(triumphant music)
(vigorous music)
- Athletes are very in tune with their body.
They have to operate at very high levels
and understand anything that will give them
even a marginal competitive edge.
My name is Nimai Delgado.
I am an IFBB Professional Bodybuilder
I am also a former mechanical engineer
and now I am a full-time health and fitness coach.
So they say breakups make bodybuilders,
so I went through a breakup in college
and really motivated me to do something constructive
with my time.
I started going to the gym a little bit more.
Made friends with some personal trainers
and saw a lot of results within that first year
of really managing and having the proper structure
to my workout routine.
As an engineer, I was going to do the
same job every single day for 10 hours a day.
I was sitting in an office, I felt like a rat in a cage
and I needed to express myself
and just let some of this energy out.
So the gym became my therapy.
I've been a vegetarian my entire life
so as a vegetarian I was highly relying
on these dairy sources of protein, cheese, milk,
Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, things like that,
but after I saw the inner workings of a dairy plant,
it was very similar to these plants
that I had been exposed to as an engineer,
there was a lot of machinery, a lot of tubes, a lot
of gauges and theses systems were actually connected
to an animal.
I realized that there was some other engineer
that was doing the exact same job that I was doing
but was basically processing cows.
That really struck a nerve with me because I knew
that they just looked at production value
and what they can do to squeeze
as much production out of these animals as possible.
I was kinda faced with the decision to adapt
and evolve my nutritional strategy
so I can continue building muscle at the same time
and increasing my body composition.
One of the things that I noticed
once I cut out dairy and cheese from my diet was
that my recovery time was almost cut in half.
Meaning that I could train more frequently
and I didn't necessarily know why but it turns out is
because dairy is so inflammatory
that my body was fighting it,
if you can just eliminate those pro-inflammatory foods
you will allow your body to recover much much quicker.
Whey protein is basically the powderized whey derivative
of milk, it's highly touted for bodybuilders
but in reality it causes a lot of damage at the same time.
So why are all these guys taking these supplements?
It's purely marketing, we're convinced that we have to focus
so much on protein and then people start to get this idea
that you can't get enough protein from plants
because you're not getting astronomical levels.
The reality is that we don't need as much protein
as what is marketed to us.
So you can get more than enough
from just a purely plant-based diet.
My second year as a professional bodybuilder
I got invited to the Arnold Classic.
They only invite the top 30 professional athletes
per category to compete at the Arnold Classic.
and I was just blown away because I knew
that I wasn't just stepping on stage representing myself,
I was stepping on stage and making a statement.
A vegan stood on stage with the top 30 guys in the world
and did it, his own way.
I think that, you know that's something
that everybody can stand behind.
I truly think that this vegan lifestyle is a secret weapon
of mine in the bodybuilding world.
You think of anybody in your family that's had cancer
or suffered a heart attack
or stroke or developed Alzheimer's.
All of these diseases are related to the foods that we eat
so if you eliminate the foods that cause those diseases,
then maybe those family members would be here
for little bit longer.
I just wanna share that message for that person
that might need to hear it and even
if you're that person, you know, you deserve
to spend more time, more happy years with your family
or your children or your grandchildren so,
sorry.
Just made me think of my grandpa.
(gentle music)
I think of that whenever I get up and it really drives me
and it really motivates me to continue
to spread this message.
(serene music)