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even their routines and<br />
techniques to effectively recover<br />
from workouts. There<br />
are about 25 day in the life<br />
routines shared in the book,<br />
and more than 60 recipes.<br />
How did you get<br />
started on a plant<br />
based journey?<br />
I became a plant-based athlete<br />
in 1995, as a 15-yearold<br />
5-sport athlete when I<br />
got involved in animal rights.<br />
I became vegan for the animals,<br />
and as someone who<br />
grew up on a farm, and lived<br />
on a farm for more than 20<br />
years, reducing animal suffering<br />
became a passion of<br />
mine, and I turned into a vegan<br />
athlete, advocate, and<br />
activist. I am still driven by<br />
animal rights today, more<br />
than a quarter century after<br />
becoming vegan. Over the<br />
course of my plant-based<br />
athlete career, I went from<br />
being a champion vegan<br />
runner to a champion vegan<br />
bodybuilder, gaining<br />
100 pounds in the process.<br />
My plant-based diet and<br />
vegan athlete lifestyle saw<br />
me grow from weighing 120<br />
pounds at age 15 to weighing<br />
220 pounds at age 41,<br />
and at times, I feel like I’m<br />
just getting started.<br />
Advice for getting<br />
people started?<br />
For those who are just embarking<br />
on a plant-based<br />
athlete lifestyle, I would recommend<br />
reading our book,<br />
The <strong>Plant</strong>-Based Athlete, because<br />
it is the number one<br />
resource for plant-based<br />
athletes, and represents my<br />
25-plus years experience<br />
and my co-author’s 10-plus<br />
years experience as plantbased<br />
athletes, complete<br />
with nutrition information,<br />
meal plans, recipes, day<br />
in the life routines, grocery<br />
shopping lists, athlete stories,<br />
and more. You can also<br />
visit our websites, www.veganbodybuilding.com<br />
and<br />
www.nomeatathlete.com<br />
for decades worth of articles<br />
about building muscle,<br />
burning fat, and improving<br />
endurance on a plant-based<br />
diet.<br />
When it comes to<br />
training, are there<br />
any specific foods<br />
that you consume?<br />
And why?<br />
Meal timing around workouts<br />
can be important, and<br />
I recommend eating complex<br />
carbohydrates before a<br />
workout, such as foods like<br />
oats, rice, beans, vegetables,<br />
or fruits (my favorite),<br />
and a balanced nutrition<br />
approach of carbohydrates,<br />
proteins, and fats following<br />
a workout. Basically,<br />
you want to have adequate<br />
fuel before a workout, and<br />
carbohydrate is our body’s<br />
<strong>Plant</strong> <strong>Powered</strong> <strong>Planet</strong> I 47
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