StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - Plant-Powered Athletes and Plant-Based Diets

Episode Date: July 4, 2019

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel…. Hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice explore the world of plant-powered athletes and plant-based diets with former German strongman competitor Patrik Baboumian, heavyweight boxer Cam F. Awesome, and vegan nutrition and fitness coach Karina Inkster.Photo Credit: Patrik Baboumian. Photo Credit: Deivitrix [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)] Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Hey, StarTalk All-Stars might be off the air, but we have an all-new way for you to enjoy the show. Head over to YouTube.com slash StarTalk All-Stars for free weekly video episodes of the show. You can still listen to all the audio episodes, but we figured you'd like to watch them with your very own eyes. Subscribe to YouTube.com slash StarTalk All-Stars and hit the bell so you can be notified every time a new video gets published. Thanks to our supporters on Patreon for sponsoring this episode of StarTalk. Join them and listen to every episode with no ads. Go to patreon.com slash StarTalk Radio to learn how. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

And I'm Chuck Nice. And this is Playing With Science. Today we examine the myth that says only meat-based proteins can fuel elite athletes to the very top of their sport. And yes, you're correct. This is not the hot dog eating show. That may very well be on the launch pad very soon, so keep an eye out. Did you say launchpad or lunchpad? Maybe I'm just hungry.

Maybe I'm hungry. Maybe. And bringing the athletes. POV is not one, but two world-class athletes who are not to be messed with. We're talking about world record breaking strongman from Germany, Patrick Baboumian, and super heavyweight golden

gloves champion boxer and Olympic hopeful Cam F. Awesome. Yes. Yes, he is. If I say so myself, both of them will be here to tell their amazing stories. I've got to get to the bottom of that name. Yeah. Really.

Cam F. Awesome. First question right at the front. Talk me through the name, dude. first question right at the front. Talk me through the name, dude. And giving us the interdisciplinary science of nutrition, which it actually is, is vegan fitness coach and nutritionist Karina Inkster. Now, here we go, chaps and chapesses. If you're a 100% meat-eating athlete and don't care for salad, I totally get it. But if you'd like to hear how to challenge the conventions and your own thinking, then this show most definitely is for you. All right. And to kick things off, as we promised, he is a world record breaking strong man.

If you ever get a chance, check out his videos on YouTube because they are absolutely phenomenal. They're ridiculous. They are ridiculous, man. In the nicest possible way. Yeah. They are ridiculous. We're talking about a man

who carried over 1,200 pounds about 10 meters, which is insane. That's his world record. It's a pleasure to bring to the show Patrick Baboumian. Patrick, how are you, my friend? I'm great.

Am I saying your name correctly? Baboumian? Yeah, Baboumian is perfect. Okay, Baboumian. Fantastic. We got a name right. Yeah, we got a name right. I can't believe it, especially me.

That's a lap of honor at the end of the show. You know it. Right. All right. Okay, Quite simple. What triggered your change from a meat-based diet to vegan? Yeah. Because that's a story that really captured my imagination. Yeah. And yeah, go ahead. Yeah. So basically, I was a typical strength athlete and bodybuilder and whatnot for 12 years. And like most of the guys in that kind of community,

I believed in the superiority of animal protein over plant protein. And therefore, I used to eat a lot of meat. And I also had tons of dairy products. In my worst kind of days, I had up to two gallons of milk a day. Wow. So it was really, really bad. Oh, that is bad. And that was because I thought I need the protein from those sources and that plant sources wouldn't do the job for me, you know, for muscle building and so on.

you know, for muscle building and so on. And what triggered my change to answer the question is that at some point, I just realized that I was very compassionate towards animals. So I would, you know, rescue animals from the forest. If I would see an injured animal, I would try to help them, get them to the vet and try to do something. And that was a very natural reaction for me. And I was sometimes even, you know, putting a lot of time and energy. For instance, once we had a baby raven and we, you know, we put in like a few months of time trying to help that one bird.

And I was just thinking, well, while I'm doing this, I'm eating in that time span, I'm probably eating, you know, like 30 or 50 chicken. Wow. How does it make sense, you know, to try to, you know, put time and energy into trying to help one animal. And at the same time, you're basically eating other birds while you're trying to help that one bird. Well, the answer, Patrick, would be that ravens are not delicious. You don't know. This is true. You're right.

You're right. I'm joking. But go ahead. Continue. So that's basically when I stopped eating meat. And then now switch forward six years later, I was pretty successful as a vegetarian strongman then. I even got to get the heavyweight national champions title in Germany. So that was in 2011, so this is six years after going vegetarian. And once I gained that title, that brought me a lot

of media attention. I was in all kinds of newspapers in Germany. And at that point, I realized that I was now influencing a lot of other people through media. And that's when I made the decision to actually go one step further and go completely vegan. Although in this case, now, I wasn't really sure if it would work because as a vegetarian, i had already learned i was doing great i was even doing better than when i was eating meat but i was really not convinced that i could do that on a 100 plant-based diet without any animal products because i was still as a vegetarian having tons of dairy products yeah and i sincerely believe that these dairy products and then milk and all that stuff, that that was one of the main pillars of my nutrition that made everything work for me.

So I was really anxious if I could make it work. And I was super surprised once I did it that actually my performance levels even went. All right. Let's ask you a question here. What timeline have we got from you stopping a meat-based diet, coming into plant-based, coming vegan? How long does it take before you see quantifiable difference in what you can do and how you can do it?

Interesting question, yeah. Is it an overnight thing? Is it a month, two months? Please. When did you wake up and go, wow, being a vegan is awesome? Yeah! That would be you. That doesn't happen at all.

It does in Chuck's mind. Yeah. Go on, please. The most important thing is, this is, again, a very good point that you're making. So a lot of people have this misunderstanding that you go vegan and then automatically something awesome happens to you. Right. And you become superhuman. And obviously that's bullshit.

That doesn't happen. Okay. a lot of people think that a lot of the vegan athletes are actually kind of, you know, fake or, or a fraud or just pretend that it works for them just because they want to influence people because they have this misconception that, you know, that we want to tell people, veganism is something magical. It isn't. So if you go vegan, you still have to make, you know, you still have to make nutrition work. So you still have to give your body all the nutrients and everything it needs. And the reason that it works better than with animal products is

actually pretty simple. If you do it correctly and you give your body everything it needs, what you're really doing is you're taking away a lot of the stuff that is stressing your body, like cholesterol and, you know, other chemicals and also a lot of stuff that negatively affects your microbiome, for instance. Right. All that stuff. A lot of that is in dairy, too. Just let me say, I'm not advocating one way or the other. But from a scientific standpoint, everything you talked about, a lot of your microbiome is adversely affected by dairy.

A lot of your microbiome is adversely affected by dairy. And a lot of the things that you were talking about just right before that, it shows up in inflammation. And so that's also extremely adverse for anybody, not just athletes. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. I just wanted to drop that in. Go ahead. Yeah, but it's 100% what you say. And therefore, if you do it correctly and you go vegan, what you basically do is you take all that away,

but you still give your body everything it needs. So obviously, it's going to do better than before. So for you, Patrick, how many calories a day are we talking here? Oh, wait. Let me do this. Let me do this because when I was doing my research on Patrick, I saw this and it freaked me out. So I'm going to give you your own words back right now, Patrick.

And then you tell us exactly what Gary asked. Like, what is this? All right. I'm so excited to do this. I don't even know why. 6,000 calories a day, 350 grams of protein a day, eight meals a day, and three hours of training, four days a week. As a vegan, can you give us an idea how you get 350 grams of protein and 6,000 calories in a day? One of the things about this is a misconception that a lot of people have,

what vegan nutrition means. And that's because the first thing you think about vegan nutrition, if you hear it and you're not vegan, is salad. Salad. Broccoli. So obviously stuff that is not calorie dense. And if you eat that way, if I would eat that way the whole day, I would just crumble. So that's why I say I have to make sure that I get everything I need to grow. So that's why I say I have to make sure that I get everything I need to grow. So I need to get the calories and I need to get the protein. Now, it's actually pretty easy if you know what to eat. My most favorite example is peanuts. Not because I eat peanuts the whole day. But if you take a look at the, you know, how calorie dense peanuts are,

they're pretty calorie dense, like, you know, pretty much like, like meat. But you also have a lot of, you know, plant-based fats in it, which, which helps with the calories. But the most important part is you have 25 grams of protein per hundred grams. So a quarter of the weight that you're eating is protein weight. And so if you eat in a way that you make sure you eat a lot of legumes, you eat a lot of starches and a lot of stuff that is calorie dense and has enough protein, it's actually pretty easy. You can actually get your calories just as easy with a vegan diet as with animal product-based diet. So you just have to make sure that you eat calorie dense enough. What is the equivalent of the whey protein that the

bodybuilders are all talking about? So if I want to get a plant-based protein and I want it to be the equivalent of whey protein, tell me what to do. Yeah, so you have two options. You want to make sure that you get a protein that is well-balanced in terms of the amino acid profile. So one option you have is you can combine sources to get that. So you take legumes and starches, combine them together,

and you get a pretty well-mixed source. That would mean something like, you know, corn protein with soy protein, something like that. Okay. Or if you want to have a single source, so you can replace it one by one, I would always take soy because soy is already well balanced out of the box. So most of the time I'm just using a soy protein, but I tend

to from time to time, I use other protein sources too, just because I also eat a lot of soy products and I just want to mix it up a little bit so that it doesn't get too, you know, too one-sided. But I go back to the point where you start a meat-free diet. You must then go through a number of physical and mental changes, developments. Can you talk us through that? Because there'll be a lot of people, and there's one sat right here, who hasn't been through a vegan diet. And therefore, what would it be like for someone listening to this show today

if they were to take that course? Yeah, so what you have to know beforehand is that you're changing the way you eat very dramatically. And that's going to have, in the beginning, it's going to have some negative by effects too, because your whole digestive system has to accumulate to the new situation. So your microbiome is going to change. On the long run, it's going to change to the better. But that takes some time. And in that time, it can get a little bit awkward. So for me, it was probably the first two weeks or so where I felt a little bit off.

And I couldn't really – it's really hard to put it into words because it's just more literally a gut feeling. Yes. So you have to get through that phase. But it just takes, you know, like two weeks or so. And I always recommend people to, if they want to try it, to give it four weeks. Because four weeks is pretty much the time that it takes until, you know, all these positive effects kick in. time that it takes until, you know, all these positive effects kick in. And after four weeks, most people really, you know, once they experience these things, they're really motivated to stick to it. Because another thing that a lot of people have a problem with and that I had a problem with is that it just sounds scary if you, you know, if you make the decision and you think, okay,

I'm going to do this for the rest of my life. For me, that was a super scary thought because I love to drink milk. I love chocolate milk. I love so many, you know, dairy-based products. You were Vegan Athlete of the Year in 2012. Is that correct? Yeah. And you are now an ambassador.

And you have featured in The Game Changers, which is a movie that has the fingerprints of James Cameron on it. Yeah. You're quite humble about this. Please, please explain more about your involvement in this particular movie. Yeah. So the thing is, the movie started off as a one-man project by producer James Wilkes. So James Wilkes is the winner of the Ultimate Fighter. I think it

was the ninth edition of the Ultimate Fighter. Okay. And he won the whole thing. And then after winning that, so that was pretty much the peak of his career. After winning that, he injured himself. He had a knee injury. And he started, you know, doing a lot of research. And he just basically learned that all of his, you know, all of these ideas that he had, you know, about animal protein and all these things that it's necessary for him. He just learned that it wasn't true. And there was also a different way. So he, you know, just tried veganism and just, you know, did it as an experiment to see how it

goes. And it really helped with his recovery so that he recovered fast. So that made him think it would be a great idea to kind of specifically make a film for guys like him and guys like me who believed in that, you know, meat is, you know, for muscle building and animal protein is the main thing if you want to build strength. To specifically have a documentary that touches those topics. And that was the initial idea. And it was a completely one-man show. So the first time he visited me back then, it was just him, a camera, and we just talked just the way we talk now. We just talked and trained together, and that was it.

I think it is three or four years ago when James Cameron got involved, and then it went crazy big. So they all came back, and then it went crazy big. So they all came back and we refilmed everything. So if you take a look at the vegan population, what you just basically are going to see is that we have like 75% or something like that, female vegans. And the reason for that is that it seems like women have a much easier time to just make the decision and just go for it. And on

the negative side, men just don't get it for some reason. And we think that the reason that's a lot to do with just, you know, cultural ideas that are just planted in our heads. That, you know, meat eating has something to do with masculinity and with, you know, being a real man.

I'm a man. I eat flesh. I mean, it goes back to prehistoric times where we hunt, we gather, we throw sharp objects at big beasts, we wear them, we eat them, we do all that thing, and it defines us and our way. So it's interesting that it's got that depth of connection in our own psyche, and it's still quite prevalent in the thinking today. Are you still competing? So my last competition was in 2016. After I tore

my tricep, I didn't do any competitions after that. So I'm still training. I'm like, you know, maintaining 70, 80% of my performance level that I had back then. All right. But I'm not competing. And also in just a few weeks, I'm going to be 40. So it's kind of, you know, and I started with competitions when I was 14. So I think it's time to give my body some rest. Yeah, I was going to say, man, you can't keep up that pace forever.

You know what I mean? I'm sure you've probably lost about an inch in height. Yeah, definitely. Once you do it, if you measure right after that, you're going to be a bit shorter than before. Yeah, without a doubt. All right, we're going to say goodbye, but we're going to stand up,

because, yeah, it's been brilliant talking to you. Thank you. Patrick Boubamain. Boubamain. Boubamain. Boubamain. God, doggone it, I can't say it now. Boubamain.

Boubamain. No, in effect. Patrick's okay. Yes. Patrick Baboomian. All right. Thank you to you. We are going to take a break.

A name I can say is coming up, and a name I don't understand, but Cam F. Awesome will be our next guest. He's a golden glove, super heavyweight boxer, and if either of us get out of line, we're getting more than just a thick ear. Right. We're going to take that break.

Cam F. Awesome on the other side. Stick around. Back shortly. Is your wall empty? Welcome to the club. Does it need to be covered in science? StarTalk is here to help. Go to startalkradio.net slash store and choose between our Let's Make America

Smart Again poster or our StarTalk Universe poster. Get yours now at startalkradio.net slash store. Welcome back to Playing With Science. I am, of course,

Gary O'Reilly and that, of course, is Mr. Chuck Nice. That's right. Plant-based athletes, this is where we are right now. We've spoken Gary O'Reilly and that of course is Mr. Chuck Nice. That's right. Plant-based athletes. This is where we are right now. We've spoken

with Patrick and you do his name better justice than I do. Baboomian. Baboomian. Thank you. Yeah.

Strong man. Strong man. World record holder. Is that the German dude? Yeah, that is the German dude. And that voice and the voice that you hear is Cam F

Awesome. Cam F Awesome. Yeah. That dude's got some killer chops. Yeah, he's got some killer chops. And by that, he's not talking about his performance skills. He's talking about the actual mutton chops. Oh, man. What are they?

Wolverine-esque. He trimmed them back. Yeah, he did. He did. They're no longer the size of a small European country. Yeah. All right. Hey, thanks for being here, man.

Yeah, how did we get to Cam F. Awesome? Where did that name come from, apart from your imagination? Gary needs to know the name, man. He loves it. Oh, I think I think it's, uh, I think I fit it, but I, uh, I would go by, I was called Lenroy Cameron Thompson jr. It's what I was born. My mom would call me Cameron because I was a junior, not to get me confused with my father.

Uh, I think you, in that situation, you just call the kid junior, but whatever. They call me Cameron and I shortened it to Cam because I grew up in the nineties and there was a very relevant rapper, uh, that I wanted to be like, so I went by Cameron and then he no longer became relevant. So I just shorted up to Cam. All right. Legally, when I fought, they would have to call me Lenroy and I wanted to change that. So I went to change my first name. And then I saw that it was a section to change your last name and i was like same price nice all right so this is your legal name cam f awesome love it yeah yeah that's cool see boxing is such a combination of different things. It's power, strength, explosion,

and then you've got to have the endurance side of the whole thing together. How, as a plant-based athlete, do you manage to get everything you need in your diet to achieve those things? Oh, I think most of it is a product of capitalism. People are just trying to sell you stuff.

All of the stuff that, like, you don't need all the protein they're selling you. Like, I know ladies who, on their 30-minute lunch break, they go for a 27-minute walk and then have a 1200 calorie protein shake. Like it doesn't really do anything. You're just taking expensive poops. I don't count protein.

I don't count carbs. I don't do any of that. I just kind of eat plant-based foods. Occasionally I'll splurge and have like a vegan burger or uh the beyond burger or the impossible burgers are really good yeah but i i don't i'm not like a health nut like that has it have have you found once you go to this vegan diet that your actual boxing improved oh yeah uh wow it improved for the for the first reason why is i have a negative i I don't have a positive relationship with food. Right. I love food. My favorite feeling in the world is eating so much until I not only hate myself, I hate everyone around me. And then I go to sleep.

I just waddle to the closest place I can sleep. And then I wake up and I eat the rest of the food room temperature. To me, that's the greatest feeling. We're going to have to get you some new feelings oh that's hilarious when you're eating plant-based like the the one of the greatest benefits at first was if i could stop off at mcdonald's and just have one quick meal today because i'm busy just today only today i would do that twice a day for the rest of my life. I can't stop myself from going through a drive-thru. But now that I don't have any drive-thru options,

I have to pre-plan my meals. And weirdly, and this is where I am right now, I live in a van. And I have like- Down by the river? Don't say down by the river. This is not a plug, but that's the name of my podcast oh come on i just interview strangers when i travel i just it's harder to get people in your van than. Dude, that's amazing.

Okay, too damn funny. So, Down by the River is the name of your podcast. Let's give it a proper plug there. Yeah, that's hilarious. How about being a spokesperson for... For veganism. Yeah, veganism. Vegan athletes.

Oh, I don't like to be one, really, because I feel like the other vegans, they do a lot of research and they read a bunch of stuff. And my goal is like be happy, win things, be vegan, slightly mention it sometimes. And someone's like, hey, what's your secret? And I'm like, vegan. And they're like, what? Tell me more.

And then they're more receptive to listen to what I have to say. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. So. Interesting. So when you say tell me more, what would you tell me? Okay, so I'm going to be very honest right now. We talked with Patrick, you know, and I've been to a few websites. I'm kind of thinking about it.

I'm kind of thinking about it. So what would you tell me? I would say, well, first I'll ask, what would be your reasons for going? Is it health reasons? Yes. I'm getting older. It's harder for me to maintain weight. My health is not 100%.

Looking good, though. Looking good. My health is not 100%, and I think maybe this might help me. So that's the reason. All right. maybe this might help me. So that's the reason. All right.

Well, I would say maybe Forks Over Knives is a good film to watch and it explains not just food, but labels and how the FDA says you can say anything you want in the front of the label,

but the nutritional facts, that's the only thing that has to be true. Right. And like you see the Pam cooking spray right it's zero fat zero carbs zero everything but for point for one eighth of a second right you're big into science you literally can't do it for one eighth of a second even if you

right that exactly that's the that's the serving basically if you were to have a serving size, it'd be an eighth of a second spray. So what do you do? You go, and that's like two billion calories right there. So when you think, oh, I just had eggs. I don't know how I'm gaining weight. I just have eggs for breakfast. Well, that's like your daily calories and just spray. But that's the kind of things that the film teaches you. It kind of teaches you how to grocery shop.

You do the outskirts. You don't need to go down the aisles. Everything down the aisles are canned food, processed and junk. So you kind of shop around the outskirts. I probably do that already, you know. I'm talking specifically vegan, you know what I mean, as a lifestyle. I mean, I'm concerned that I don't know if I could make that lifestyle change. It takes a lot of commitment and you've got to get into,

you've got to have more of a conviction to go completely into the lifestyle. And, you know, if you said, right, I'm not wearing leather, and then go to the recycled aspects of materials, and really get involved in it to that depth, that's a serious commitment. And once you've been around... You can go crazy doing that. I like all of that stuff, though, man.

All that stuff, I actually like all of that stuff. I actually agree with all that stuff. I just don't know if it's for me. So, okay, we take away all of the things that are... Here's the thing you need to do. You need to give yourself a... Who lives in your house? Well, it's not my house.

It's my wife's. I did a little bit of research. I heard that you are... You're in charge for maybe a few minutes a day. If that, yeah. What you need to do is ask her, get her permission,

and make everything in your house vegan and do a family 28-day challenge. And everything you do, meal prep it. Because people think that eating healthy is expensive. It's not true. Eating conveniently is cheap. And convenience tied together with being cheap is a good deal. You can go through a drive-thru and get a burger which has meat, cheese, lettuce,

and sauce, bread, all for a dollar. But if you grocery shop and drop 80 bucks or like 60 pounds, got you bro, of groceries, you can eat like a king all week.

And it's healthier. but it takes a little bit extra. It takes planning. So you're saying plan and prep is the key. Strategy. Here's the best way to do it. Strategy. Here's the best way to do it. What I did with my group when I first lost the bet, every Sunday, I had some people come over my house. We'd all go grocery shopping together. We'd throw money in the pot and everyone shows up with their containers we cook literally all day so there's like two three people in the kitchen other people in the living room play Monopoly I always win uh Jingo whatever we exchange back and forth the end of the day of like eight hours of cooking which it doesn't feel like that because just to hang out yeah uh everyone gets

their containers and we all separate the food. You have all your food you need for the entire week. So everyone has like 24 meals. They're the cook-a-thon days that I read about. Yeah, Sunday cook-a-thon.

All right. And then I read... All different research. Oh, man. Yeah. Here we go. Here's something that I'm still... I've got to ask you

because my head's getting messed up. Plant-based engine 2 compliant dishes. That I'm speaking... What is that? I's getting messed up. Plant-based engine two compliant dishes. I'm speaking in tongues. Plant-based engine two compliant dishes. Hit me. Talk to me again. Come, Cam, let me know what's going on. It sounds something like a computer would say

when the self-destruct mode has been invoked on a spaceship. Just like, plant-based engine two compliant. Now in operation. Yeah. Go ahead. All right. That's the 28 day challenge that I suggest you do. I suggest everyone do that,

even if you have no interest in being vegan. Because when I did that, you eat so clean that you learn how to read your body, which sounds a little silly. No, no, no. When I'm eating clean like that, which I don't always, but if I'm training for a fight or something, I eat clean, you know, when your body's craving carbs, when it's craving fats, when it's craving sugar, whatever you need, you know what your body needs.

Okay. And I did that in 2012 and still to this day, I'm able to understand my body more. And it was only 28 days. I wish I had more vegan information. I just, my research is I tried it. I like how I feel. And that's what I go by because there's so much out there of misinformation and people who want everyone to eat meat will say things bad against veganism or people who don't want to eat meat will say bad things against eating meat. I just tried it. I love it. It made my life happier. It brought me joy. And it brought me that slight moral superiority that I don't mention, but I'm like, I'm doing something good in life because I don't like waking up early on Sundays. My man. There you go. There you go. Hey, listen, that may be the best endorsement I've heard for veganism,

period, and it's because you're kind of doing it in a way where you're respecting everybody, but it's really about making yourself happy, and, you know, who can't respect that? You have to. That's true. You have to. Thanks so much, brother. Yeah, Cam F. Awesome.

Check him out. That podcast again is? Your podcast? Awesome. It's uh down by the river down by the river down by the river all right also anybody wants to book any school gigs i'm starting my school tour in july traveling the country speaking about appropriate social media use bullying social social media use, and social and emotional learning. Okay, where do they get in touch with you? Boom.

Where do they get in touch with you? CelebritySportsSpeaker.com or CamFawesome.com or at Cam Fawesome on all social media platforms. There you go. There you go. Hey, man.

And it's time for us to go to a commercial break. Yes. Cam Fawesome awesome thank you once again been fabulous good luck with your target 2020 vision tokyo olympics thank you uh right we will take a break when we come back karina inkster inkster vegan fitness coach and vegan nutritionalist this is going to be another interesting, really interesting conversation, and it will be coming up straight after the break.

Welcome back to Playing With Science. Ryan. Karina Inkster. Vegan fitness coach. Yes. Vegan nutritionist. Yes. Vegan nutritionist. Yes. And someone who is amazing at pull-ups. And Chuck has something I never knew existed,

which is pull-up envy. Yes. So first of all, Karina, thank you and welcome to the show. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. Super excited. And secondly, thanks for showing off on your website and your perfect pull-ups. I mean, I've never seen more perfect form. And by the website and your perfect pull-ups. I mean, I've never seen more perfect form. And by the way, she does pull-ups. She does

palm-facing chin-ups, which are like a variation of a pull-up. It's not quite a chin-up. It's not quite a pull-up, but your palms are facing each other. Okay. And then she does one-handed pull-ups using a towel for stability, which really just made me lose my crap.

Okay. And so I am envious and I am jealous. And let's get into some vegan talk here because that's why you're on the show. Okay. Plant-based diets. Okay. We know guys have gone meat-free there are pluses there are some minuses can you give us uh an overview of what the pluses and potential minuses are for anyone thinking

may be elite athletes or just guys like chuck who want to have perfect pull-ups in the gym? That's a great question. So my focus is definitely on the strength side of things. So I've got a lot of clients, they're all vegan, they're all around the world. They're all at different levels of strength, of course. So all of my pros for veganism are usually focused around what it can help you with physically in your training. So a lot of professional athletes are actually finding that they can recover more quickly from their training when they go plant-based. And so there's a few pro athletes out there who actually have gone plant-based entirely just for performance reasons. So they feel like they can recover faster

from their training. They're not as sore. They're not as inflamed. And it could be because they're eating a lot of antioxidants from plant based foods and they're no longer eating pro-inflammatory foods, which are usually dairy and meats. So at a cellular level, it's down to antioxidants. It's down to less inflammatory product within the system. Have I got that right? Yes. And so on that note, also on the cellular level or a very small microscopic level, I was just speaking to a gastroenterologist actually for my podcast just two days ago. And there's some new research out there that vegans apparently have way healthier gut microbiomes.

I mean, who knew, right? This is totally new info compared to people who eat animal products. And it's because of the huge variety of plant foods. So this gets into just because you're vegan doesn't mean you're healthy. You could eat Oreos and fries and Skittles and be vegan. And that's all you eat. Don't say things like that to Chuck. You'll encourage. I'm telling you right now is hallelujah. Okay? He never thought

he could do those things. I have found my diet. That is my diet. You've convinced me. I'm going big. You're not going to be doing a crap load of pull-ups

on that diet, though, I got to tell you. Yeah, I'm with you on that. First of all, let me just shout out your website, which is

KarinaInkster.com and on Karina's website, which is KarinaInkster.com. And on Karina's website, people, she has a 10-day free email course on how to go vegan. She has a free 350-item plant-based grocery list, which I think is what a fantastic service that you're doing for people there. Yeah. Because that's going to bring me to my next question, which is, what am I going to eat, Karina? What am I going to eat? They tell me that I shouldn't eat meat.

And then they tell me that I've got to cut out the carbs because the pasta and the bread is no good for me because it causes inflammation and it spikes my insulin. And then you come along and say, be a vegan. I can't eat any fish. I can't eat any honey. I can't. What am I going to eat? Fair, fair question. Fair question. Well, OK, so those 350 items are just a start, right? If anyone ever asks like, hey, so what the hell do vegans even eat? Just say, hey, well, here's the 350 list item list to get you started. Yeah. Okay. So here's the thing. I've been vegan for 16 years.

Okay. About half my life. But I was vegetarian before that. And so even when I was vegetarian, honestly, I didn't know what half the foods were that I eat now, like tempeh and wakame and all these like weird sounding foods that are delicious. Sounds like something out of Black Panther. Yeah, right. Wakame.

All sorts of different cultures. Wakame forever. Thai cuisine, Indian cuisine, Afghan cuisine. Like there's so freaking many options. It's amazing. But again, it goes back to that mindset of try not to get into the avoidance mindset. Like what you just said is like,

oh man, no meat, no fish, no eggs, right? Instead, you want to eat as many new foods to you as you can. Pile on as much plant-based food as you can onto your plate. And just think about the abundance, right? There's foods out there, probably hundreds, probably thousands that I haven't tried in 16 years of being vegan. Yeah. Well, that's why I did that. I'm kind of joking about the whole thing. But yeah, I think there's a lot of people who actually feel that way. Like, you know, what else am I going to eat? What is there left?

But I love the fact that you have this, you know, 350 item grocery list. I think that's a huge, huge, like, service. So thank you for that. All right, here we go. Here we go. Go ahead, Gary. With my background in sport, would i have not been vegan so i would look at it from a distance and in my ignorance go well is it the diet or did they just

up their training regime and therefore they're stronger and this diet stuff is now it's not the thing is is it is there the psychosomatic? Is that I'm vegan and they convince themselves or talk to me about this, please? That's a really good question. So honestly, I think we need a ton more peer reviewed research in this area. So people I've had on my podcast, dieticians I've been speaking with, sports scientists, it's kind of anecdotal level evidence at this point, right? So people are noticing, oh, hey, I can recover faster. Oh, I have more energy. But there's no longitudinal, super long-term research at this point that really says, hey, you're going to improve your performance on

a vegan diet. For a lot of people, it's just the fact that they're thinking about their food more in general, right? Whether it's vegan or not, got to say. If you're really thinking about your food, you're probably more mindful about, is this really in line with my goals? Is it not? Should I eat this Oreo? Should I not? You know? So, being related to that, there are some physical changes, though, like I mentioned, with the gut microbiome.

I mean, that's not something we have control over on a conscious level. Like all the little microorganisms hanging out in our intestinal tract, right? So changes like that are very interesting, along with lowered cholesterol and possibly recovering faster with antioxidants. But there are a lot of athletes out there who kind of use themselves as case studies. So I know a couple of people who are vegan, but they've tried different types of vegan diets. So like higher carbs, lower protein, higher protein, lower carbs.

And they're just kind of doing experiments on themselves. But what we really need is a large body of research. And this is such a new area. We don't really have that yet. So yeah, sure. A lot of it could be mental. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who feel like they have something to prove. Like there's still this BS myth out there like, oh, vegans are super weak.

They're not getting enough protein. Everyone cares about protein when you tell them you're vegan. For whatever reason. All of a sudden, it's all about protein. Yeah. Like, how are you getting your protein? Right. And so there's still people out there

who feel like they've got something to prove by being an athlete. And that probably has a mental boost on some level to their performance. Probably. So I think there's a lot of different aspects to that. Absolutely. That's how my marriage has survived 22 years,

is that my wife keeps trying to prove to everybody that I was the right thing to do so i'm gonna milk it as long as i can kareem there's a question in there karina mentioned that you've never had should i eat this oreo or not uh listen that is not those are not questions that we ask some things are just beyond knowing let me ask you this is there a prescription that you can give us for making a transition into becoming vegan if somebody's just thinking about it or is this something where you have to jump in both feet first i mean everybody can always do a trial thing okay like you could you know you can say well i'm gonna try it for four weeks and now

patrick that's what he told us like he he people, try it for four weeks because that's about enough time for you to get the idea of what your lifestyle would be and whether or not it's for you. Are there any other ways to make a transition with something like, you know, paring down your diet or, you know, just an elimination process? Or, you know, is there any way you go about this that you would recommend for people different ways? That's a really good question. So I have in my 10-day online course a meal-by-meal approach. So what I normally do with my clients

is start with your breakfast. So we're going throughout the day here. We're not going a length of time, like a month. We're not going all in necessarily all at once. We're going by time of day. So what do you normally eat for breakfast? Okay. Let's veganize that. And let's do that for a month. Just your breakfast. Don't care about the other stuff. And at that point, you don't have to think about your breakfast anymore. Then you move on to lunch. Okay. So how are we going to veganize your lunch? Then you go to dinner. You don't even have to think about your first, you know, half of your day by that point.

And you've got your snacks and you've got your pre and post workout if you're an athlete. Brilliant. And you're good. Then you're plant-based. That is a brilliant approach. Do you know why? It is directly tied to your lifestyle. Absolutely. Because no matter who you are, you eat a certain way. So instead of trying to change all at once, what you're doing is you're attacking it from the lifestyle perspective. People talk about being energized. People talk about having more strength. How come?

How am I changing what I eat? Surely it's got to be. I go back to the training regime, what I'm doing. How come? It's all because of stuff I'm sticking in my face. Yeah, right. You know what's missing in most people's diets? Apparently 97% of Americans are deficient in this.

Any guesses? Chocolate. I'm going to say anything chocolate, yeah. I'm going to say anything green. Very good guess. And it's in things that are green and it's fiber. Very good guess. And it's in things that are green and it's fiber.

So apparently almost every person in North America is not hitting the fiber needs, including athletes, including everybody. Just population-wide, we are not getting enough fiber. Now, if you're a vegan, all you eat is plants. You're getting a crap load of fiber just by being vegan, assuming you're not sitting there just eating Oreos and nothing else. Looking at you. Looking at you. Yeah, you can look at me all you want. Right now, I just wish I had a thing of Oreos here. A sleeve of Oreos. I'd see you if it wasn't for that box of Oreos you're sitting behind. Exactly. But go ahead. Go ahead. So a lot of it has to actually do with the different types of nutrients that you are now eating. It's a very different diet. You're getting the fiber you need. Your digestive tract is working a lot better now, which is important

for athletes too. You're getting a lot more antioxidants from plants. Let's assume that you're eating mostly whole foods, right? I mean, I'm not 100% got to eat only whole foods and nothing else, but 85% of the time. So you're getting antioxidants, which potentially help you recover faster from your training, which means you can then go train some more, which is kind of how steroids work. It's just recover super fast, go train some more. So there's a potential performance benefit there. Right. And strength.

You know, honestly, I feel like we need more people like Patrick in the vegan world. There's tons of professional endurance vegan athletes out there. Brendan Brazier, triathletes, marathon runners, and the vegan strength world is there. I've got power lifters who are competing on a national level. We have Robert Cheek, who's a very well-known bodybuilder, so he's on the physique stage. But when you think about real professional vegan athletes, the strength world still needs to be populated some more. professional vegan athletes, the strength world still needs to be populated some more. We've got to meet the 11 of the Titans in the NFL went vegan last season.

Oh, really? Yeah, and they're all linemen. They did it as a team thing? Wow. Right. So they said, the thing I had, one of the guys, I was reading his interview, said, I lost so much weight. I went from 300 pounds to 265. And I'm thinking, this vegan diet's great. It's cost me my job. That's actually a really, really good

point. And especially with guys and especially with athletes, because generally men need more calories than women do just because of body size. And if you're an athlete, whether you're vegan or not, you need a lot of calories. So this is an excellent point, actually, for your listeners to hear because vegan food, if it's whole food, let's just assume mostly healthy, whole foods, it's very nutrient dense, but it is not calorie dense. So if you're someone who needs to eat 4,000 calories a day, because you're an athlete and you're 300 pounds, you probably need to eat more actually, probably like 500 calories a day. Or I mean, 5,000 calories. 5,000, yeah. That is a huge volume of vegan whole foods, right? So it actually will probably feel like you're eating a lot more, like your plate is three times the size. I mean, if you have a salad the size of

your torso, it's like 300 calories. And if you have a tiny little piece of steak, it's the same. Right. So, right. It's kind of like, where are your calories coming from? And it's a bit of a shift for a lot of people, especially athletes, because the food is now very nutrient dense, which is perfect. It's going to help you with your recovery, your training, fueling, but it's not super calorie dense. So as using myself as an example, when I trained clients in person at a gym, I did that for seven years before I went totally online. I was, you know, walking around a gym, demoing exercises eight to 10 hours a day. I was on about 3,500 calories because I'm also doing my own training on top of that. So that's not insane.

You know, if you compare that to someone who's a football player on 5,000 calories, it's still a decent chunk of food. thousand calories. It's still a decent chunk of food. But even at that level, 3,500-ish calories a day of healthy vegan food, I'm pretty much stuffing my face all day. Like people at the gym knew me as, oh yeah, she's eating again. It's like her fourth lunch. No big deal. Wow. You're already halfway there. Yeah, I'm almost there. Because you're always thinking of food. You're damn right I am. I'm hungry. This conversation is making me hungry. There you go.

Yeah. You're the perfect vegan like test specimen. I am. I'm hungry. This conversation is making me hungry. There you go. Yeah. Perfect vegan like test specimen. I'm serious. I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about I'm going to I'm going to look at your 10 day your 10 day thing. I told my wife it was a 10 day challenge, but it really isn't. But I'm sure you can make it a challenge for yourself. That's true. I can. I can. But I also loved your approach in that you do it on a meal-by-meal transition. I think that that is the most brilliant strategy that anyone has ever said publicly. And I've had people say a lot of ways to go vegan,

but no one has ever said it meal-by-meal. I think that's brilliant. Okay, Patrick, earlier in the show, and thank you for giving young Chuck some advice. He needs guidance. Of course. Patrick talked about the bump in the show, and thank you for giving young Chuck some advice. He needs guidance. Of course. Patrick talked about the bump in the road. You know, from day one to maybe a month later and feeling the benefits,

not so much pain, not so much better recovery, energy, strength and stuff. What is the main or most common bump in the road people experience? Because it's not all roses and there's the odd thorn. So where is it hidden? So what we just talked about with the calories is usually the bump in the road for athletes. They're like, oh my God, I need to eat so freaking much food now. It's kind of ridiculous. And of course, it becomes your new normal at some point. Yeah. But it's the unintentional weight loss.

So, you know, someone who weighs 300 pounds because they have to for their job then goes to 260, not because they wanted to, it's because of their diet changes. So that can be, that can take some figuring out. So now you're creating thousand calorie smoothies

that you never had before. Other bumps in the road are cravings. So psychologically, man, I miss cheese, which is honestly the most common one that I hear in my clients anyway. They're all around the world and they all say cheese. I don't know what it is about cheese. Apparently it has some kind of addictive properties to it. I don't know if that's legit or not.

Oh, it really does. Are you kidding me? Sometimes I melt it and put it in a syringe and just mainline it, right? Okay, I'm joking. Go ahead. That's what I would do with chocolate. So, you know, it could be a psychological thing. It could be, wow, I kind of just missed this food because it's something I enjoyed. And I have to tell you guys, I didn't go vegan because I didn't like the taste of meat or cheese or eggs. I didn't go vegan saying, yeah, I don't like these foods. I had my ethical reasons, health reasons, environmental reasons. So it's part of the deal. I don't think about it anymore. It's been so long. And there's so many amazing options like

the Beyond Burgers now, Impossible Burgers, cheese options that are plant-based. So we got options now. 16 years ago, people didn't even know what vegan meant. They were like, hey, do you want a salad with chicken on it? Like, is that vegan? Yeah, that's true. That's so true. Super cool. All right, we got to go. We have to. Oh my god. Karina Insta, thank you. You're a delight. Thank you. Website again is

KarinaInster.com You got that right. Yes. Hey, I'm going to check back with you. I'm going to let you know how this is going, all right? Please do. Yeah, absolutely. Any questions, if your listeners want to get in touch, KarinaInxter.com is hub of all things vegan and science-based and badassery.

And your podcast? Yes, you can get in touch anytime. And your podcast is called? It is called No BS Vegan. I don't know if you guys have a rated E podcast or not because it's really the no bullshit vegan. There you go. That'll do. That'll work.

That works for us. Lots of science-based info. I'm really not into a lot of the pseudoscience that's around veganism and within veganism. So there's a lot of BS that needs to be busted. So I'm doing my little part there. All right. All right, you vegan myth buster.

We love it. Thank you. Yeah. Best of luck with everything. And I mean, if anybody listens to this show and they're saying, you know what, Chuck, Gary, love you.

Hopefully that's what they say. But I'm having me a big juicy steak tomorrow and I don't care. I'm good with that. Yeah, good for you. But if listening to our show today has helped you think in a different way, challenged a convention, then you know what?

We'll be cool with that. Because it seems there's a movement. That Game Changer movie that James Cameron's involved in, that Patrick was on, I think that's going to make people sit down and think. That movement is getting such a real pace. It's super cool, man. It is. All right. Well, that's it. I'm off to go have some Oreos. Again. Right. getting such such a real pace super cool man it is

alright well that's it I'm off to go have some Oreos again right that is our plant based athletes

I hope you've enjoyed it I hope it's food for thought pun intended of course I see what you did there you did didn't you good man

right I'm Gary O'Reilly and I'm Chuck Nice and we're not vegan yet but we might well be next time you hear us. Bye for now. Wish you could listen to StarTalk commercial free? Join StarTalk on Patreon for as little as $5 per month

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