Ep 151 – Meaty McSorley (Interview With Nick Squires)

Athena:

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of vegan proteins, muscles, digressive radio. I’m Athena, your host.

Nick:

And this is episode 151.

Athena:

Yeah, this is a new one for me because I’ve never done this before, ever. So this will be fun. And we got. We got a super, super cool guest, so this should be. Should be easy. Okay, so, yeah, today we’re diving into the world of vegan powerlifting with Nick Squires. So you’ve been vegan since 2014?

Speaker 3

2014, yeah.

Athena:

Okay, so what made you decide to go vegan?

Speaker 3

So it was kind of, like a number of things going on in my life at that time. I had my daughter. I was born a year before that. So there were some changes I was making in my life around that time, realizing I’m responsible for someone else, and I want to be around to see them grow up. The life path I was on before that was not really designed for longevity.

So around that time, I quit drinking, quit smoking, started working out. Not powerlifting at first, but just started working out. And then primarily for ethical reasons. At the same time, I went vegan. I did, you know, understand some of the health benefits, but it’s always mostly been about ethics for veganism. You know, we were. We were doing dog rescue, bully breed rescue.

So we were fostering and rehoming and training bully breeds. And there was a moment I had where I was realizing I’m spending a lot of my time and money and energy into helping, you know, these animals, and I’m going home and I’m eating other animals. So that was already kind of in the back of my mind. And then we had one dog named Wilbur, and he reminded me a lot of a cow. Just the way he. His mannerism and his energy and the way he moved. And I had. I was like, I can’t eat beef

anymore at this

point. And then, you know, that just kind of followed down a road, like, well, if I can’t eat cows, how come I can eat pigs? How come I eat chickens? So over the course of about a year, I just basically started cutting animal products out of my life. And then at the end of that year, I finished my last tub of whey protein, and I wasn’t feeling like I was missing anything from my diet, from a culinary or from a nutritional aspect. And so I’ve been vegan nine years since then.

Athena:

That’s awesome. I think that’s the normal. I feel like that’s something that’s relatively normal to hear from vegans of, like, you start off for one reason, but then you just learn about so many different aspects of veganism that you’re like, okay, I’m thinking for so many other things, but it always comes, well, at least what I’ve experienced, it always, like, really hits home with the ethics. So that’s.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you’ve seen the way that I eat, obviously I’m not coming at it from, from a health perspective, you know, and I understand health vegans where they’re coming from, but it’s definitely not something that I, at this point, I’m really looking at because I don’t eat a healthy diet, you know?

Athena:

oh. I can only share the comments. Okay. So you also, did you start powerlifting around that time, or have you always been active? Have you always been active? Let’s get to know you.

Speaker 3

Yeah, so I played hockey growing up, but, you know, in my mid twenties, I stopped playing hockey, and I was not doing a lot of activity, you know, through, through those, those, that time period, I would, you know, often, like, join a gym, you know, work out for a couple months. And I kind of had a skewed perspective of fitness, you know, based on, you know, fitness magazines and kind of general knowledge about fitness, there’s a lot of, you know, get ripped quick kind of stuff that’s

out there. And what that leads to is you go to the gym for a couple months, you don’t immediately like the way that you look or the progress that you’re making, and you get discouraged. So I did that several times. I signed up for several gyms, and around this time, we started doing tough mudders, the obstacle course runs, so they’re, you know, 13 miles runs a bunch of obstacles, and part of the

training in that was weightlifting, and I started training for the world’s toughest mudder, which is a 24 hours run. You just run for 24 hours through this obstacle course.

Athena:

That sounds.

Speaker 3

Yeah, during that, it’s like a, it’s like a loop, and you have the, the objective is to run as many laps as you can in 24 hours. And you can, you can show up and just run one lap and then sleep the rest of the time. That’s fine. But you can, you know, you can set up a tent. Some people run it the entire 24 hours. Some people, you know, take a break every few hours and sleep.

Yeah. So, yeah, it’s wild. But through that training, I was doing weight training and then running, and I was like, man, I hate running, and I love weightlifting. Like, what if there was a sport where I could just do weightlifting and it turns out there is. There’s a few of them, actually. And I really, really enjoyed powerlifting. And one of the main things for me is going back to what we were just talking about, is that powerlifting, as you’re making progress, you’re writing down

the number that you’re lifting, and you’re seeing that number change. And judging yourself on how you look is next to impossible, you know, especially with how quickly you expect your body to change and how quickly bodies actually change. With powerlifting, I was able to look at the numbers and look, I’m making tangible progress here.

I can’t argue the fact that these lifts are going up where I can. I can look in the mirror. Like, I still don’t like the way I look. But I kind of fell for powerlifting for that reason, is that it was really easy to stay motivated, and it’s really easy to see progress in what I was doing.

Athena:

Yeah, that makes sense. Do you feel like powerlifting has maybe changed your, or has that helped with your view on your body? Like, taking away the, taking away, the main focus of you being the objective and changing you is that, do you feel like that’s been more uplifting to, like, have these stats, like, yeah, I’m getting stronger and, like, being able to focus on that?

Speaker 3

Yeah. I mean, looking at the, you know, I remember going back, remember the first time I deadlifted 225 pounds, and I was, like, thrilled on it, you know, looking back now that I’ve deadlifted 675 pounds, and it’s like, that’s such a monumental amount of difference that’s made. And at the same time, you know, just working out that often, I have come to much more enjoy the way that I look, you know, but it wasn’t the focus.

Right. The focus was on how much am I lifting? And then, you know, not focusing on my appearance. And the appearance comes secondary, and it will change. It just takes a lot longer than a lot of people expect it to.

Athena:

hmm. Yeah, that’s fair. Yeah, that’s fun. So how long have you been or how long when you started powerlifting? How long did it take before you started powerlifting competitively?

Speaker 3

Too long. You know, people ask me all the time, and, you know, I train now at, like, a powerlifting specific gym, and I run into a lot of people who have just started powerlifting. They’ve been powerlifting for six months or a year. And they always ask me, like, you know, should I compete? And my advice to everybody is compete as soon as possible.

You know, I had this in my head that, like, I really wanted to have a competitive total. The first time that I competed, I didn’t want to show up and, like, have a real embarrassing total. But I probably learned more at my first powerlifting meet than I had in, like, the previous three years of training at a gym. And, you know, it’s because I was training at, like, a gold gym.

It was not a powerlifting gym. There was a very small number of people that were actually weightlifting there. It was mostly just general fitness people. But I showed up. I took silver in my first meet, which was cool, but looking back, I wish I would had gone into competitive power lifting a lot sooner. You know, if it’s something that you enjoy, even just going to a powerlifting meet and watching or volunteering, you can go.

These, these meets always need people to do spotting and loading. It’s a great way to get involved in the sport if you’re interested in it, but just go to a meet. You know, another thing I came from, you know, like I said, I came from competitive hockey. And when you go into, like, a hockey tournament with teams that you’re playing against, it’s very tense.

You know, there’s a lot of, like, competitiveness, there’s a lot of aggression before the game even starts. And so when I went into the parliament, I kind of had it in my head that it was going to be the same way there’s people competing against, you know, that’s going to be, it’s going to be tense. But what I found when I walked in is that everybody’s like your best friend. You know, the people that you’re competing directly against in your weight class and category, giving you

advice, they’re helping you out, they’re, you know, they notice that it’s your first meet. They’re giving you little tips like, oh, hey, don’t have your wrist wraps over your thumb or, you know, all these kind of things. They’re helping you out, and it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a community. And I really enjoyed that about the sport as well.

Athena:

Yeah, I think having a community is always really nice and it helps get through. So I’m thinking of the people who, like you said, it’s, or you mentioned that it’s more beneficial for someone to start competing right away. So thinking of people who might be maybe not coming from a fitness

background or not having that support, what kind of advice would you give someone of just getting started and signing up for the first powerlifting meet, how do you get around

the nerves? How do you feel. How do you feel adequate against people who might be a lot stronger than you expected or whatever it is. What kind of advice would you give them?

Speaker 3

I mean, I think that your first powerlifting meet and the mistake that I made was I was going into it planning on competing against people, and I really think that your first couple power teammates should really just be about showing yourself the progress that you’ve made and not really worrying about who you’re competing against or what your numbers are.

You know, so many times I come across guys that are, they’re getting ready for their first meet and they’re talking about the weight cut that they’re doing. I’m like, no, like, don’t, don’t, you know, you’re going up for an open meet just to see what you, the numbers you can put up. You’re not going up for any records. You’re not going up for any regional awards. Just show up comfortable, you know, compete, put your best numbers up. This isn’t about, you know, dropping the weight

class and getting, you know, a slight competitive advantage there. It’s just walk in at however you’re comfortable and do your best and kind of show yourself the progress that you’ve made. There’s no need to get overly competitive. You know, there’s not going to. You’re not going to get me black for not finishing or platforming in your first meet. You know, just go out there and have fun. It’s supposed to be about fun.

Athena:

Yeah, I think that’s good, because I think a lot of people get in their heads a little bit too much and thinking maybe they could be better. They could do this, they could do that. But at the end of the day, as long as you’re showing up, I think that’s something to be proud of. And the powerlifting community, or almost every fitness community, honestly, is just always so supportive. Like, you could probably be lifting five pounds and people are going to be cheering you on.

Speaker 3

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it’s a great community, like I said, and everyone’s there to support you and, you know, just, just going there and set the foundation. I mean, obviously, you’re going to see progress in your powerlifting career. And if you want to go to your first meet and just lay down the foundation of where you started and build on that,

you know, there’s no need to go in thinking that you need to finish first or have a huge competitive number on your very first meet. Just, just, you know, get your feet wet.

Athena:

There you go. I love it. So tell us a little bit about what are some of your proudest achievements as a powerlifting athlete? And don’t be humble. Let me hear, like, at least top three or more.

Speaker 3

Top three or more.

Athena:

Tell us how to, what are your prs? Tell us everything.

Speaker 3

Well, let’s see. So I think, like, I did the IPL worlds in Ireland in 2019, and it’s not a super competitive worlds meet like the IPL. I’m sorry the IPF world is, but it’s, it’s, it was really fun to be able to go to Ireland and travel and compete. And then, you know, I won first place in my weight class. I actually missed weight at that beat, you know, the traveling.

I didn’t really feel like doing a significant weight cut while I was traveling, so I competed one weight class up, still finished first in that. I pulled 666 pounds at that meat, over 300 kg, which is three times my body weight. That was my best deadlifting competition. That was a lot of fun. And there was my third meat. I took best overall. This is a regional local meet, but it was my third meat ever.

You know, I took first overall. It was the first time that I deadlifted 600 pounds in a meat. That was a lot of fun. Any meat where I can kind of go and finish and then when people find out afterwards that I’m vegan and it kind of, they kind of think it’s a joke at first, I like that, you know, I don’t like to go to the meat really advertising that I’m vegan because I always have in the back of my head, like I’m going to mess something up, right?

I’m going to, I’m going to mess something. I’m going to bomb out. I’m not going to finish the meat and then it’s going to be like, hey, that guy didn’t finish the meat because he’s vegan, right? He couldn’t do it because he was vegan. But if I can finish, if I know that I placed, if I know that I finished first and then I can put the vegan shirt on and people like, hey, that guy finished first and he’s vegan.

Like it. I think that really opened some eyes. The first time that I did it, I came out of the bathroom with a vegan shirt on. The guy started laughing and he’s like, oh, you’re serious? He thought that it was a joke. He thought I was making fun of vegans by putting the vegan shirt on. But, you know, that was good.

Athena:

That’s awesome. I think that’s a smart move too. Wait, let me see how I do. And then I’ll rub the vegan. I was like, oh, people will use it against you. It’s so annoying.

Speaker 3

It is. The nature of kind of, like, the anti vegan arguments and stuff is if you do make a mistake first, and it’s, you know, I never lead with it. You know, I always try to put the proof out there first and then mention that I’m vegan. So I’ll be at the gym training with guys for months before they find out. They’ll go to my instagram. I didn’t even know you’re vegan. I’d rather have that than the other way around.

Athena:

Yeah, that’s fair, I think. Yeah, you gotta prove them before they know.

Speaker 3

Right?

Athena:

So what are your prs right now?

Speaker 3

So, in competition, we just did the plant built meat in Atlantic City. As you may know, I was there, everyone. So at that meet, I set a squat pr of 611. I benched 385, and I pulled 640. So the squat and the total were prs, which was cool, because in May of this year, I had bicep tendon repair down on my arm. So to be able to come back and not only be able to compete, but to put up my biggest squat and my biggest total to date was really cool. And, yeah, that was awesome.

Athena:

Intense surgery, everyone. He kind of said it like it was nothing, but that was, like, a really intense surgery that he was already lifting, like, probably a couple days later.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Athena:

So, like, get back to the gym, which is not good, and I don’t recommend that.

Speaker 3

Yeah, do not try this at home, but, yeah. So, basically, the tendon that holds your bicep to your radius, it was a full tear. So my bicep was no longer connected. So they go in, they take a kevlar button, and they drill the tendon back into the bone. And so I had that surgery on Thursday, and I woke up on Friday morning, and I had, like, a harness so that I could deadlift without having to use my arm.

And I went out in the garage, and I was deadlifting 585 pounds the day after surgery. And I. I don’t. I don’t recommend it. I wouldn’t tell anybody to do it. Um, but, you know, I needed. I needed to. To do something. I need to get out there. And, you know, a huge credit to my coach, who’s also on the plant built team, Ryan stills. Uh, because when I had the injury before I had the surgery, I said, ryan, like, I just had this injury.

I’m gonna have to get surgery. I don’t think I’m gonna be able to compete at Plantbuilt in October. And, you know, we have to figure something out. And he said, well, are you looking for an excuse? And I was like, no, I’m not looking for an excuse. Like. And he’s like, no, let’s do it. And, you know, he’s like, I’ve trained through several shoulder surgeries.

Like, we can. We can figure this out. And he was right, you know, using things like the deadlift harness. I switched to a gym here in Sacramento that has a belt squat machine. They have a nice safety squat bar. And I was able to keep training through all of it and get back under the bar a lot quicker than I thought I would.

Athena:

A lot quicker than you thought. He was in the day, I think, when he said, I appreciate his words and absolutely true, but I don’t think he meant the next day when you. When he said that, it lit a.

Speaker 3

Fire under me, for sure. He’s like, do you want an excuse? I’m like, no, I don’t want an excuse. That was, like, the perfect thing to say to me because, like, I’m entirely motivated by doubt and spite. So that’s exactly what I needed to hear.

Athena:

Good stuff. Okay. Yeah, that sounds intense. I think I definitely would not be lifting the next day. Was it painful? And how’s your recovery been? Are you, like, 100% recovered? Do you have any, like, follow ups? How’s that going?

Speaker 3

So the recovery was great. I definitely was doing things before I was supposed to, but at the same time, like, when I went in to talk to the physical therapist, you know, the first. The first. Even the first consult afterwards, he was asking me to see if I could, like, extend my arm to here. And at that point, I already had, like, pretty much full range of motion.

And he was kind of blown away. You know, he said he had not seen somebody recover from that surgery that quickly, which, you know, I don’t know. I think a lot of it is, as a power lifter, you are a eating an extremely high protein diethouse. Um, and also, my body has been for the past nine years. All I do is just destroy my body in training and then let it recover.

And so I think, like, my body is just primed for. For rebuilding tissue and recovering. Um, but, yeah, I started doing things probably a little bit sooner than I should, but paying very close attention to pain, um, and not pushing it to a point where I felt like I was. I was at risk of re injuring myself a lot of it. There was hazards that were inherent, you know, as I’m doing safety squat bar with 500 pounds on my back.

It’s true. If I had slipped or tripped and put my arm out to brace myself, I would have re ruptured retorn the tendon. But as far as the actual training being dangerous, I don’t feel that it was. I did get start benching before I was actually medically cleared to Benchenk. Um, but it worked out. Uh, the only limitation I have now is, you know, the.

The actual tendon. If my arm is fully supinated like this. Uh, I still like when I do bicep curls as an accessory. I have, like, 35 in this hand, uh, 55 in this hand. I’m still scared to do a pull up. Um, and it’s just. I just picture it rupturing again. It’s mostly a mental thing. It kind of freaks me out a little bit.

Athena:

Yeah, I think that’s fair. Okay, well, everyone, do not take medical advice from Nick. That’s what we just learned.

Speaker 3

I say that all the time, not medical advice.

Athena:

I’m glad you’re recovering with smoothly, though, nonetheless, because. Yeah, that’s. That’s scary. I mean, any kind of injury, especially if it’s something you’re so passionate about. I mean, you have to be passionate if you’re.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I mean, I sat there and. Yeah, when it happened, like, I. I felt it happen, and I started feeling around and, like, I was looking it up online to see what might have happened, and I. I realized within an hour what had happened. And I didn’t know yet if it was a partial tear or a full tear or what they call a full thickness rupture, which is weird, but I knew what happened, and it did freak me out.

I thought, I don’t know, you know, how long it’ll be until I can train again. I don’t know if I can train again. So there was a lot of things those first couple of days before I got the MRI down and talked to the orthopedic surgeon that it was scary. But, you know, everything. Everything turned out right.

Athena:

Yeah, I can imagine that would have been emotional. How did you get through those couple of days of just kind of not knowing?

Speaker 3

I did a lot of pacing. Pacing, not sleeping, you know, that kind of thing.

Athena:

Okay. Again, not the best advice, everyone. Pacing is okay, though. Okay. And. Okay. I would love to know just about your day to day. I honestly don’t even know. I don’t even know about your day to day at all. I would love to know how you incorporate into your life. I think everyone can relate to that. Everyone’s busy, everyone has things to do. What are your hours like? What hours do you work?

Speaker 3

So every day I wake up at 04:00 a.m. and I do 6000 push ups and I run 25 miles.

Athena:

Nice.

Speaker 3

I wake up at. I wake up in the morning. 645. I wake my daughter up, we get ready, I take her to school, and then I head to work. I work in it. I’m a technical account manager for an MSP here in Sacramento, so that takes a lot of my attention. And being in the IT space is. Makes it complicated because you’re never really off, especially, you know, post Covid.

So many people work from home. And it used to be like, most of the time people were in the office eight to five. And outside of that, it was kind of rare that you got called in. But now people expect things to work around the clock. So, you know, it can be complicated. I kind of. When I go to the gym, I always have to bring my laptop with me because I might get paged in Ondezenhe, you know, a security event or something like that.

But day technically ends at five. I head to the gym and I train, you know, and then it’s. You come home and you make dinner and, you know, you try to get a little bit of work done for the next day, and then you go to bed. So, like, it’s. It’s pretty, pretty busy. I do try to prioritize making time for the gym at least three days a week without, you know, I also want to spend time with my kid and things like that, but it does take up a lot of your time.

There’s not a lot of free time. I don’t do a lot of recreation outside of working out. I play hockey once a week, you know, Friday nights play ice hockey here in Sacramento. But outside of that, it’s all it takes. It does take a lot of dedication, energy to focus on not only the training aspect of powerlifting, which is going to be 2 hours, 3 hours a day, three or four days a week, but also the recovery and the nutrition that comes with that.

You know, if you’re going to put your body through that for two or 3 hours, you need to be giving it the nutrients and attention and the recovery that it needs in order to rebuild and be able to do that again.

Athena:

Yeah, well, that’s insane. So you go to work and you go to the gym and possibly have to work, and then you come home and do a little bit more work? Or did you mean just like, work around the house?

Speaker 3

No, I mean, yeah, work around the house, clean the house, things like that. But a lot of times it’s just getting work ready for the next day, touching up on any emails or things that came in while I was at the gym that weren’t critical. It’s around the clock.

Athena:

Okay. So you guys hear that you can be busy and you don’t have to go to the gym six, seven days a week to make progress. You can go a couple days. Wow, that’s insane. To. That is. That’s a lot of work. So your routine is about three days a week, or is it kind of just a week to week basis of how busy one week might be?

Speaker 3

Yeah. So right now I’m on three days, and then, you know, I play hockey on Fridays, which I consider sort of a workout. It is. You know, it’s cardio, and it’s cardio that works for me because I don’t have to

think about it, you know, like, when I. I can’t run, because then I’m thinking about how the fact that I’m running the whole time and I just want to stop.

And hockey, you know, it’s great cardio, and it takes your mind off of it. But, yeah, right now, three days a week, if I. For some reason, I’m not in pain on one of the extra days, I’ll throw in a peloton ride or some accessory lifts. But I think a lot of that fitness culture that we talked about in the beginning has led to people over training. I think that if you are training six, seven days a week, you’re not giving your body adequate time to recover.

And I also think that if you’re able to train six or seven days a week, you’re probably not training at a good capacity. You should have difficulty training that often. If you’re really getting the most out of your workouts that you should be.

Athena:

In this sport, you might get some heat for that. But I agree. I do. I do agree that, yeah, six, seven days a week, it’s quite a lot. Specifically, strength training six to seven days a week. I mean, if you, like you said, if you’re adding in cardio, okay. But I think it’s nice to hear, because I think a lot of people even, like, maybe who aren’t in the fitness community, but they want to be.

They just have these super high expectations because of social media. They think I have to go to the gym, like, every single day. I have to work out my abs every single day. I have to go to the gym in the morning and do cardio, go to the gym at night, do strength training. There’s, like, so much, so much wrong with what people think they have to do. So I think it’s nice for people to hear, like, okay, you’re busy.

You have a busy life, but the gym isn’t your life. It’s just a part of your life that you really enjoy, but it’s not your entire life. You still have work and you still have time with your daughter and time to do things that you enjoyed. And eating at restaurants. I see photos. They look really good.

Speaker 3

Yeah, this whole, like, grind set thing, no rest days, it’s. I fell into it for a little bit in the beginning, and it’s a really good way to burn yourself out and not want to do this anymore because you’re putting your body through that and you’re making it your entire life and it’s taking up your entire schedule. There’s a lot, just a lot of misinformation out there.

That’s what you need in order to be successful. A lot of people think, like, oh, if I miss this workout, you know, I’m going to fall behind. You can miss a week of training, and while it might not be the most effective or productive thing long term, it’s not going to be the end of the world. You know, if I have to miss a workout because I’m going to go camping or whatever, it’s not going to be. I’m not going to lose my strength from that one or two or three missed workouts.

You know, your body is going to hold on to that strength for a lot longer than you think it will. I remember my first several meets in powerlifting. It’s like a deload or a rest week. And I was

convinced, like, oh, if I don’t work out for a week or two weeks, then by the time I get to the meet, I’m gonna lost all my strength. And that’s ludicrous. Your body doesn’t work that way. You know, your body does not work that way.

Athena:

Yeah, I 1000% agree. I think there’s just a lot of misinformation, just not understanding. And it sucks because it’s kind of almost impossible to know what’s true when literally everything says, this is right, this is wrong. And it’s like one doctor says, this is right, this is wrong, and it’s hard to know what to do and who to believe. So I think it’s good to hear from people who actually live the lifestyle and not just people who comment on it.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I mean, the social media algorithm has brought so much misinformation into any field you can imagine. And it’s because the most outrageous thing is what gets the most attention, and it’s what comes to the top of your feed. You know, years ago, my mom found this book at a thrift store. It was an Arnold Schwarzenegger book about bodybuilding.

And you look at this book and it was written in the seventies, and it’s talking about, you know, working out, rest, recovery, the basics of bodybuilding. And those haven’t changed. They knew all the stuff in the seventies, but that doesn’t sell. Nobody wants to hear the that. You know, hey, if you want to be good at powerlifting, you need to go to the gym several days a week for several years before you make, you know, meaningful progress to the point where you’re going to be

competitive. Nobody wants to hear that. Everybody wants to hear, oh, if you stop eating carbs, oh, if you train seven days a week, oh, if you do this new muscle confusion, that’s people want the shortcut. And so because people want the shortcut or because what the person is saying is incendiary and people are going to argue about it, that’s what gets put in your social media feed, that’s what you hear about.

But the fundamentals of weight training haven’t changed in forever. And it’s just, it’s not glamorous and it’s not what you really want to hear, that this is going to require a long amount of hard work. But, you know, that’s all there is to it.

Athena:

I agree. I think that’s the same thing when it comes to, like, weight loss or muscle building. It’s like, okay, look at this program where you can lose 20 pounds of fat in four weeks, and it’s like, maybe, but it’s not sustainable. Anything that sounds too good to be true, everyone has heard this. If it sounds too good to be true, then don’t believe it. I think it is. The ugly aspect of it takes time to build muscle, it takes time to build strength. It takes time to lose weight, and that’s

all, okay? You’re gonna be so much more happier in the long term if you just take it slow than if you

just go headfirst into everything and then hate it and then quit. Everyone quits. And then they’re like, that didn’t work. I don’t believe in that. And I was like, no, you just, no, just don’t listen to them. Yeah, but, yeah, so what? So what’s your routine like? Let’s hear like three days a week. Like what are you doing in the gym?

Speaker 3

So I realized a long time ago that I am not smart and I need, when I got to a certain point, you know, for years I was either trying to program myself or I was getting kind of cookie cutter programs from the Internet. And some of them are great. You know, the Johnny Candido has a great program. If you’re looking for like a good program, there’s a lot of great starter programs, intermediate programs.

I strongly feel that when you get to the point where you’re competing a couple times a year and you’re really looking to move past intermediate powerlifting, you need to find a coach. And there’s a number of reasons for that. One is that these people have trained for how to program you. And just because you got yourself to a certain point in powerlifting does not mean that you know how to program yourself.

It also, human beings, we all have a very big blind spot to our weaknesses. And so if you are programming yourself, you’re going to program yourself what you’re good at, you’re going to avoid the things that you’re bad at. And what you really want is you want a coach that you can send video to, you can send your workouts to, and they can identify your weak spots and program you things that are going to help there.

So right now, as I said, my coach Ryan still, he’s on the plant built team. He’s been programming me since, since April of this year. I send him my workouts. He quickly identifies what I need to work on. He writes that into the next program. So right now I have a three day split and I, you know, it’s Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Tuesday 1st, 1st workout of the week is always squat.

So based on what we’re doing for that block, it’ll be volume squat or it’ll be some, some heavy lower rep squat, um, then you know, and then there’s some upper body. So usually bench on, on Tuesday Thursday will be a deadlift or a deadlift variation, uh, with some accessory upper body accessory. And then Saturday it’s usually a squat variation, um, with, you know, additional upper body.

So uh, Ryan has a lot of different, um, disciplines that he kind of blends into his, his programming. So there’s a lot of conjugate inspired stuff. So a lot of bands and chains, a lot of work with the safety squat bar, a lot of variations. So there’s things that, you know, I started doing in the last year that I had not done before that have helped me immensely.

I mean, for not being able to do a barbell squat for four months leading up to a meet and then setting a squat pr to meet, you know, I was immediately sold on everything that he’d been doing, and it’s something that I would not have been able to accomplish to myself. So if you are serious about powerlifting and you’ve kind of burned out or plateaued on the online programming, I really would recommend, you know, finding a coach.

And obviously, in the vegan space, you want to find a coach who’s understanding of your, of your diet. There are some coaches out there that, you know, they don’t think that you can do what we’re doing

on a vegan diet. They’re going to try and tell you that any plateaus or lack of progress is because, oh, you’re not getting animal protein. Obviously, we know that’s not true.

So it is good to find a coach. And most people, honestly, honestly, most people in this space understand it. I find that 99% of the time, when someone wants to argue with me about quality of protein, they’re a do nothing, right. They have not accomplished anything. When I talk to people who are competitive powerlifters, the most that they’ll do is they’ll kind of think for a second and they’re like, oh, okay.

You know, like, it’ll catch them off guard. They will be surprised. But as someone who they’ve been training for years, they have a very good understanding of what they’re putting in their body. They know the protein content of everything. And so when you say that to them, they start thinking about all the things that they eat that, that aren’t animal based, that do have protein in them, and they really quickly realize, oh, you could do that.

Right. It’s, it’s really the people who have not accomplished anything or don’t really understand what they’re eating that want to argue the most about, you know, what you can and can’t do on a vegan diet.

Athena:

Yeah, I think some people just really like to talk shit. They just like to talk hear themselves, and I think they’re just gonna rise out of it. Honestly, they love to hear people fight back or whatever it is. So I always love your responses and how you post on social media, like, you’ll make fun of vegans jokingly, oh, I would never eat this garbage. Or, like, agree with the trolls. Like, yeah, you’re right, ma’am. That’s crazy.

Speaker 3

Yeah, there’s so much out there and it’s, you know, it’s only gotten worse. But I think what you have to do is you have to kind of quickly identify is this person, does this person have a genuine misconception and they, you know, they got some bad information, but they’re open to, you know, updating their view on something. Or, you know, you go to someone’s profile and their entire, you know, replies are just anti vegan comment, anti vegan comment.

The same four arguments over and over again. Why are you going to argue with that person? That person exists specifically to try and make you upset. And so as soon as you get upset and start replying to that person, you know, that’s what they wanted. So make fun of that person and move on. You know, there’s also like this huge online push for people who are following the carnivore diet, which is people who, people who only eat meat, raw, dairy, things like that.

And those people constantly want to fight with me about what you can and can’t do on a plant protein diet. And for the most part, it’s like you are coming from, you think that the carnivore diet is ideal because you think it’s the ideal human diet. I don’t eat animals because I don’t want to eat animals. We have nothing to argue about. I’m not saying veganism is the ideal human diet. It’s not something I even think about.

I think about the fact that I don’t want to eat animals and animal products and I found a way to do it that works with me being a competitive power lifter. And that’s the end of the story. If you want to sit there and tell me that, oh, you know, this is not, animal protein is 3% more. Who cares? I only eat 3% more plant protein and then I’m still stronger than you. Like, what are we even talking about?

Athena:

I guess that’s very, very true, I think. Yeah, you’re right. I think so many people just get a rise out of the trolls and it’s like, just let it be. Just let it go.

Speaker 3

Like you said, they have no one in their life that loves them and they don’t understand it between good attention and bad attention. And so they’re going to go online and they’re going to try and make people upset because then they get the attention and they don’t know the difference and it makes them feel fulfilled. So all you’re doing is making them feel better. Just call them a nerd and move on to that’s the quote of the.

Athena:

Day, call them a nerd, move on, and just make fun of them, too.

Speaker 3

Go back to the gym. But if they spent half as much time in the gym as they do telling me that I can’t do what I’m doing on a vegan diet, they’d be half as strong as me. So, you know, don’t just move on.

Athena:

That’s true. I agree. You heard it from him, guys. I agree. I’ll go talk about something a little bit more fun, like nutrition. Let’s talk about, what do you eat? What are your, what kind of things do you do? Do you meal prep? Do you track your food? Tell me all the things, because everything you post looks delicious. I’m always so jealous.

Speaker 3

Yeah. So meal prepping, for me is a problem, because if I meal prep for a week, I’m just gonna sit there and eat the whole week’s worth of food. You know, if it’s in front of me, you know, if it’s in front of me, I’m gonna eat it. You know, there’s. There’s no way around it, so. And also the time, like, I know that it ultimately saves time, but it’s not going to work for me.

I’ll just sit there and eat everything that I made. So people ask that a lot. And obviously on social media, I post the more exciting things that I eat. So on the weekend, I’ll go out and I’ll house an entire pepperoni pizza or four double cheeseburgers or whatever. And that’s fun, and it’s exciting, and it’s delicious, and it’s a huge amount of protein. That’s not how I eat, you know, seven days a week, you know? So the other day, you know, someone asked me, can you put together, like,

an average day? Um, and so I just kind of whatever I would normally make at that time. Um, I wrote down the protein content, and I took a picture of it, and it was like, you know, so I wake up and I just do. It’s like, 150 grams of oatmeal, 150 grams of oats, and then one scoop of protein powder. And that was actually the only scoop of protein powder I used the entire day.

Athena:

What I hate froze. So gross. They’re disgusting. The texture is nasty. Okay, that’s disgusting. But go on. Let’s hear about your breakfast.

Speaker 3

So that was 40 grams of protein. Super easy, super simple, nothing fancy. Instant oatmeal. It’s just oatmeal. This is instant oatmeal. Like the maple one, you know, and then it was some protein powder. Yeah. And then it was some oat milk. That was true nutrition. Okay. Through the one that I made here. Yeah. And then. What’s that?

Athena:

No toppings. Berries?

Speaker 3

No. I have, like six minutes. Like, I’m just, like. I’m in there, like, in a towel, like, just throwing things in a bowl. I chopped up a banana and I ate the ban. So two bananas with that. So that was a. That was breakfast. Then I’m out the door. Yeah. I have a sword for the banana. And then. So lunch. I really like. Morningstar Farms does a bag of chicken strips.

Yeah. And get them at Walmart. Get them at the grocery store. The protein content. The first time I read the label, I was like, this can’t be right. Like, it’s. The bag is 84 grams of protein in ithoodae. Um, for. I think it was like 500 calories. So just for most people, that’s over the RDA for protein for their entire day. Um, and so those you can, like.

Yeah. Morning star, morningstar chicken strips. They’re pretty bland, which is good because they can take any sauce that you want. So it’s hard to get bored of them, you know? So I can put them in a buffalo sauce. I can put them in. You know that bashan’s, the barbecue sauce. You can put them in anything you can think of, and they’ll take that flavor pretty well. I cook that with.

With rice, some broccoli, something like that. Super quick. Takes about six minutes to prep in the microwave. And, you know, that’s 84 grams of protein right there. So that’s huge. With rice and everything. That’s like 94, I think, for the meal. And it’s, you know, it’s a fair amount of food, uh, for the average person, but it’s a good lunch for me.

Athena:

And then someone’s like, meal prep of three days, like their lunch.

Speaker 3

Oh, yeah, for sure. That’s. That’s. That’s someone’s like, they could use that bag of chicken for the whole week. And then before I go to the gym, you know, the. The killer Dave’s bread? You know, the. The red one that has, like 5 grams of protein per slice. So I’ll just do that.

Uh, pb and j. Pb and banana, something like that. You’re getting, like 17 grams out of that. And I just eat one of those before I head to the gym. Um, if I don’t have that, you know, something like this stuff. Lenny and Larry’s protein cookie.

Athena:

There you go.

Speaker 3

Easy. Keep them in my gym bag for when I forget to eat. So those are good. And then, uh, I mean, like, forget to eat the 9th time that day, you know, like. Like, I’ll get to the gym, like, oh, I haven’t eaten in an hour. I’m about to die. So I have one of those in the bag, melting, throwing a tantrum in my truck because I haven’t eaten in an hour. And then.

And then dinner, it was berea makes protein pasta, which is cool because they use pea protein isolate instead of anything else. And so it’s just like regular wheat durham pasta with some pea protein. So that brings the protein content of the pasta up a lot. Um, and then I throw some sausages in there, you know, for the beyond meat sausages are really good.

The impossible sausage is really good budget wise and protein content wise, the tofurky ones are actually higher protein content and a few dollars cheaper per pack. So whatever I have on hand. So that meal ends up being, like, 81 grams of protein for. For that bowl of pasta with a couple sausages. So that day right there that we just outlined is 232 grams of protein, um, which is a lot. And some people would say that’s too much. Um, but for me. For me, it’s perfect. You know, I’ve.

I have tried a lot. Like, I’ve gone up. I’ve gone up to 300 grams protein a day. I have not seen much benefit from that. Um, I’ve gone down to, like, 150, and I see longer recovery times in that. So my

sweet spot has been the, you know, 1 gram per pound of body weight. I find that, you know, and I’m not overspending or overeating, and at the same time, it kind of is ideal recovery time so that I have a day off and then I can get back to the gym and keep training that the day after that.

Athena:

Okay, well, I think people are going to really like this because that was all very relatable and easy. I love easy. Anything easy is definitely my style. Anytime I go on Instagram, everyone just has the fanciest meals, and they’re, like, eating every day, and I’m like, oh, this is, like, insane. And I’m also not a meal prepper.

It just. Well, one, yeah, I probably will eat way too much, too. But also, it just takes so much time, like, out of one day. Like, it seems more convenient, but if I’m not in the mood for that, that day, then it just kind of ruins everything, or maybe. And then I mess everything up.

Speaker 3

Yeah, it’s not realistic. You know, the cost and the time, you know, I just try to find something that I don’t have to spend more than 510 minutes. Obviously, the pasta takes a little bit longer to cook, but, you know, for someone who has a busy. It’s like, you know, boil the water towards. It’s. It takes. Takes a little bit longer than the other ones, but, you know, people don’t have time. I don’t have time. I don’t know who has the time, but I have, like, you know, like I said, I work

through most of my lunches, so, like, I’ve microwaved this, and I’m just standing in front of the sink trying to get this in before the next person calls me. So, you know, it’s about getting the nutrients and the protein in a cost and time effective manner. So I don’t miss a meal because missing a meal, for me, is fairly catastrophic, not only emotionally, but also for getting my protein in.

Athena:

Okay, so what’s your all time favorite meal ever? And. Or actually, that’s including something that you make and something that you can buy from a restaurant. Like, maybe like, your favorite restaurant meal and your favorite meal that you make.

Speaker 3

You want me to narrow down the splendors of the entire culinary world into two meals?

Athena:

Yes. Like, your favorite now, because maybe it’ll change in an hour, but, like, right now, it sounds like your favorite thing ever.

Speaker 3

Or before.

Athena:

Really in the mood for right now.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Before I went vegan, I ate almost entirely fast food diet, you know? Yeah. And it was the same. Same thing. You know, it’s work. It’s. I don’t have a lot of time. And so I’d drive through Jack in the box or wherever it was, you know? But my favorite thing was the college junior western bacon cheeseburger. I love that thing. And so, early on, when I went vegan and when the beyond burger came out, changed the game, you know, because before that, no disrespect for the greats, the ogs,

but, you know, the beyond burger coming out compared to the boca patty, that was out. I mean, that was just a night and day difference. And so the first time I was able to, like, veganize a western bacon cheeseburger, you know, so the beyond or the impossible patty, the bacon, the cheese.

Athena:

Show the ingredients. What kind of bacon? What kind of cheese. We got to know all of it.

Speaker 3

So whatever. Bacon, like, you know, the light life is fine. You know, I like. I like the sweeter stuff. Not currently buying sweeter stuff right now, but, you know, the burger dude on Instagram, YouTube, the burger dude, he has a recipe for rice paper bacon. It’s incredible. Yeah, check that out. It’s rice paper bacon. So it’s not super high protein, but the taste is fantastic.

He like, great channel. He does specifically like vegan fast and junk food. So check that out. He has a cookbook out too. Hugely recommend it. Great guy, too. Anyway, the barbecue sauce that probably my favorite burger to make and eat, just because it’s so nostalgic for me for something that I ate for years before I went vegan and didn’t really have an alternative to for a while. So that’s my favorite thing to make at home and eat. Do a double. You know, you’re getting 50, 60 grams of

protein out of it as an excuse to eat two burgers. You know, that’s. And then right now, so there’s a place here in Sacramento called vegan deadly sins. They do vegan chinese cuisine, so they do chicken chow mein. It’s really good. General Salad’s chicken, orange chicken. It’s, it’s fantastic. Everything there is vegan. They have boba. So that’s my favorite spot right now. My kid loves it too, so she and I go every, every weekend, head out there.

Athena:

I see it.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Yeah.

Athena:

Okay, well, I’m gonna visit soon because I really want to try that.

Speaker 3

That and then pizzasaurus rex, they do a vegan piece, um, just pepperoni and one of the best pizzas I’ve had, vegan or not, my entire life. That place is really good.

Athena:

It all sounds really good. And by the way, everyone, the only reason I follow him is because all the food he posts. And that is the only reason, because no other reason at all.

Speaker 3

Nothing has a value on that, on that channel.

Athena:

I’m just kidding. But everything you post does look really good. And I’ve seen it all. So amazing. I love chinese food, and there’s some good places here, but it’s like, I don’t know, I feel like California just, they just, they just have all the innovations. New York City, it’s, it’s fine, but it’s just the stuff I’ve tried in Cali is just, just a breath of fresh air. Or maybe it’s just being in Cali, sunshine, eating. It’s just nice.

Speaker 3

Yeah, it’s raining right now. I mean, it’s. We moved here from LA, and it’s not the same LA, you know, Los Angeles, you can’t go, you can’t throw a rock without hitting a vegan restaurant. And it’s really cool. And there’s some great stuff out there. Came up here and there wasn’t a lot, but that’s changed in the last couple of years.

We have a place called Burger Patch, which is vegan fast food, vegan deadly sins. We have a lot of great places like that plant power opened location up here, so it’s getting better, but definitely not the same as Los Angeles when we moved. There’s a lot of places that I really missed.

Athena:

Yeah. But everything sounds so nice and so close to you. I don’t have anything that close. So when I said I was coming to visit us, moving in, that sounds a good deal, but that sounds great. I could talk about food forever because that’s like my favorite subject in the world. So we’re gonna come on an hour, so let’s wrap it up with something fun. What, what’s your playlist? What’s your favorite music to listen to when you’re working out? Taylor Swift.

Speaker 3

Yeah, Taylor Swift. Spotify rap game. Taylor Swift. Definitely a number one. Yes. So I’m very into hardcore music. The hardcore music scene. That’s where a lot of, like, the principles of veganism came up early in my life, and I kind of understood them. And, you know, same for being straight edge, you know, coming from that music scene. And it is, it is kind of funny, like, when I hear people talk about vegans being weak or soft or whatever, because growing up in that music scene,

you would go to a show and there’d be some vegan straight edge kid, like, fighting three people at once. So, you know, whenever I heard that, I was like, that’s not, doesn’t fit with what I understand about vegan people. But honestly, like, when I’m going for a pr, a huge lift, I’m actually more motivated by, like, hauntingly sad or depressing music, you know? So it’s like, for example, like, my pr song for a long time was the foggy Dew by Sunaid O’Connor. And I rest in peace. And it was

about, it was about the troubles in Ireland. It’s a terribly sad song, and something about it just stirs up a lot of emotion in me. And I just, it really gets me ready for a big lift, you know, when I’m training and I’m gonna be there for 3 hours and listening to harder music, you know, with a lot of anger in it. But when I’m going for like, one big lift, it has to be something really sad. And I feel, for whatever reason, I get more adrenaline, more motivation out of that than anything else.

Athena:

Okay, so you feel a lot stronger when you’re, like, feeling a little more depressed. It just brings out, brings out the strength.

Speaker 3

Let me call my therapist and then talk about that one.

Athena:

So that’s why you’re so strong all the time.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Cause I’m always sad. Yeah.

Athena:

Just kidding. But, yeah, I think that’s my general playlist. I think it’s just mostly sad songs because I like anything I could sing to, and I can’t sing to hardcore and rock. Like, I’m not doing screamouthe. I’m like a Sam Smith. Like, you know, you’re not the only one. So that’s my style. Um, but okay. I think. I think that’s like, I feel like that’s like the powerlifting community is like, everyone listens to hardcore rock, but, yeah.

Speaker 3

It’S all, it’s all like rapper or, you know, you know, heavy metal and stuff like that. It’s pretty, like, if you go to any powerlifting gym, those are kind of the two genres you’re going to, you’re going to find, for sure.

Athena:

Yeah. I also think a lot of people don’t know what straight edge is. So what is that? What can you tell them?

Speaker 3

Straight edge is just the idea of not partaking in any drugs or alcohol, and it goes back to community. There’s a lot of people who don’t smoke or do drugs, and that’s fine. You don’t need to really identify as anything for that. But for a lot of people who grew up in that music scene or in any music scene, the use of drugs and alcohol is kind of glamorized.

And it was kind of like, this is what you have to do. And, you know, for a lot of us that wanted to not do that anymore, we kind of felt isolated. And, you know, that’s kind of where the straight edge community comes in. It’s a group of people who kind of feel the same way as you about something, and it just gives you a sense of belonging. And I can tell you firsthand, like, when I quit drinking, a lot of my friends, a lot of my friendships and relationships were based around going out and

drinking. And so all of a sudden, I didn’t have that anymore. And I did feel incredibly isolated. Like, you lost a large chunk of your relationships because you’re not going to go out and party and drink with them anymore. And so it just gives you kind of a place that you feel like you kind of belong with that.

Athena:

Yeah, I think that’s a nice, a nice note to wrap up on. I think I also. I stopped, yeah, when I stopped drinking, it was the same thing. It’s just like, yeah, they don’t want to hang out anymore. They don’t want to. They don’t want to go for a walk. So it can be lonely. And it’s inspiring to know that there are people out there that also can resonate with that and that they do want to do things with you that don’t roll around drinking.

There’s so many people, and I think it takes time. So if anyone decides to stop drinking, stop doing drugs, whatever it is, it can take time to build the friendships that actually have meaning to them. And that is totally okay. So definitely, definitely don’t get too in the dumps right away because it might be a little sad at first when you realize, like, oh, these weren’t actually my real friends.

These are just people that I hang out with. But the real friends come. They come in time. So is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you want to talk about or that you want to say or mentioned?

Speaker 3

I mean, I can’t believe it’s been an hour already.

Athena:

I know some flaws when you’re having fun. Thank you all for listening. We very much appreciate it. Thank you for coming on today. This took us forever to schedule, so I’m glad that we finally made it work.

Nick:

Follow Nick’s journey on Instagram at the link in the show notes, where you will also find a link to claim a free month of our muscles by Brussels training program. If you are interested in any kind of one on one coaching, fill out an application on our coaching page@veganproteins.com.

we will get you in the shape you want to be in, and we will teach you how to stay in that shape for the rest of your life. Feel free to reach out to us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or email us@coacheganproteins.com. dot thank you all for listening and.

Athena:

Tune in next time.