Set Higher Standards by YogiRavi

<if you can’t see the video embedded in this post, click here>

A few months ago I got the chance to sit down with Robert Cheeke, my good friend and an accomplished vegan bodybuilder. Robert is currently super-busy working on his second documentary (“Vegan Brothers in Iron“), his first book (due out sometime soon!) and touring the country as a representative for Vega and as motivational speaker. He frequently gives talks at health/fitness festivals, universities and vegetarian/animal rights conferences.

Robert is a super-motivating guy who really walks his talk – he’s been vegan for over 15 years and in that time has gone from 120 pounder to 190+ pound bodybuilder, all using 100% plant-based nutrition. I split the interview into three different clips. I’ll post the second two in the next week or two, but wanted to share this one with you right away.

In this <10 minute clip, we discuss:

• What Robert is up to – filming, speaking, competing!
• Update on his latest competitions
• Common nutrition “pitfalls” many vegans make
• His favorite 100% plant-based protein sources

Enjoy!

Vegan Bodybuilder Robert Cheeke Interview (Part 1/3)

BTW…if you have questions for Robert, please leave them in the comments to this post and we’ll address them in a future post.

The Vibram FiveFinger Classic (left) vs Sprint (right). For running, the Sprint's win hands down!

You all know by now if you read this blog or follow me on twitter that my new favorite hobby is barefoot running. I can’t explain how much fun it is. You just need to go out and try it! While I was in Portland this weekend I hit up REI to see if they had any good sale items. I saw that they had Vibram’s FiveFinger Sprint’s in stock (I previously used the Classic’s) and tried them on.

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The final product, not a soup...not a casserole...I guess it's a stew?

I got the idea for this while visiting my sister over the weekend. We decided to make a soup and ended up using whatever was available. It turned out amazingly well! The awesome thing is that it took very little effort to make.

In my effort to recreate the soup this evening I did something wrong…and it turned out much thicker, more like a thick rice stew.  I think the reason mine turned out this way is that I added rice instead of quinoa (which my sister used). I also used about twice as much rice as I should have .

It still tastes incredibly good so I thought I’d share with all of you.

Cooking time is about 40 minutes and total time including all prep is about 50 minutes – depending on how fast you are at chopping stuff up. In fact, you could probably get by with less cooking time but I like to give it a while for all the flavors to soak into the rice.

Ingredients...use organic stuff where possible!

The key is components of the stew are:

1. a bunch of veggies
2. some sort of starch like a potato, yam or beet
3. a grain like rice, millet or quinoa
4. a protein like beans or tofu
5. some spice like fresh herbs, ginger, etc.

With this framework you can modify to your heat’s content! The recipe for the stew I just made is as follows. It makes a monster sized pot that will probably last for 3 meals for me! Instead of 2 cups of rice use 1 cup of quinoa and even more water for more of a soup instead of a thick stew.

• 3 medium sized red beets (use golden beets if the a red-colored soup scares you!)
• 1 cup brown rice (more makes it heartier)
• 1 cup white rice (ditto)
• 1 can (15oz) black eyed peas
• 12 ounces extra firm tofu
• 4 large celery stalks
• 2 small carrots
• 1 medium onion
• 6 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 3 dried red chilies (whole)
• 1 handful fresh parsley
• 10 fresh sage leaves
• 1 small avocado
• some salt
• some pepper
• enough water to cover everything completely (pure spring water of course!)
• a little olive oil

All ingredients in the pot....it thickens a lot when done cooking.

Directions: Stir fry the onions, garlic, celery in olive oil until the onions get soft. Add in everything else and fill up with water. Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat to simmer for about 30 minutes. Check to make sure the rice is nice and soft. Add a little more salt and pepper to taste at the end. Spoon into a bowl and top with fresh avocado.

Enjoy!

p.s. if you try out any variations of this recipe, please post a comment and let me know how it goes! The great thing is you can pretty much throw in whatever you have on hand. Instead of beets you could use sweet potatoes. Instead of onion you could use peppers. Etc.

An unstoppable dude!

What is stopping you? Is there something in your life that you want that you do not have? If so, what is keeping you from going out and getting it? This could be something relating to your physical body, your job, your bank account, your relationships, your friends, etc.

I have little patience for people who whine. I think everyone is entitled to have an opinion and complaining might be cathartic to some extent – but I don’t enjoy hearing people complain about things, especially when the people complaining don’t take action to fix whatever is the issue.

People often complain about things because they pass ownership for a situation on to someone else. Someone else didn’t grant them a promotion. Someone else cooked the delicious cookies (that they over-ate). Someone else is ignoring them. Someone else cut them off in traffic. Etc.

During my yoga training last month we spend a lot of time taking ownership and responsibility for whatever  happened to us in our lives. Our job (or lack thereof), our relationships, our childhood experiences. All of these things were ultimately our creation – be they good or bad. Being responsible – at cause – for your life gives you tremendous power.

When you are at cause you take ownership for everything that has, is or will happen to you. This also means that you are control of creating the life situations that you wish to happen – and recreating the meanings for things that have happened in the past and were previously called “bad” into more empowering memories. If something doesn’t suit you, change it! If something is stopping you, choose to be unstoppable and resolve the issue.

The key to being unstoppable is therefore a simple one. Take responsibility for your life situation – the good and the bad, by accepting that you are a cause for whatever has happened, will happen and most importantly, whatever is happening in your life now in this moment.