Those who don’t believe that you can be strong and healthy on a plant-based diet need to take a look at Robert Cheeke. Robert’s a good friend of mine, and is living proof that you can really achieve outstanding physical health as a Vegan.

Mainstream media is finally starting to take notice. The notion that you need to eat meat to be healthy and strong is completely bogus. In fact, Robert was featured in a recent cover story in Williamette Week, one of the larger alternative newspapers in Oregon.

Robert’s an inspirational motivational speaker, National Events Coordinator for a multi-national nutritional  company and founder of www.veganbodybuilding.com.

Those who are looking to improve their health, fitness and outlook on life should definitely check out the Vegan Bodybuilding website. This site also has further information about Robert’s amazing transformation from a 120 pound under-nourished teen to a 190+ lb rock solid vegan athlete (all-natural of course).

His personal site has further information on speaking engagements, articles and interviews he has done with local and national media.

Whether you are Vegan or not….its worth a look.

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I started this mission as a 30 day challenge. Through day 20, I followed the protocol. Then, things got very busy for me at work, and I did not have the time to even get in the gym for 30 minutes twice a week. I did my last real weight workout 20 days into the mission, and did another (abbreviated) workout 24 days in.

That said, I did continue to monitor my bodyweight and body-fat, and made a conscious effort to eat more high quality food even when I wasn’t working out. In a way, the last 10 days of this experiment were really about just letting my body recover completely and seeing how that would impact my stats.

In my last post, I did a recap of the strength gains I saw after 20 days on the program:

“So in 20 days, I’ve managed to INCREASE my Squat by +26%, Chest Press +10% with +3 added reps, Chest Fly +11%, Pullover +30% (with 1 less rep) and Leg Press +12% with 1 fewer rep.”

Throughout the month of May, I’ve seen my bodyweight and body-fat fluctuate a bit. I didn’t see much change during the middle of the month, but saw quite a lot of progress during the end of the month. What change did I make during the end of the month?

Quite simply, during the end of the month, I ate more <high quality food> and trained less <in fact, I didn’t do any significant weight training during the last 10 days>. While from a psychological standpoint I felt like I was getting slightly weaker, the stats showed that I was indeed getting stronger.

The net results showed that I had lost 3 pounds of body-fat and gained >5 pounds of muscle in a single month. <see chart above>

This is a big insight for me, that my body needs time and lots of rest to gain muscle mass.

I am going to keep up the High-Intensity training protocol for another month, but cut back my training to once a week and see what happens.

I’ve been following a HIT <high intensity training> training protocol for the past 12 days. The routine, as mentioned on Tim Ferriss’s blog and outlined in The Colorado Experiment, calls for training less frequently, using very slow reps whereby you reach muscular failure in a single set.

The training sessions actually FEEL really good. I’ve only had three workouts so far, and have increased my weights in each one. So far so good. We’ll if this trend keeps up.

I’ve been training once every four days. On my days off I haven’t been doing too much else. I get in 3-4 miles a day walking (to from bus stop and around our campus at work). I’ve also gone for 2 runs (<3miles in length each) and done a few sessions of Yoga.

Basically, I’ve been eating a LOT and resting.

Amazingly, even with all the eating, I’m not <yet> putting on weight. Bodyfat % is also staying pretty constant. I’m currently around 15%. Which is MUCH HIGHER than I would like <my all time low was 5%, just after Ironman Couer D Alene in 2003>, but I am not worrying about that right now. Priority #1 is gaining muscle mass and strength.

OK, now time to go eat again.

Update 1: The Mission

Update 2: Day 1