In the first of our guest blog posts based around fitness and nutrition, we hear from Lydia Mok, the founder of STRONG Girl Takeover, a company promoting diversity within the fitness industry, encouraging women of any background, culture, race, religion, shape or size to fall in love with fitness and get body confident.
“Strong…….. AND vegan? Yes! You can be at your strongest whilst consuming zero animal products!
Some people have come up to me before and said that they stopped exercising once they became vegan because they were afraid they would not be consuming enough nutrients to fuel their bodies to include training on top of their every day. The stereotype that vegans are all skinny, weedy, weak people has been smashed over and over by numerous vegan athletes from around the world!
Personally, I am the strongest I have ever been due to my training programme and consuming enough calories and nutritiously dense foods to maximise my performance and health. Just like if you were eating animal products, you can have healthy and unhealthy options within a plant based diet.
So it is up to you to prepare the right foods at the right time.
I thought I would share with you what a typical day of food would be on a training day and a non training day to show you that it can most definitely be done! Bearing in mind I do power training and love food!”
Training Day
Breakfast
- Bexfast overnight oats pot/ acai bowl
Lunch
- Edamame noodles with smoked tofu, broccoli, olives and avocado
Straight after training
- 2 bananas and protein bar/ or usually dinner straight away
Dinner
- Sweet potato, chickpea and spinach curry with quinoa
Non-Training Day
Breakfast
- Smoothie bowl/ fruit
Lunch
- Big quinoa and spinach salad with beans, avocado, sundried tomato, olives, seeds and nuts
Dinner
- Kidney bean and aubergine curry with cauliflower rice
“And I’ve made so many yummy things like lentil burgers with sweet potato fries, or a broccoli and chickpea pasta cheese bake, and even the yummiest vegan chocolate croissants! So many options!”
To learn more about STRONG GIRL Takeover then check out the website here.
You can also follow Lydia on social media for more inspiration and motivation:
