Ricky Goes Vegan:
‘Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food’-Hippocrates
Why?
I have been thinking about giving up meat, dairy, and eggs for a while now…
One of the main reasons is that I wanted to see how it would make me feel.
Quick Tangent:
For the past 8-9 years I have been obsessed with fitness.
In the beginning of my journey, the main reason was for ‘vanity’ purposes, and to look good for the girls.
I now realize (even though it was a great intrinsic motivation to get me into the gym), that feeling good, and performing well are even more important. Therefore, in the past couple of years I have made a slight transition.
Specifically, in 2018, the most important part of working out, playing football, eating healthy, and doing whatever I love doing has been for me has been:
How I feel during before and after what I am doing.
I like to listen to my intuition and to my gut, and I think I am a pretty ‘self-aware’ person.
Therefore, I sit back, vibrate and see how I feel doing the things that I love to do.
If it doesn’t feel right, I generally stop doing it.
Back to the Story:
I have always been a guy to put good things into my body.
Though, I have gone through quite an evolution of how I eat; going from protein, protein, protein, protein to building my meals around good quality, fresh vegetables & produce.
In the past two years, I have tried to consume as much “real food” as possible and have tried to cut out as much processed food as possible( I can explain the reasons for this, but that will have me going on for days, and I think you guys & girls want me to get to the point).
I have built the base of my meals around vegetables. Thereafter, adding some good quality lean protein (meat, chicken, fish), and some good quality fiber-rich, carbohydrate sources (sweet potatoes, brown rice, quinoa etc.) and some good fats (coconut oil, olive oil, almonds, avocado, etc.)
Though, after every meal, I was constantly feeling extremely/abnormally bloated after most meals, and I would think to myself ‘why am I feeling so bloated, aren’t I eating super healthy?’
Being the unique human that I am, I began researching what was going on, which led me to try many things, including: elimination of dairy, gluten, acidic foods, etc.
Puzzlingly enough, I still felt the same.
I said to myself ‘hmm, this is a mystery, let’s delve deeper and figure this one out!’
I began by sharing my experience with other health professionals, professional athletes, and many close friends.
They told me to cut out dairy, gluten, yada, yada, yada.
In essence, all of the things that I was already cutting out!
Though, I had spoken to a couple of other unique people that appeared to be in fantastic shape, and people who noticed that I’m also in ‘okay’ shape.
Since I’m an honest and open guy, and generally curious about peoples’ take on health and fitness throughout the world, this lead to many long/deep-detailed discussions.
Many of these people had told me that they were vegan.
I stepped back on thought, ‘okay, okay, reasonable, vegetables are the best food that can you consume on this earth.’
Like I stated in the beginning, I care a lot about how I feel and how others feel, because for me that is the most important thing in the world.
What really stood out to me in every conversation was how good they felt, how light they felt, how much better they were sleeping, and how much more energy they felt that they had.
After every conversation, I said to myself “hmmmm…I really would like to try this out and see how I would feel.”
Though, when I thought about trying the vegan diet a couple of months ago, I didn’t have a team, I was constantly moving from place to place, trying out for various teams, and I didn’t know where I would end up.
I was a nomad!
I knew that I would need a nice kitchen and a comfortable place that felt like home to start this vegan journey!
After all of all the traveling and ‘grinding’, I signed for a contract for fantastic team in the ‘middle of nowhere’ in Sweden, in a town consisting of about 550 people (my team and the staff comprising of about 30 of those people).
I moved into a peaceful/beautiful house with a nice couple, and the lady is a chef!
I thought to myself, ‘wow, I absolutely love cooking, and besides the people being wonderful people, I can also learn to cook better.’
Long story short, in the middle of having a conversation on The Train with RicFit Audio Experience (my Podcast where I interview Professional Footballers from all around the world to find out how they live their day to day life on and off the field,) with Kaelyn Korte, who is a vegan, and hearing her tell me how good she feels, and how she feels “the fittest she ever has been,”
Signing in Sweden for Ytterhögdals IK
I had a ‘sight from within.
I decided, ‘okay, now is the time RICKY, let’s go Vegan.’ (Yes, I’m weird I talk to myself, as well in third-person)
During the conversation (don’t tell her- I don’t want to be rude), I put the eggs, salmon, shrimp, chicken, and feta cheese into the other refrigerator that belongs to the people I live with.
So, that is where this story began….
What will I be doing…
I will be doing a ’30 day Vegan Challenge’ for myself, and also for you guys & girls, but mainly for myself, because I want to see how it makes ME feel, but I’m glad to take you people on this journey (since I love y’all so much).
How will I make you guys a part of this…
I will be posting a blog every single night before I go to sleep with:
-How I slept the night before.
-How well recovered I feel.
-The amount I trained that day/what type of training I did.
-What I ate for every single meal & any snacks I at.
-MOST IMPORTANTLY, how I feel after every meal I eat.
-And how I am feeling during my gym sessions, training, and my matches, etc.
I want to do this because I don’t think there’s ENOUGH information out there on a practical level of how to do ‘this Vegan thing.’ People say they’re vegan,
BUT THEY DON’T TELL YOU WHAT THEY DO OR HOW TO DO IT.
Therefore, I will make all of my posts as detailed as possible, and let you enjoy this ride with me.
I think it is vital that people see the ‘behind the scenes’ of this ‘vegan kick’ because I find that many top athletes and other performers/practitioners don’t give enough detail.
As you guys know, I like to talk a lot, and hopefully, I will begin to like to write a lot.
I look forward to taking you guys & girls on this journey to becoming a vegan and hopefully, becoming a better writer!
Practice makes permanent, right guys?!
As long as you guys can put up with me talking to myself, and just in general, being a weirdo THAN…
LETS DO THIS!