Few deep breaths, head begins to get heavy, tilting to one side, eyes begin rolling back. Quick jolt, open my eyes and blink them rapidly, straightening my head as quickly as possible. This process repeats itself over and over again until I fall into a deep sleep, breathing like an obese man who just climbed a flight of stairs. It always seems that when you reach this point that there is always a dream, whether its good, bad, amazing, or terrifying, but you wake up never remembering the details, remembering just the mood of the dream. I, myself, had a lifestyle change, a complete 180 degree turn, an aspiration for a better life. I can't put my finger on the exact moment that his happened but, I imagine my self in Charles Dickson novel "A Christmas Carol" where my soul, my emotions, my being gets pulled out of my body. While in this dream I obtain the ability to watch myself from a third person perspective and see what got me to this point. What steps did I take to arrive at this point in my life and why am I vegan? I use Scrooge as an example because I imagine myself being flown around by a vegan ghost, my vegan self, exposing the changes that I made the last few years.
The first stop would be the days of the global gym. I was diagnosed with a sleeping disorder which was only curable with a healthy diet and weight loss. Magazines, internet, billboards all tainted my mind on what was considered "healthy." Every Muscle and Fitness I read, every forum on bodybuilding.com that I came across promoted a high protein diet full of steaks, chicken, and of course bacon. Without doing my own researched, I dived head first into this type of diet, eating pounds and pounds of animal flesh because I thought it was the way to go. I thought it would get me ripped and strong as a gorilla. At this point I was not aware of the fact that gorillas were vegetarian. Not once did I think about how that meat arrived on my plate and even If I did know, I was probably to ignorant to even care. I didn't care about how the animals were treated, I didn't care where the meat came from, factory or farm. If it was meat and full of protein, I would shove it in my mouth. Besides, they are just animals right, they were brought to this earth by god for us to eat.
Every meal, I would pile the meat on my plate without a single drop of remorse. I was selfish. All I cared about was, "this taste good" and "Protein, Protein, Protein." My vegan ghost pulls me from that moment and fast forwards 1 year to the moment when a good friend of mine introduced me to crossfit. I loved every part of crossfit, I was getting healthier, I was losing weight, and I was feeling good. Crossfit introduced me to a paleo style diet. This was my first glimpse into the true meat industry and started to care where I got my meat from and how it was killed. I began buying only organic, and so-called "humane" meat. I no longer wanted to eat animals that were mistreated, misfed, and what major fast food industries considered real beef. If the cavemen ate meat then that is what I must do to become caveman strong, right? I started reading labels and eating only meat that was organic and free range, trying to make myself feel better for eating these murdered animals. Once again, media and popularity had me convinced that killing animals for food was the best option for becoming healthy.
After showing me the first 2 major events that changed the way I thought about food, my ghost takes me to the moment I first changed vegetarian. My wife convinced me to be open to the idea of becoming vegetarian. I promised that I would give it a try and see how it makes me feel for 30 days. I read two books on a plane trip to Hawaii. "Thrive" and "Spartan Up" changed how I viewed nutrition for ever. These books explained how the meat industry, whether conventional or organic, has destroyed the quality of meat and basically sucked all nutrients out of it. It is impossible for the meat industry to keep up with the demand for meat while using traditional methods of farming and ranching. This idea was the beginning of my journey as a plant based athlete.
As my vegan ghost continues to take me through my past, I wonder how I ended up vegan? And this is where he takes me, my last stop. He show me myself, with my nose in a book called "Zen's Mind." This book was my first experience of a text about how to live the life of the Buddha. This book taught me mediation, the noble 8-fold path, 4 Noble Truths and the one thing that stuck the mots, Buddha did not believe in hurting animals. Not only were the human lives valuable, but all lives mattered. Including the bugs that the Bodhisattva's swept off the path while Buddha walked into the forest to mediate, including cows,pigs, dogs, everything that lived. The ghost would take me to the days I watched all the documentaries revealing the truth behind the dairy and egg industry. How there is no such thing as humane dairy, humane eggs, or human meat. Killing is Killing. I now had a feeling of pain and guilt everytime I thought about drinking milk and frying up my eggs for breakfast.
As my vegan ghost brings my mind and soul back to my body, before I awake from this trip to my past, it reminds me of how I got to the point. How I am a vegan athlete in a strength sport. I get a lot of jokes and funny looks when I tell my athletes that I coach or other national level lifters that I meet that I'm vegan. Questions like, how do you live? where do you get your protein from? how do you stay strong? so what can you eat? That is definitely a topic for another entry. I am glad I am a vegan, I am glad that I changed. At this point in my life I wish I could've started earlier. Being vegetarian for 1.5 years and vegan for 2 months, I can say that I feel great. I am the strongest right now this second than I ever imagined possible. I've been to the American Open and National Championships. I have medals and plaques. All while being a plant based strength athlete. Now That my trip is done I can open my eyes, come back to the real world and continue to prove athletes that it is possible to become strong without killing animals.
