How Kyle became Vegan!!!

Hey, my name is Kyle DeLaney and I’m 30 years old. I’m also vegan and I like to lift weights. I grew up in South Jersey, and moved to Portland, Oregon in March 2015.

If I had to pinpoint one thing which initiated my interest in becoming big and strong, I would have to say it was professional wrestling. While I haven’t really followed it in about 15 years, it was instrumental in my desire to be big. I remember having a WWF VHS tape at a very young age with a handful of matches on it. Of course there was a Hulk Hogan match (late 80s/early 90s), but there was also a match involving a man named Ivan Putski. I’ll never forget how big he was in that match. He wasn’t ripped like he became later on, but he certainly had a lot of muscle. He looked like the kind of man who could knock down a brick wall with his bare hands. After that, I discovered Andre the Giant, and I was awestruck. He was just so massive and I thought it was the coolest thing on earth. 

A few years later I remember seeing the World’s Strongest Man contests on TV. Magnus ver Magnusson was the man to beat at that time, and they would always play older competitions, often featuring Bill Kazmaier. I thought he had the most impressive physique in his day. His traps were like two grapefruits which sat between his neck and his shoulders. The competitions themselves got me really riled up. There were a bunch of actual giants throwing around larger than life versions of everyday objects. I would get excited to go do yard work after that, running with the wheelbarrow full of mulch and dragging tree limbs to the street.

Around that time I started getting very into the punk and hardcore music scene. It was the first place I ever felt like I belonged in my life. There were rooms full of passionate, aggressive people listening to bands who were singing about real life things I could relate to; being angry and insecure and a black sheep. Some of the bands also sang about things like living a drug and alcohol free lifestyle (something I made a conscious decision to do when I was 13), and some sang about not eating and enslaving animals (something which struck a chord with me, but I didn’t adopt until several years later). I always considered myself an animal lover, I grew up wanting to be a zookeeper and spending much of my early years poring over books about dinosaurs and lions. 

I grew up playing sports, but once I got involved in the music scene, I gave them up. I realized I felt more at home in a room full of strangers than I ever had on any team. I realized teams weren’t really my thing. After a few years, when I was 16, my friend convinced me to join the track team to throw shot put and discus with him. He was the best thrower we had, and wanted a good partner for the relay meets. I had never tried either, but I joined the team and after a few weeks of practices and some size on my side, I became the #2 thrower on the team, and my buddy’s relay partner. As a means to get better at throwing, I started lifting weights with my buddy. We mostly benched and used the leg press and did a lot of curls. After high school, I went away to college and got pretty into lifting weights. At the time it was mostly an aesthetic thing for me. I loved reading bodybuilding magazines, memorizing some of my favorite bodybuilders’ routines.

One day I was reading one of the magazines, and in the back there was a two page ad. I don’t even remember what it was for to be honest, but I remember the man in the picture. His name is Scot Mendelson, and there was a brief article explaining how he weighed 320 pounds, had a six pack, and was the strongest bench presser in the world. I was amazed. From that point I started going back through the magazines I had and finding articles about bodybuilders who employed powerlifting into their training. I started lifting heavier, and not worrying as much about the number on the scale. It was also about this time some of the music I grew up listening to started to really take hold of my thoughts. The band Earth Crisis posted a link from their Myspace page to a PETA video, showing footage from slaughterhouses. I became vegetarian the next day. I could no longer rationalize eating something which unwillingly lost its life, and in such a terrible manner. I realized the only difference between my dog and a cow was how their roles are dictated by society. They are both sentient beings with the ability to love and hurt as much as us. To make up for the protein I was no longer able to get from meat, I started to eat a lot of eggs and cheese. After tearing my rotator cuff, my weight rose as I continued to eat the same way without training. When I finally got back into the gym after about two years of no lifting at all, I weighed 275, even going up to 285 once I had been lifting weights again for a few months. 

The idea of going vegan had been growing stronger in the back of my mind for quite some time, and one day in April 2009, I just decided enough was enough. I told myself I would not eat any more animal products, and I’ve stuck to that ever since. Over the next few months I lost about 40 pounds. My energy was through the roof, and I felt good about being alive, something I hadn’t felt in years. Over the next few years, I went from doing mostly cardio (woof), to bodybuilding style training, and eventually deciding that powerlifting was the thing for me. 

In 2012, I tore my rotator cuff once again. Unfortunately, it never healed properly from the first tear, as I never had surgery on it and didn’t do any physical therapy. Don’t think because you’re 19 you’re invincible. It’s actually never been properly repaired, and is something I’ve been training around for over a decade now. I eventually got back into the gym in 2014, taking it very slow in the beginning. I started out just benching the bar for five sets of 20 reps, working up to that set and rep scheme with 95 pounds until I no longer noticed any pain in my shoulder. Since then, I’ve had some flare ups with it here and there, but I’ve learned when to stop pushing through the pain, and what seems to aggravate it the least. 

Being vegan is not something I talk about much. Most people don’t know I’m vegan until it somehow makes sense to mention it in conversation. I’m fairly shy, for one thing, and it’s not that I’m ashamed of it, far from it, it’s just that answering the same questions and hearing the same unfounded criticisms time and time again eventually starts to take its toll. That having been said, every once in a while I come across someone who’s genuinely interested in it, and have honest, engaging questions. Those are some of my favorite conversations. I’m fortunate to live in a city now which has an abundance of vegan culture; it’s so accessible here. There’s definitely still a stigma attached to veganism, particularly within the powerlifting world, but there’s such an awesome community for vegan athletes via the internet. It’s really been a powerful motivation for me to start to put myself out there and connect with people and showcase what I do. I still have yet to compete in a powerlifting competition, but have worked a few at my gym, and it’s such an awesome atmosphere, very reminiscent of the hardcore punk community which made me who I am. There is a meet at my gym in July I hope to do, as long as old injuries don’t get in the way. Most recently I broke my hand at work last year, and my wrist and grip strength are still a little iffy. Current training PRs are 425x2 in the squat (knee sleeves and a belt), 285 bench with a competition pause (haven’t handled that much weight since breaking my hand), and a 605 deadlift with a belt. Hopefully I can continue to push those numbers up for a long time.