Hey Mom, I’m home!
Oh hi Bonnie, how was school?
It was awful. I’m so tired of everyone thinking girls are weak.
What do you mean, honey?
Well in PE we had to do this strength test and the boys had to do pull ups and push-ups
and sit-ups but the girls had to sit in a circle and talk about learning to flex our
“self love” muscle. What does that even mean?
Well I’m sure they’re just trying to help you learn to accept yourself.
Well I can accept myself and be strong. I'm gonna show them. I’m going to learn
how to get ripped.
Okay dear, you have fun.
Hi it’s Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome to another vegan nugget. You may love him,
you may hate him, and if you’re at this very moment furiously composing a comment
containing the word “bacon,” you’re most likely of the latter camp, but chances
are you know of him. Richard, aka Vegan Gains is one of the fastest-growing and most polarizing
vegan channels on YouTube.
While his characters are larger than life and, for many viewers, the line between his
fantasy and reality is sometimes difficult to distinguish, Richard’s core fitness and
nutrition advice is rather grounded and, surprisingly, well, unremarkable, which seems to be his
point after all. That is, cutting through all of the BS, distractions and hawking of
products to the basics of health.
While his delivery purposefully matches the sensationalism, gimmicks, and insanity, within
the fitness industry, his actual practice and recommendations are strangely sane, which
creates a fascinating dichotomy whereby one can be simultaneously offended and educated,
left with a feeling of aural and ocular violation with a lingering hint of personal enrichment.
So when I had the chance to speak with Richard back in June, I asked him to share his own
personal approach to diet and exercise. If you missed my first interview with him, wherein
we discussed his viral hit series “The Worst of the Fitness Industry,” that will be linked
in the sidebar and below. I hope you enjoy hearing from Richard.
So for someone who eats a high carb diet and has the muscle mass that you do I'm
sure a lot of people want to know and I know you've done some videos on this, but everyone
always loves hearing what vegans eat so could you tell us a typical day of what you eat
and you can kind of say even like what you eat pre and post workout within that.
Richard: It's pretty mixed between fruits and starches so I don't have like a super,
super heavy fruit diets, not a super starchy diet, you know like starch solution. So like
breakfast, oatmeal, maybe some toast, bread. I really like bananas and apples a lot. I
do eat a lot of blueberries as well as some cherries and throughout the day I also have
sweet potatoes. I really like sweet potatoes, especially Jamaican sweet potatoes. Later
at night I usually have like beans and I make a really big soup with yams, more sweet potatoes,
and throughout the day I also have a lot of green smoothies. The green smoothies seem
to really help as well, especially pre and post workout. Especially with cardiovascular
training like that seems to really boost my cardio having lots and lots of greens.
I'm going to show them..I'm going to learn how to get ripped.
[on computer]: and when you're up, squeeze those butt cheeks together! I mean squeeze.
If you don't squeeze, you're not going to get that round, lifted booty that you want.
Fat gets you ripped. Every single day I'm eating tons and tons of fat.
Breast, breasts, and more breasts, causes breasts are good for you.
Number one nutrition aspect to joining club shredded: beef, chicken...protein is essential
in building muscle.
Whole eggs, I like to have at least four every morning.
You know it's like, let's say you're married to a blonde and just want to experiment with
a redhead...the carpet matches the drapes! That's a necessity, this is needed.
We're gonna start out by making the waffle taco shell. We make this paleo by using almond
flour instead of regular wheat flour. Mix that baby up until it become a nice thick
consistency. And guess what? We're making your eggs in the waffle maker too!
[weird noise]
And go ahead and add in anywhere between two to four strips of turkey bacon or whatever
you want inside, and then you have your amazing waffle taco! Look at that! Sexy!!
Do you try to stick to any particular you know macro ratios which is what everyone
always gets so so into?
I don't track macros super tightly like I don't track macros at all really like
if you ask me how many grams of carbs or protein I eat per day I really have no idea. What
I really do focus on is calories. Calories are the most important thing and you can see
guys like Robert Oberst who are strong men who eat meat--the reason they eat tons of
meat is because it's just so calorie dense and it's easy to get in the calories when
you eat candy or meat and that's why these people are eating these food so that's why
I eat a lot of starches it's just easier to get calories in. Oats are probably the easiest
thing for me to eat a lot of, just to get in those calories, and a bit of rice. Beans
are pretty easy too and the sweet potatoes? They’re not bad either. And the fruits you
know it's just good to have fruit in your diet you know they don't like fill your stomach
kind of as much for as long so I like having that in but just caloric content, you really
do need the starches, especially if you're super active like me like you know I cycle
seventy, eighty kilometers every other day.
This doesn’t really feel effective.
So speaking of your training can you kind of tell us what a typical what you try
to do you can even say on a weekly basis or by session basis.
OK like it's a three day split for weight training and it's just full body workouts.
Focus on big, heavy compound lifts: Squat. I can’t really squat right now because I
have that injury that I had from the car accident, but still do your hack presses stuff like
that, leg press and deadlifts are fine. Do bench press, you know, shoulder press, rows.
Those are my main lifts and then I just have some accessory movements like you know bicep
curls and triceps just you know keep my arms looking good, but that's basically my weight
lifting or routine. Pretty simple very power lifter kind of training and then cardiovascular
training: I was doing fifty kilometers a day on my bike every day but now just because
I want more free time I'm doing seventy, eighty kilometers every other day.
[on computer]: Waffle taco! The carpet matches the drapes! Sexy! Breasts, breasts, and more
breasts, cause breasts are good for you.
Here are my top tips for building muscle on a vegan diet and just promoting health in
general. Eat your f--ing vegetables! Seriously! Eat your f--ing vegetables! Nobody's eating
their vegetables, even vegans! SO eat your --- green vegetables.
Honestly, green vegetables are a great source of protein, they're very high in antioxidants,
they're alkalizing for your body....
Mom! I think I found the answer!
What do you mean, honey?
Well, I’ve doing everything they're telling me...I’ve got tubs of supplements,
I’m packing in the protein and doing the butt thrusts, but I have absolutely no energy
and keep going into meat comas, but this guy here, he says to eat vegetables and whole
foods and lift weights. That might be crazy enough to work!
Well that’s great dear.
A lot of people advocate you know changing up your routine after a month or so do you
do you do that? Do you kind of cycle through things or do you just basically stay consistent
year round?
I have switched my main lifts around a bit like I was doing flat bench a lot and
then I mean I moved to dips and right now I'm doing flight dumbbell presses as my main
primary movers so I switched some things around like that. If things aren't going too well,
but you know generally if you're making progress, what's the problem? Why would you have to
really switch up your routine? It's better to just keep things consistent and if you
see any holes in your training or, you know, if you're not really liking some main lifts
then that's a good idea to change, but otherwise there's really no need to do those kind of things.
Hey Mom, I’m home!
Oh hi Bonny, how was school today?
It was great! I insisted on doing the boys’ fitness test and I kicked their butts!
Good for you dear.
Yeah!
Are…are you okay?
Ugh..it’s a freeze frame for the video mom. God…
I hope you enjoyed hearing Richard’s personal approach to his health and fitness, and that
you’re not disappointed at the lack of supplements and exercise DVDs to buy. I’d love to hear
your thoughts about what he shared or your own approach to diet and exercise in the comment
below! And, this being a video featuring Vegan Gains, I’m sure I’ll hear other things
as well.
If you haven’t already, be sure to head over and subscribe to Richard’s channel
for fitness industry exposes, more nutrition and fitness advice, and some serious dedication
to ongoing character arcs. Please be aware that his channel does involve ample uncensored
language and potentially disturbing subject matter. You have been warned.
If you enjoyed this look into getting some vegan gains, give the video a big thumbs up
and share it around to show the uncomplicated side of fitness and nutrition. If you’re
new here, do hit that big red subscribe button down there for more awesome vegan content
every Monday, Wednesday, and some Fridays and to not miss out the on the rest of the
Vegan Athlete series. If you want to help support Bite Size Vegan, check out either
of the support links in the video description below or click on the Nugget Army icon or
the link in the sidebar. Now go live vegan, make some vegan gains, and I’ll see you
soon.