#swimbikerunplants

[behardonyourself]

What I Eat Versus What I Don’t

Yesterday I was asked an interesting question: How much of my performance and recovery do I attribute to what I eat (plants) versus what I do not eat (animal based foods).

While it would be impossible to attribute an exact percentage, I am willing to break it down as well as I can.

Recovery is absolutely a combination of both. My body is much less acidic from not eating tons of animal products, enabling me to recover quicker from workouts. In fact, something that I specifically believe is a side effect of plant based eating is that joint pain that I have lived with for most of my life has completely disappeared.

My sleep is 10000 times better than it has ever been (improving overall recovery, energy, alertness, and pretty much every other aspect of life. I believe that more than half of sleep apnea like symptoms are wiped out by eliminating acid from the diet (and alleviating silent reflux). If you feel like you have to gasp when you lay down, eliminating acidic foods and drinks will eliminate this issue. It is something I have dealt with for years (over 20). It is now nonexistent.

The foods I eat are much easier for my body to use for fuel, giving me an endless source of energy. My body isn’t struggling to break down unnatural processed and it isn’t struggling breaking down meat that takes forever to digest. Food is broken down quickly and isn’t stuck in the digestive system, allowing my body’s energy to be focused on my training activity, not breaking down food.

My foods fuel and replenish me - not bog me down. For the first time ever, I feel like everything I eat is working with the body, not against it, and I attribute much of my rapid progression from couch potato to ultra-endurance athlete (and on to Ironman) to my plant based diet.

[behardonyourself]

The first question people ask me when they find out I am Vegan is “Where do you get your protein?” The second most common question, actually it isn’t posed as a question, I am usually told “You cannot get Vitamin B12 from a Plant Based Diet”. Well, my lab results beg to differ. The first one shows June 12 (737), the second one shows March 12 (659). I have not eaten anything that was derived from animals over that time, as I had not the months leading up to the first test. Anecdotal? Well my experience is all that matters to me. Stop believing the myths - animal products are fucking you up And you can absolutely thrive on a plant based diet. Looking forward to completing my first Ironman plant powered, when I was laying in a hospital bed with a heart attack scare less than one year ago. Plants saved me! #vegan #plantpower #plantbased #vegantriathlete #veganironman #ironman #triathlontraining #swimbikerun #swimbikerunplants #plantpoweredathlete #plants @richroll @hench_herbivore https://www.instagram.com/p/Byp5WqdHnSK/?igshid=148tu1q0co1xj

[behardonyourself]

Immediate goal? Tron bike on Zwift. Requires 40,000 meters of climbing. I am about to be a hill climbing fool on the bike. Time to get to work.