It’s always a pleasure to read about professional athletes who chose to go vegan. The number of those people is rising rapidly. However, very interestingly most of them seem to face the same challenging question in the beginning: “Is the vegan lifestyle going to cut down on my performance?” Fortunately, after adopting to the vegan lifestyle they realize that they don’t only live much more healthier but are even increasingly powerful. The same is true with one of the best Olympic volleyball player ever, April Ross, who is so excited about her vegan lifestyle saying that she is at her strongest since going vegan.
“The main concern for meat-eaters who are considering going vegan is that they’re going to feel weaker. But April Ross, an Olympic volleyball player who is mostly vegan, has never felt better.
She never thought she could go vegan because of how much physical activity she does. But then, during her last off-season, she started experimenting with a plant-based diet, and she found that she didn’t miss meat at all—and neither did her body.
“I’m at my strongest,” she told Beyond Meat, a brand that produces plant-based meat alternatives—including a burger that “bleeds” vegetable juice. (Full disclosure: Ross is an ambassador of the brand.)
She said she was nervous her diet might not be robust enough to fuel her intense training schedule of five or six days on the sand plus lifting, but Ross has found that she’s more powerful than ever before.
“I’m at my lowest weight I’ve maybe ever been while playing beach volleyball, and I’m at my strongest,” she explained. “So, my power-to-weight ratio is the highest it’s ever been.” This ratio is critical for high-endurance athletes like Ross, as it determines how efficiently they generate force.
“I have energy, and I can last all week, and I feel great,” she said.
Ross has also been staying away, for the most part, from dairy products. She starts her day with “tea and water with fresh lemon squeezed in it,” she told PopSugar. And she usually follows this with a breakfast of oatmeal mixed with almond milk, cinnamon, bananas, blueberries, and dates.
She snacks throughout the day on fruits, nuts, and Gatorade, and enjoys an acai or pitaya bowl for lunch.
For dinner, Ross and her husband get “creative” in the kitchen and are “always on the hunt for new vegan recipes.”
Well, rumor has it that the Rio Olympic Village cafeteria will be “bigger than two football fields,” so hopefully, there will be enough vegan fare for Ross to chow down on. And, with “40 varieties of Brazil’s exotic fruits like caju, acai, carambola, caqui, goiaba and maracuja, often squeezed into Brazil’s famously delicious juices,” it seems like there will be.”
Paul Mahony