The Journey Of Niki Sparkle

I have been a vegetarian for far longer than I have vegan. I was first vegan almost 20 years ago but I didn't understand how important that choice was for the planet at the time and it was mainly to stop myself from over eating.
My back ground as an athlete started when I was a sports player (basket ball) from quite a young child and adolescent to my teens.
Our diet wasn't looked at as so important.
I had many years as a grown up without sports or much activity until about 6 years ago when I started going to the gym to "get skinny".

The gym became my haven and quickly an important part of my daily routine.
The diet was mainly vegetarian for years but not very healthy. I had no idea about macros, aminos or any nutrient importance.
I mainly did cardio exercises ... didn't know what any of the machines did ... and as far as I knew the weights were for men.

Regardless of my choice is exercise, all of my gym efforts were pretty much wasted because of what I ate.
I just about maintained weight but saw no major difference in size or fitness level.

It got frustrating ... started to cut more food out and increase cardio and ended up with some terrible eating habits.

Then I decided enough was enough and I wanted to learn about getting "toned" properly... I met a female body builder through my work and she showed me some tricks and that's I found out about basic weight lifting and that the best way for women to firm/tone up was to get on the weights instead of the crazy amount of cardio I was doing every day.

I soon saw a difference so it didn't take me long before I wanted to take it to another level.
When I started to focus on building more and bigger muscle mass in stead of the toning I knew my diet had to change, I didn't know what or how.

I was vegetarian but was still eating a lot of sweets and crisps and junk food and then guilt starving at this point so my body fat was holding on for dear life because it was trying to cope with the extreme dieting and that fat was covering all my hard work... so I knew that the all the "dieting " had to go ... but what and how? It was all quite confusing when I researched it.

Then I took some bad food / meal advice ...
"you must eat chicken and fish and broccoli to gain muscle"  and the stereo typical body builder ways came along for the ride.
I bought into it for about a year...
I convinced myself this was the way to do it but one day I just had enough and the idea of eating another dead chicken was making me feel awful.
I also started to see more and more amazing vegan athletes on Instagram and I thought "that's me, I can do that too".

So I did. I had a cross over period... my mind was ready but
I had an event I was prepping for and promised myself the day it was done I would never eat another animal or any produce from an animal again ... That was a great day!

This time round there is a lot more reason to my decision. I have tonnes more knowledge and experience about food; what it does and how it works and what to eat to gain muscle and or lose fat.
The science of it all is so interesting to me.

But something else happened too.

I suddenly feel a deep felt need to do more to right my wrongs and to show a new style of vegan health in a public forum.

My own ignorance was slapped in the face when I started to look into industrial animal farming. I didn't know a fraction of the truth!

So now I want to share my knowledge to help stop the terrible conditions that animals are enduring in order to end up on people's plates ...
there is a complete lack of connection for most people ... just like my own experience...  there simply is not enough knowledge out in society in general  about how the animals are handled and how atrociously unnecessary it is to eat meat or drink dairy in this day and age.
People really do believe milk comes freely from cows and other animals, that eggs magically appear without cruelty
and that there is such a thing as humane killing of animals... Sadly there is not.

The world cannot sustain itself the way farming of animals is going...
That's for a whole different blog post.... so sticking to my story!

I am super proud to have gone vegan.         

This time it is not just about me and my health but also about educating more people about the great alternatives available and showing a cruelty free life style is where the future is at.

If anyone would like to talk about any subject here feel free to email me for information. If I can't answer myself,  then I have many fellow educated vegans who can.


N.B.
A vegetarian diet still includes cheese, dairy and eggs .. sadly all those things involve taking something from animals and involve terrible cruelty on industrial farms such as forced insemination, constant pregnancies, mastitis infections, hormone injections, calves being taken away from the cow mothers in order for her to produce milk and the male baby chicks are often gassed or ground up alive as a waste product of the egg industry ... That's not the half of it!

AND that is why I am vegan not vegetarian anymore.
I am 100% plant based athlete not 45/55% or 95% but completely, heart and soul ✊🌱❤️


Kind regards,

✨Niki Sparkle✨
Instagram
@nikisparkle
@veganbodybuildingmermaid