on protein. When I started counting, I was nowhere near what I needed.

So I didn't give anything up. I made the dal thicker, added paneer to breakfast, put soya chunks in the rajma and swapped dahi for hung curd. Same kitchen, same flavors, about twice the protein.

My dad comes to the gym with me now. He still won't touch a protein shake, and he doesn't need to. That's the idea behind Dal & Deadlifts: a 12-week lifting plan built around the food already on your table.