The Vegan Athlete Experiment
There was a point and time in my life where my fitness was my top priority! I built up some crazy momentum with it. I’m not too sure if I will have it back to that level again due the increase in my responsibilities as well as a change in my priorities — pretty much as most adults will say — life got in the way; however, there’s still no reason why I can’t get it back to a reasonably high level and strive for excellence. The following will be a synopsis of my overall health and fitness goals for my current lifestyle, as well as some practical ways on how I plan to get to that end goal.

As you may have so accurately guessed from the title of this article — I’m going to try out a vegan diet for 2 weeks as an experiment.
The caveat; however, is that it is going to be plant-based. Currently I follow a pescatarian diet (I was raised to not eat pork, haven’t eaten beef since I was 12 years old, and stopped eating chicken and turkey in 2012); however, it has been at least 3 weeks to a month since I’ve last eaten fish , so one could assume that I’ve been eating really healthy since all of the meat products have essentially been taken from my diet.
That is not the case because I have still been eating a lot of processed junk foods (i.e. cookies, muffins, french fries, candy, soft drinks, etc.); even though my favorite food is cauliflower and I eat a lot of it, a large percentage of what I have been eating recently has been processed junk foods.
Why I Even Want To Try A Plant-Based Vegan Diet In The First Place
I am a highly analytical and scientific type person. I like testing things and trying experiments. How I’ve come to stop eating chicken - even though hot wings used to be my favorite food on earth - happened as a result of an experiment that I did on myself to see how my performance in my workouts would be affected with less chicken. With that being said, there are a number of reasons why I want to try this out and they are as follows:
- I want to see the effect that this type of eating has on my skin. I have developed a rash that comes onto my neck when I eat too many processed sugary and salty foods in excess, and it has been brought to my attention that a plant-based diet will clear that up
- Because of all the other goals that I have outside of health and fitness and the time and energy that I know will go into achieving them, I want to see how this way of eating will affect my energy levels. I’m hoping that it will dramatically boost my energy, thus helping me to crush it in all the areas of life where I’m striving to excel
- When I exercise, my primary driver is performance; sure I like to look aesthetically pleasing (And I even do want to put on a little more muscle mass — about 5 to 10 more pounds), but what matters to me most is how my strength is increasing, how my mobility and flexibility are improving, and how this is manifesting in the difficulty of the progressive exercises I can perform as well as in how I move through my everyday life in general
- I’m also hoping that my mental clarity and focus will improve greatly. I use my brain a lot, I think of it as one of my greatest assets, and the fact that I have so many big goals and that I find it hard to stay focused is disturbing and alarming. If this way of eating proves to create improvement in this area, then it will have created a very strong appeal for me to stick with it.

My Training Regiment
If I did not mention it before — I LOVE calisthenics and gymnastics strength skills! So my training will follow this type of protocol.
Many guys workout to get bigger, to put on more muscle mass, and sure I’m looking to do that as well to an extent, but that to me, is secondary as my main driving force of motivation is performance.
I want to see my strength increase, I want to see my rep count go up, and I want to be able to perform progressively harder strength skill movements with greater and more fluid form (For example being able to transition from an L-sit to a V-sit with good form and without shaking profusely during the static holds of each movement)
Specific Training Goals That I Have
Going into this challenge I have three very specific goals or “markers of success” that will show me that I am on the right track and they are:
- Being able to do 40 consecutive pull ups in one set
- Being able to do a slow, no momentum muscle up
- Having a solid freestanding handstand that can last 15+ seconds
… Just to give you a little background context, I don’t think that I could accomplish any of those goals within the two week period that I will be eating a plant-based vegan diet, because they are all very challenging and require a lot of time to attain, especially since I have not been training consistently, I have not been training specifically for any of these goals, nor have I been training with a high intensity for a period of some months.
This whole experiment is serving as a way to “jumpstart” my way back into a consistent and more disciplined routine, plus it serves as a way to test against some preconceived notions that I may wrongly have about veganism.
With all of that being noted however, I do know that the first goal that I’m going to take on most aggressively is that of being able to do 40 consecutive pull ups in one set.
This is something that I’ve set out to accomplish long ago, I’ve gotten very close, and I essentially gave up. At one point in time my max set of pull ups was 37 reps — 37!
I’ve gotten way too close to not aggressively go back towards that goal.
Now why do I even want to be able to accomplish 40 pull ups in one consecutive set? That’s pretty intense right?
I still remember the amount of focus, discipline and determination to accomplish my goal of 30 — and the sense of accomplishment I felt was unbelievable; even going back to watch that video where I did 30 pull ups in one set for the first time, I still get goose bumps. I absolutely LOVE that feeling of setting a very difficult goal and moving heaven and earth to go and get it.
The mindset that I developed where there was literally nothing — I would have stopped at nothing to accomplish my goal — that mindset is priceless, and I believe that having cultivated that through the pursuit of that goal has played a role in the success that I have had in other endeavors. So for one, just getting that relentless motivation back is one of my reasons for going for this goal.
Another reason would be that it may translate well into other fitness goals that I have by conditioning me well, because the strength and endurance that I would have to obtain just to get that specific goal would set a great foundation on which I can build upon to accomplish my muscle up goal.
Lastly, (though a small but still prevalent reason) is bragging rights — sure there are a lot of people who can do 40 consecutive good form pull ups in one set, but at the same time, there are way, way more who can not, and at least in my mind that puts me in a special camp of people who dedicated themselves, disciplined themselves, and pushed really hard to accomplish a feat that is far from easy; and that to me feels really good.
Resources I Will Use To Help Me Create My Workout Routine
In order to reach my destination, it will help me greatly to have a map, so here are some of the training resources I will be using as I go along this journey
- Overcoming Gravity, by Steven Low
- The 28 Day Handstand Challenge
- Various Leg routines from YouTube channels that I like and trust
Summary & Conclusion
If there was no way in hell that you were going to read everything that I wrote leading up to this point, then I created this last section just for you, because this will help you to catch the main gist of this article without actually having to really read this article:
Basically I’m going to be following a plant-based vegan diet for a period of two weeks and documenting it as an experiment to help to jumpstart myself back into a regular fitness routine and to see how it affects the following things:
- My performance in my workouts: Am I getting stronger? Am I able to recover faster? Etc.
- My energy levels in general: Am I sleeping better? Do I feel more energized throughout the day? Do I feel healthier? Etc.
- My appearance (And more specifically the health of my skin): Does my skin appear to be more healthy? Are my eyes more clear? Etc.
- My mental clarity and focus: Can I focus more easily? Do I find myself easily bogged down by multiple things at once or can I compartmentalize things in my mind better? Does my memory improve? Etc.
My primary reason for working out is not for size, it is for athletic performance, I personally see bodybuilding as secondary to performance, so to be clear — I am NOT a bodybuilder, nor do I have aspirations of it.
My first main training goal is to able to achieve 40 consecutive good form pull ups in one set
I’m using a combination of a book I own called Overcoming Gravity, a free online training program called the 28 Day Handstand Challenge, as well as a combination of YouTube videos to help me create my workout programs plus to guide me through my nutrition plan as well
Lastly, the one thing that I do know for sure is that when I think I know it all, life has a way of showing me how little I actually know, so with that being stated, I’m sure that I’m going to make lots of mistakes along the way through this journey, but I’m willing to learn from them and grow from them.
I hope that this has served useful to you. I hope that you’re ready to follow me along this journey because I sure am ready to have you come along it with me
