Top 8 Vegan Celebrities and High-Performance Athletes
When it comes to Athletics and sports, it’s natural for anyone to think they have a protein-based diet in order to maintain their physiques. Subconsciously our brain is trained to think that Meat of any sort provides macronutrients that are essential to an athlete. But the world is changing and it has come to our knowledge that Vegans can be world-class athletes. This fact has been supported by a number of organizations, including the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the American College of Sports Medicine. There are several high performance athletes and celebrities turning Vegan. There are quite a big names here such as Venus Williams, Lewis Hamilton, Zac Efron etc..
Let’s take a look at 5 celebrity athletes who have been following a vegan diet and has become really successful in their sports career.
1. Venus Williams
Wimbledon Champion Venus Williams has publicly praised a vegan diet for changing her life. Venus has been following a Vegan diet for 10 years. She started using it when she was diagnosed with Sjorgen’s Syndrome which is an autoimmune disease. It causes joint pain and fatigue which could’ve possible ended her career right then and there. Venus explained to the media that living with an autoimmune disease can be tricky and that it could mean loads of medicine on a daily basis. She managed to avoid the medicine and manage her disease to continue playing the sport she loves. She currently has her own brand of Vegan Protein called Happy Viking. Promoting how a plant based diet can fuel the active lifestyle of a professional athlete. “I need to refuel and provide protein to my muscles quickly after I work out for recovery and to maintain muscle. “So Happy Viking was created to fuel your inner fighter, your inner Viking while feeling happy and satisfied about what you put in your body.”
2. Lewis Hamilton
The Celebrity Formula 1 driver who equals Schumacher’s record of 7 driver titles became a Vegan athlete in 2017. Since then Hamilton has been promoting major issues that involve the environment and animal welfare. The athlete continuously keeps urging his followers to go vegan, ditch leather, and boycott animal exploitation for entertainment. He goes far in sharing Instagram stories that contained a video of pigs headed to slaughter. He went on to mention that the horrible things animals have to go through in order for us to keep eating meat are inhuman. Being a record holder in one of the most physical sports, definitely being vegan has not hurt him.
3. Kyrie Irving
The Basketball star who popularly won the NBA championship partnering Lebron James with the Cleveland Cavaliers went on to be a Vegan in 2017 when he was playing for the Boston Celtics. Kyrie has reportedly accredited his plant-based diet for the Celtics’ 13 game winning streak later the same year. Kyrie along with 13 other athletes got together in 2019 to invest in Beyond Meat and kicked off their campaign “Go Beyond” as an athlete ambassador. The NBA star has done a whole lot of charity work In the recent past using his vegan approach. Irving distributed Vegan food to communities and shelters in need during the Covid 19 pandemic. He also went on to donate 200,000 Vegan Beyond Burgers to the food bank of New York City and made a cash donation of $323,000 to Feeding America.
4. Nate Diaz – Vegan Athletes and Celebrities
That’s right! Nate Diaz the famous UFC competitor is also a vegan. The Stockton fighter is one of the fittest men in the UFC. His training is hard and intense! Diaz has been Vegan for a number of years. He first gave up dairy when a bowl of Cheese Pasta gave him headaches for weeks. He figured the impact it had on his health and immediately stayed away from it. A question was raised with critiques saying meat is needed for strength and recovery. Nate Stands to say that it was a bunch of bullshit and answers back rhetorically, asking if any of these critiques have done a tenth of what he has done! Pretty hard to argue on that!
5. Carl Lewis – (Vegan Athletes and Celebrities)
Lewis is known as one of the greatest athletes in the world winning 10 Olympic medals, nine of those gold, and 10 world championship medals. His career lasted from 1979 to 1996. Carl Lewis dominated the Track before he turned out to be a Vegan. In fact, he won 4 of his Olympic medals before he turned out to be a vegan. The athlete found himself lagging behind after a couple of Olympics and started to drop weight by following wrong diets. He would skip breakfast and eat only dinner twice a week. Lewis soon realized he was on the wrong path because his speed on the track and height on the field kept dropping low. Lewis then came across the Vegan diet that changed his career. He publicly mentions that the best year of his athletic career was right after he changed his diet to a vegan one. He has been a Vegan ever since.
5. Zac Efron – (Vegan Athletes and Celebrities)
