Read what motivated these top athletes, including Lewis Hamilton, Tia Blanco and Venus Williams, to pivot to a plant-based lifestyle
More and more athletes are adopting vegan diets, and these talented pros are living proof that you can get your protein (and other nutrients) from plants, and still be in peak physical shape.
In fact, sports superstars, such as surfer Tia Blanco and pro basketball player Enes Kanter, are discovering that a vegan diet rich in protein, calcium, iron, and more, works best for them and helps them be successful both on and off the field.
Dozens of athletes, including those at the professional level, say that a plant-based diet gives them more energy, can lead to quicker recovery times, and improves their overall athletic performance. Plus, going plant-based is kinder to animals, and better for the environment.
Here are the reasons why these top athletes have embraced to a plant-based lifestyle:
Lewis Hamilton
“We all have a voice, I have this platform and so to not use it correctly would be wrong of me. Yes it’s hard, nothing’s ever easy but I’ve felt the best I’ve ever felt” the race car driver captioned a photo on Instagram.
Novak Djokovic
“Food is the fuel that determines how I play, how I recover, and how alert I am on the court. I attribute a great deal of my professional success to my diet.” says the plant-based Wimbledon champion. He also added “I don’t have allergies that I used to have any more. And I like it.”
Diana Taurasi
“You take for granted what you put in your body when you’re young,” the WNBA player and three-time Olympic gold medalist told Record Online. “As you get older, you get conscious of what you’re eating and how that affects your body.”
Enes Kanter
“I started to learn about factory farming. The more I read, and the more I watched, and learned, and educated myself, my heart was just shattering,” the Turkish basketball player told PETA in January 2021.
Tia Blanco
“When I was 15, I watched the documentary Glass Walls and read The China Study, and then it became quite clear to me why I wanted to be vegetarian and why I wanted to adopt a vegan lifestyle,” the pro surfer told Men’s Journal
Colin Kaepernick
The pro football player’s girlfriend, radio host Nessa Diab, discussed his vegan diet in June 2016. “He’s also a vegan with me,” Diab said in a video posted to the MTV2 Facebook page. “We did it together. Because we feel like … the more animal products you eat, your body becomes more acidic, which allows more diseases to basically breed within you.”
Alex Morgan
The U.S. women’s soccer star has said she supports the ASPCA because she is passionate “about giving animals a voice.” “It didn’t feel fair to have a dog I adore, and yet eat meat all the time,” she told Reuters in 2019.
Derrick Morgan
The former linebacker went vegan in 2017 thanks to his wife, vegan chef Charity Morgan. “Overcoming the preconceived notions is the biggest part. I was a part of it. I used to believe athletes had to eat meat to maintain play, then I educated myself,” he told ESPN.
Venus Williams
“I started for health reasons. Once I started, I fell in love with the concept of fueling your body in the best way possible. Not only does it help me on the court, but I feel like I’m doing the right thing for me,” the tennis star told Health. “It really changed my life.”Credit: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images
Serena Williams
“I feel like a lot of things are being killed and we’re not saving the earth,” she told Essence. “We can all just do one small thing and help out so that was also a lot of our inspiration.”
Kyrie Irving
The NBA star adopted a vegan diet in 2017 and noted that making the switch improved his game. “I had to get away from [meat and animal products],” he said at the time. “So my energy is up. My body feels amazing.”
Original source: https://www.livekindly.co