Plant-Based Diet for Athletes

The Most Laid-Back Guide to Going Vegetarian You’ll Ever Read

By: Matt Frazier

One of the hallmarks of No Meat Athlete over the years has been our “no-pressure” approach to plant-based diets.

Instead of trying to persuade people that they should go vegetarian (and now, dammit!), I’d much rather just set an example that people can choose to follow or learn from if they’d like. I’ve just never been one for confrontation, and I hope my writing and our team’s reflects that.

You’ll find that approach in the welcoming tone of just about all our posts, and this one is my attempt to encapsulate our philosophy — the easiest, simplest, most laid back approach I can imagine for going vegetarian or vegan.

“Should” you think about going vegetarian?

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want you to go vegetarian or vegan. Compassion for animals was big part of my reason for doing so, and so I’d love it if nobody ate them.

But I’m not going to tell you what’s best for you. That’s for you to decide.

Is a plant-based diet healthier than an omnivorous one?

Tough one. (more…)

The Perfect Smoothie Formula

By: Matt Frazier

The way I see it, you only need to eat healthy twice during the day. While you’ll certainly eat more than twice a day, just two healthy meals — a smoothie and a salad — make it pretty hard to screw up the rest of them. The first time is in the morning, when a […]

Tasty Twists on the Classic Complete-Protein Meal: Rice and Beans 5 Ways

By: Christine F

This is a post by Christine, Matt’s sister with a knack for vegan baking. Today she’s bringing us something not-so-sweet but just as valuable: five twists on that old vegetarian runner’s standby, rice and beans. Whether you’re just going plant-based, new to vegan cooking or just in a beans-&-rice rut, I’ve got five quick and […]

The Skinny Vegan’s Guide to Gaining Weight

By: Matt Frazier

You hear a lot about how to lose weight on a plant-based diet. Not so many of us are trying to gain it. This article would be so much cooler if it had a headline like, “How I Gained 20 Pounds of Muscle in 30 Days (On a Vegan Diet).” And if it included dazzling […]

The World’s Most Versatile Veggie Burger Recipe

By: Matt Frazier

After seeing how useful (and how popular) the Perfect Smoothie Formula and the Ultimate Energy Bar Formula were, my sister Christine and I set out to see what other foods could benefit from a good formula-izing. That’s a real word. In case you haven’t seen our other formulas, the idea is simple: instead of creating […]

What Every Vegetarian Needs to Know About Iron

By: Matt Ruscigno

This is a guest post by Matt Ruscigno, who writes the blog True Love Health. True or False: The iron that our bodies require is the same element found in a cast-iron skillet. This is a real true or false question on my college exam, and it fools a surprising number of my students. Iron […]

Perfect Vegan Bacon You Can Make At Home

By: Christine F

Bacon. We live in a world that covers its wounds with bacon-strip bandages, provides children with plush bacon dolls, and challenges its artists to create the ultimate bacon sculpture. This obsession has earned the honor of a dedicated Wikipedia entry to bacon mania. The country is so in love with its smoky, salty goodness that even […]

Vegan Protein: A Simple Guide to Getting What You Need

By: Matt Frazier

“Where do you get your protein?” It’s question vegans and vegetarians get asked more than any other. We hear it so often, in fact, that we tend to forget that some people really do want to know the answer, and aren’t just asking it with the aim of poking holes in our silly, granola-crunchy plant-based […]

15 Vegan Lunches You Can Make at Work

By: Matt Frazier

I get the question all the time. What the **** do you vegans and vegetarians eat for lunch? My answer, “leftovers,” has always felt unsatisfying. To the person asking, usually an intrigued, maybe-one-day vegetarian, this makes it seem hard. What if you didn’t cook a nice, healthy recipe the night before, or are trying out […]

A High-Calorie Smoothie for Athletes (that’s Healthy Enough for My Kids)

By: Matt Frazier

Of all the healthy habits I’ve started over the years, a daily smoothie is the most important. It’s not that a smoothie is any healthier than its unblended ingredients. Or that it’s more important than a salad (another simple daily healthy habit that’s). Instead, for me, a smoothie is all about setting the tone for […]