Tag Archives: athlete

Professional basketball coach JB Blair inspires others to go vegan

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Assistant coach to the Washington Wizards team, Joseph “JB” Blair has been vegetarian since college, and vegan for the past 9 years. His proactive advocacy has made it easier for players and coaches to opt for vegan choices.

At 49, Blair is no longer playing basketball himself, but throughout his career of professional basketball, including 4 seasons of college basketball, participation in several professional teams in Europe, and with the Harlem Globetrotters, he credits his vegetarian diet as helping him keep his weight under control and giving him more energy.  

Nine years ago he was inspired to go fully vegan, after his then-girlfriend told him of the cruelty of the animal agriculture industry. He feels that in addition to improving his physical health, the switch has helped change his mental state:

“Mentally, I have clear thinking and focus,” he says. “And, I truly do believe that the discipline it takes to follow a plant-based diet bleeds over to other aspects of your life, as well.”

The idea that a meal is not worth taking a life has become his guiding principle, a shift that permeates his lifestyle and professional commitments.

As the market for plant-based foods has improved, and many exciting foods that can easily be swapped in to replace their animal-derived counterparts have become available, he has found that post-game nutrition has included many more vegan options. For example, plant-based protein options for smoothies to give the players after a game are always available these days, in addition to whey protein.

Blair said that other NBA stars, such as superstar Chris Paul, going vegan, has helped to open the eyes of the players around him and make teams aware that they needed to cater for those players.  “There’s always some vegan options available now, and it makes such a difference for people to try it,” he says.  Blair makes a point to take players out to his favorite vegan restaurants in the cities where they are playing, to open them up to considering vegan options.

His ultimate aim is to become a stronger ambassador for a plant-based lifestyle, both on and off the court.

Vegan ultrathoner, 66 years old

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Running a marathon is hard enough, but to run a 48-hour ultramarathon in Massachusetts in the heat and high humidity of July takes a special level of fitness and stamina that few can achieve.  To secure first place at the age of 66 years old is particularly impressive, but that’s what Trishul Cherns recently achieved. He ran 142.5 miles during his latest race and credits his vegan diet for his success.  

Cherns is from Hamilton, Canada, but now lives in New York.  His running career, over the past four decades, has covered more than 46,000 miles, sometimes running 1000 miles in a single event.  He has broken more than 110 Canadian ultrarunning records and in 2021 completed his 300th ultramarathon.  

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Tennis Superstar Novak Djokovic follows a plant-based diet

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Novak Djokovic has won an all-time record 23 Grand Slam men’s singles titles in tennis, and has ranked world No 1 for a record total of 389 weeks over a period of 12 different years.  He is the only man in tennis history to be the reigning champion of all four major tournaments at once across three different surfaces. Throughout this period, he has avoided animal foods, although he’s not comfortable with using the term vegan.  

He cut out animal products as a child.  He suffered from allergies that were found to be predominantly related to gluten, dairy, and refined sugar. Once he eliminated these foods he immediately felt better.  Soon after that, he cut out red meat.  He was playing tennis from the age of 4, and as a six-year old he was sent to a tennis camp run by Yugoslav tennis player Jelena Gencic. He began his international tennis career at age 14, winning European championships in singles, double and team competition. He found that animal flesh slowed him down, stating: “Eating meat was hard on my digestion and took a lot of essential energy that I need for my focus, for recovery, for the next training session, and for the next match.”  

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Vegan Olympian Kaylin Whitney

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Olympic gold medalist Kaylin Whitney has found that a plant-based diet enables her to win gold, again and again.  She switched to a plant-based diet during the pandemic, when the Tokyo Olympics were postponed and she had some time to try something new.  As she continued her training, she saw big benefits in how her body worked and felt.  She found a winning formula and it was reflected in her on-track performances.   

“Once I came into that 2021 season, feeling a lot healthier and a lot lighter, my performance in training was going amazing,” she recalls.   She ran a lifetime best of 50.29 seconds for fifth place at the 2021 US trials and that gave her a place in the 400m relays at her first Olympics.  She came away from the Tokyo Olympics with gold in the women’s 4x400m relay and bronze in the mixed 4x400m relay.  She added another gold to her collection as part of the victorious women’s 4x400m team at last year’s World Athletics Championship.  

Beyond the physical benefits she has felt from going plant-based, Whitney is also very candid about the mental benefits too. “I definitely suffer from anxiety and have for my whole life,” she admits. “What you eat gives you energy and that directly affects your mood. So, if you eat junk, you are going to feel like junk…It’s help me feel more stable, more in tune with myself. I never feel like I am lacking anything. I don’t crave the things that I used to crave before. For me, it’s a nice way to live my life.”  

“It was the best thing I ever did,” she proudly declares of her transition to plant-based foods.

Quarterback Justin Fields chooses vegan for performance

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Justin Fields 2022

Justin Fields, the starting quarterback for the Chicago Bears, has discovered that following a plant-based diet makes him lighter and faster.  He first tried it in May 2020 while he was quarantined with his family, and they all decided to do a one-month plant-based challenge.  During that month, Fields noticed how his body felt better, and so at the end of the month, he continued with the diet, while the rest of his family went back to eating meat and dairy products.

Fields was drafted as the Bears’ number one choice in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft, after playing college football at Ohio State university. He continued with the Bears into the 2022 season.  Of his vegan diet, he says:

“It’s changed the way I feel and the way I perform dramatically. I just feel so much lighter and faster. Football as a sport is so hard on your body so I just want to do anything I can to have the longest career possible.”

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Champion surfer Tia Blanco is a vegan

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Champion surfer, Tia Blanco, choses a vegan lifestyle, and has found it to have a positive impact on her performance. As she grew up in California and Hawaii, Tia Blanco took to surfing at a young age, and by age 17, she was already winning national titles. She now lives in Southern California. She represented Puerto Rico as a pro-surfer in the Pan-Am Games, and continues to compete at a high level, ranking in the top 50 female surfers internationally.  

To maintain this level of performance, she trains daily, spending up to 8 hours a day in the water or working out on land.

She says, “I feel healthier on a clean, whole foods diet that is very simple — especially during competition. And since a plant-based diet is less calorically dense than other diets, I need to make sure I’m eating enough food so I up my portions a lot. I think of veggies as nutrition and water, not a food where I can get energy so I don’t even count veggies when I’m counting calories and nutrition. For energy, I go to potatoes, whole grains, and starchy veggies. I’m obsessed with carrots and sweet potatoes.” 

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Chris Paul, 12 year NBA all-star, credits plant-based diet

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Chris Paul 2022

NBA veteran, Chris Paul, made his 12th appearance on the NBA All-Star team in February, and credits his plant-based diet with helping him gain energy and reduce muscle aches both on and off the court.  The 37-year-old Phoenix Suns point guard decided to give a plant-based diet a try in 2019, and after experiencing many health and fitness benefits, he chose to stick with it.

“When I first went plant-based, it was for performance purposes but once I saw how my body changed and how I felt—it was for life,” Paul said in an interview with GQ. “Years ago, I probably wouldn’t have even gone outside to run around with my kids and all the other activities because my body would be aching. Now, with the constant lifting and making sure that my body is always ready, it’s been a good lifestyle change for me.” 

Before he went vegan, Chris enjoyed foods including fried chicken and burgers, but his commitment to a plant-based diet has led him to try a lot of new foods.  He finds vegan versions of his favorite foods, such as chocolate chip cookies and pancakes, and uses substitute products such as JUST Egg and Beyond Meat sausage as staples in his breakfasts.  For lunch, he typically eats a salad or a veggie bowl, along with a protein smoothie, while his dinners are prepared by a professional chef using plenty of beans, grains and vegetables.

Chris has managed to convince his father to give the diet a try too, and Charles Paul noticed health benefits such as lower cholesterol since he replaced chicken eggs with JUST Egg.  In October, Chris will lead the Phoenix Suns in his 18th season of professional basketball – a feat that only a few have achieved.  We think his diet has something to do with that!

Shaquille O’Neal goes vegan

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Shaquille O'Neal
Shaquille O’Neal in 2017

Retired basketball star Shaquille O’Neal has announced that he’s going vegan, during a May 2 interview with Rip Michaels, host of the show Urban Eats & Treats.  He had previously followed a high-protein, low-carb diet, but he’s realized that following a vegan diet, including vegan versions of many of his favorite junk foods such as cheeseburgers, gives him many advantages, including enabling him to continue to eat the way he prefers, while avoiding packing on too many pounds.

At 7-foot-11, and 320 pounds, the former NBA star is now 50 years old and wants to look after his health, while still enjoying his favorite foods.  He has discovered that is possible, by frequenting a vegan restaurant in Atlanta where he can get a cheeseburger without the guilt.  He used to think that a healthy diet consists of salad, steak and fish, but finds that eating vegan food helps him feel lighter and more energized, and healthier than he used to feel.

For breakfast, he enjoys a vegan smoothie, with blueberries, peanut butter and bananas, inspired by vegan NFL star Tom Brady.  Shaq joins many other vegan athletes who have discovered the benefits of a plant-based diet, including female athletes such as tennis champion Venus Williams and soccer star Alex Morgan.

Plant-based man vs Tesla!

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Can a marathoner outlast a Tesla electric car?  Vegan ultra-endurance runner Robbie Balenger has set his sights on running as far as a Tesla Model 3 on a single charge, estimated to be around 267 miles.  He gave himself 72 hours to do this (plus minimal sleeping time). They both started the journey 250 miles away from the newest Austin, Texas, Tesla factory on Monday April 11th.  Balenger has to also contend with 90 degree heat, some elevation gain, minimal sleep and even a few snakes.

In a recent press release, Balenger shared, “As a plant-based athlete, I have two key considerations when it comes to my diet: environmentalism and performance – and Tesla excels at both. Outlasting a Tesla will be the longest single effort I have undertaken. This excites me and terrifies me all at the same time, meaning I must be onto something good.” 

They started out at 5am, and ran the first mile together. By the end of the first day, the Tesla had driven 242 miles and was out of charge.  Balenger was at the 65 mile point when he heard that he had 57 hours left to close the gap. Last we heard, he was still going strong. We’re eagerly awaiting news of whether he was able to complete this challenge.

Balenger is not new to running, having completed 3,175 miles in 2019, running across the states in just 75 days to promote the benefits of a plant-based diet.  “My goal is to inspire people all across this country to start paying more attention to what they put inside of their bodies, and to be an example of someone who has made a radical change and feels better for it,” the athlete said.  He has also broken the record for the most laps run around New York’s Central Park in one day, when he ran 16 full loops in 18 hours and 7 minutes, breaking the previous record of 11 loops.

David Verburg, athlete and animal rights advocate

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David Verburg

Runner David Verburg was a 2016 Olympic gold medalist in the 4×400 meter relay.  He’s also a vegan. It started over two years ago, because he was doing a lot of work with animal recues and became a big advocate for the animals. 

In 2018 in Clemont, FL, Verburg ran into traffic at an intersection to rescue a turtle that had wandered into traffic. A video of this went viral on social media and made him an unexpected star.  He subsequently started the Golden Tortoise Rescue Foundation in his home state of Florida.

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