Plant Chat: Plant-Based Men Edition
Plant Chat has featured an assortment of interviews with today’s top plant-powered movers and shakers. This week, for Men’s Health Month, we celebrate the plant-powered men who have generously shared their plant-powered stories with us. The collection of interviews below include tips, recommendations, and meals for those moving towards a plant-based diet.
Brendan Brazier, author of Thrive Energy Cookbook
Brendan Brazier is a former professional Ironman tri-athlete and two-time Canadian 50km Ultra Marathon Champion. He is now a successful performance nutrition consultant, bestselling author of the Thrive book series, formulator of the award-winning line of plant-based Vega nutritional products and creator of Thrive Forward, an online video series designed to inspire and educate people about plant-based nutrition. For more information, please visit www.brendanbrazier.com and follow Brendan on Twitter.
What tips or recommendations do you have for athletes following or preparing to follow a vegan diet?
Approach your diet like you do your workout. Have a purpose-and-intent mindset and evaluate what you at. Consider how your diet affects your training and whether it is mindful. Ask yourself some questions. When you eat, what do you hope to get in return? More energy? Inflammation reduction? Increase rate of recovery? Ability to get a deep, restorative, sleep? Build lean, functional muscle? In my book there is a sport-specific section with recipes formulated specifically to help you prepare for, sustain, and recover from a workout. Intentioned eating advanced my rate of improvement in leaps and bounds, and can do the same for you and your training.
Gene Stone, Editor of Forks Over Knives
Gene Stone is the author of the international bestseller The Secrets of People Who Never Get Sick and the coauthor, with Rip Esselstyn, of The Engine 2 Diet. He is also editor of the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Forks Over Knives. Stone, who has written or ghostwritten more than thirty books and numerous magazine articles, lives in New York and follows a plant-based diet.
Can you share two of your favorite tips for moving to a plant-based diet?
The first tip is simply to try it. Seriously. A lot of people are interested, but they just don’t give it a go. You don’t have to change everything overnight. Consider gradual steps. Maybe avoid animal products during the week, then eat whatever you want over the weekend. Or try the Vegan Before 6 plan, where you avoid animal products until dinner time. Or simply add so many plant-based foods to your diet that you start to push the animal ones off your plate because you don’t have room for them. Second, try to do it with someone else—a family member, a friend, or just someone you meet on the Internet. Even though it’s an easy shift to make, it’s often even easier, and more fun, if you’re sharing the experience with someone else.
Matt Ruscigno, Vegan, Ultra-Athlete, and Registered Dietitian
What does a typical pre and post workout meal look like?
Post-workout my favorite is almond butter and bananas on whole wheat bread. Easy, cheap, healthy and a great carbohydrate to protein ratio.
Jack Norris, Co-Founder of Vegan Outreach
From a male perspective, what are some of the biggest misconceptions you hear regarding a vegan diet?
Of course, the stereotype of vegan men is that they are wimps. There are multitudes of vegan bodybuilders that anyone can check out on the Internet to see that isn’t the case. It’s also worth noting that standing up for those who are weaker than you, in this case animals, is a sign of strength, not weakness. I love the PETA bumper sticker, “Real Men are Kind to Animals.” That says it all.
Thanks, guys!