The Vegan Fitness Academy

Want a copy of my Beginners Guide to Veganism? 🌱
Comment “VEGAN” and it’s yours.

If you are trying to go vegan or fully plant-based but you are still getting those little nagging cravings for meat, trust me, most of the time it is not actually meat you are craving. It is meaty.

Fortunately we live in an age today where there are loads of really meaty plant-based replicas. Beyond Burger. Juicy Marbles steaks. Anything from the THIS! range. You’re craving something meaty to sink your teeth into, not the animal itself.

So next time you are in the shop and one of those cravings hits and you find yourself heading toward the meat aisle, trust me, go for one of these plant-based meat alternatives instead. Don’t ruin your progress. Because if you do, you will probably regret it.

The craving is texture and flavour, not the animal. Solve for that and the rest gets easier.

Comment VEGAN for the free Beginners Guide to VeganisM - everything you need to make this transition stick. 🌱

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Three tips for fighting off hunger cravings on a calorie deficit.

🥤 1. Drink a big glass of water before every meal. 🥤
When your stomach stretches it sends signals to your brain telling you that you are full. Water does the same job before the food even arrives. Drink a full glass before you sit down and you will eat less without trying.

🍲 2. Eat slowly. 🍲
It takes 10 to 20 minutes for your brain to register that you are full. If you eat too quickly you will finish the meal before that signal has had a chance to arrive and you will still feel hungry even though you have eaten enough. Slow down. Have a chat. Watch some telly. Enjoy the food. Let your brain catch up.

☕️ 3. Use caffeine to your advantage. ☕️
Caffeine is an appetite suppressant. It works by blocking adenosine receptors in the brain - the same receptors that trigger hunger signals. This means caffeine temporarily reduces how hungry you feel without changing how much food you actually need. If you are a coffee drinker and hunger cravings hit mid-morning at work, a coffee can hold them off until lunch. Not a replacement for food - just a tool to manage the timing of hunger when you are in a deficit.

Three simple tools. No willpower required. Just the right habits in the right order.

Comment RECIPE for my free vegan recipe book - high protein meals that keep you full for longer. 🌱

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Your body doesn’t need chicken. It needs amino acids. All nine essential ones exist in plants.

Tofu. Tempeh. Edamame. TVP. Complete proteins. All of them. No combining required. No chemistry exam. Just eat enough and eat variety.

Someone paid for a study to prove plant protein was inferior. Vegan versus omnivore. Same training. Same protein intake. Identical muscle growth. They got the wrong answer. Published it anyway. Make of that what you will.

And here is the gym performance piece nobody talks about. Leucine is the amino acid that triggers muscle protein synthesis after training. Without enough of it you train hard and adapt slowly. TVP has more leucine per 100g than chicken breast. Get the portion right and the signal fires just as hard.

Every client I take on, protein is the first thing I check. Every single time it is low. Not because they eat badly. Because nobody told them their number. That is the real problem. Not the plants.

Your body builds muscle from amino acids. It does not care where they came from. Plants have them. Always have.

Comment PROTEIN for my free plant protein PDF. 🌱

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Plant foods with more iron than beef 🌱
Soybeans
Lentils
Spinach
White beans
Kidney beans
Tofu
Chickpeas
Olives
Pumpkin seeds
Tempeh

People treat heme iron like it is some gift from the meat gods.
Meanwhile lentils have more iron per 100g than lean beef.
Not the same. More.
That is USDA data. Not a vegan talking point.

Here is what is actually happening when iron is low.
Iron carries oxygen to your working muscles.
No iron. No oxygen. No performance.
Your body is trying to train with the handbrake on.
And most people have no idea.

The fix is not complicated.
Pair your iron with vitamin C.
Bell peppers. Broccoli. Citrus. On the same plate.
Do not drink coffee straight before or after a meal.
That one habit alone can double your absorption.

And here is the one that nobody talks about.
Resistance training increases your body’s iron absorption efficiency.
The gym is literally making you better at using the iron you eat.
You are training your biology as well as your body.

Lentils. Vitamin C. No coffee timing.
And keep lifting.

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If dairy is so essential for calcium, explain why 65% of the global population is lactose intolerant.

Perfectly functioning skeletons. No milk required.

Milk is not nutrition science. It was a very clever marketing campaign. And loads of plants have more calcium than milk.

Plant foods with more calcium than cow’s milk per 100g:
🌿 Calcium-set tofu, up to 3x more than cow’s milk
🌿 Kale, 254mg vs milk’s 110mg
🌿 Collard greens, 276mg
🌿 Chia seeds, 631mg
🌿 Sesame seeds and tahini, 426mg
🌿 Fortified plant milks, match or exceed dairy

And here is the one the dairy industry never mentions.

Resistance training is the single best thing you can do for bone density. Every time you squat or deadlift you put your skeleton under mechanical stress. That stress signals your bones to get denser. Your squats are doing more for your bones than dairy ever did.

And calcium does not just build bones. It triggers every single muscle contraction. Every rep. Every set. Without enough of it your output drops and you have no idea why.

No dairy needed. Better for your health. Better for the environment. No animals abused.

Comment PROTEIN for my free high protein recipe book🌱

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