Rashad Evans Credits Athletic Gains to Vegan Diet

Dude you've won the Ultimate Fighter as a heavyweight which is so crazy. I know because if you look at me now I'm like I'm not the only 70 fighter. What are you waiting now? What are you walking around at? I'm consisting like 200. 200 pounds. 200 pounds. Wow. Yeah that is like a 170 now in this day and age. 200 pounds. But I feel good though man. I feel really really good and it's a level that I didn't expect to feel this way. I didn't think that a diet can make me feel this good. What particularly makes you feel so good in what way? My energy. I have an energy level that it's really hard to say. It kind of feels a bit supernatural in a bit you know. I feel energy. I feel like my body's energy. It's kind of hard to say. It's kind of hard to describe without looking crazy. Well you're obviously by following this vegan diet. I'm seeing all these supplements you're taking spirulina and all these different things. You're obviously doing it right. Which is you know there's a lot of people that they're vegan but they're eating like pasta and pizza and shit like that. They're just not doing it correctly in terms of taking the proper amount of nutrients. Right. And that's the thing about it. I read this book The Mucous List Diet and it's by Dr. Arnold Errett and this is like in the early 1900s. He came up with this book and he had some stomach issues. It was not until he was fed up and was on like you know what I'm like he was starving himself and then he realized he had some really you know it kind of changes his stomach situation. So then he started looking into diet and nutrition and then he became a fruitarian. And this book is talking about pretty much you know the role of food in your body and what it does and what causes mucus and what doesn't cause mucus. And you know through understanding The Mucous List Diet and just reading it it just gave me a different hold on understanding like a different understanding of why I'm doing this. You know and it became to me deeper than just like oh I can't have this because you know the diet says I shouldn't have it. It says I can't have it because you know this is going to cause inflammation. You know I know the deeper reason of why. So it's easier for me to avoid the pitfalls of bad food you know. There's also a situation with people where there's everyone there's biological variability where some people some diets just sync up well for them. Like I know I know a lot of people that they don't feel good when they eat red meat. When they eat fish they feel great. When they eat light foods you know their body whatever for whatever it is their digestion favors certain type of diet. Yeah and that's what I found too because I don't know if this will work for everybody it probably won't work for everybody. I mean it most likely won't work for everybody but for me it was it was something that my body just was like oh it's about time you started to treat us the right way you know. Interesting. The part about it is the fact that now I train less but I can train harder. Like now I can do sparring sessions where like I spar for like an hour straight. Really? Yeah and I'm sparring at a pretty good pace. Like I'm not like it's it's smart sparring like we're not like bashing each other in the head and shit like that. We just we're being smart about it you know we're doing you know a little bit lighter to the head but more more heavy shots to the body you know making those ones count and just kind of like touch you know giving a nice shot to the head but not like I'm gonna knock you out of the shot to the head. What type of foods are you eating like how are you what is it like give me a typical meal for you? Typically speaking it all depends on the time of the day but but I don't eat no more in the fast up until noon or until like one o'clock and then my first meal. You on like a 16 hour 14 hour like intermittent fast? Like 16 intermittent fast and then once I eat I usually eat like like I'll come home and I eat you know maybe like a hearty shake that I make a fruit and then I'll put some you know some mushrooms and stuff in it and just like you know the quarter saps the the lion's mane and you know from this brand Life Cycle. Sure you heard Life Cycle? Okay so that brand right there makes us you know really good tincture that you just drop it in there and you don't got to worry about changing the flavor of too much of your shake so I drop that in there with my shakes and stuff like that and I usually take that that would be my first meal then the second one would be a little bit more hearty it would be something with vegetables and maybe some potatoes or something so it's a little bit more hearty and then I'll have another hearty meal like a vegetable type meal vegetable based meal at nighttime and then then I'll usually be done for the day. Are you using any protein powders, pea protein, hemp protein anything along those lines? No I don't I don't use any. Just vegetables raw vegetables? Yeah just raw vegetables raw vegetables. Interesting. Yeah and and I don't and I don't really feel like I like I have it like I have a need for like I feel like my muscle mass is pretty good like I don't feel like I'm too skinny or like I don't I'm not gaining any muscle I feel like I can gain muscle and you know it's just been working for me. So basically just eat to feel good like however it makes you feel good. Yeah I right. And you've got it down now you know like what kind of foods it's the supplement thing gets strange with vegans you know there's a lot of folks that they're mixing a lot of different dietary yeasts and a lot of different powders and different things and blending these different things and it's some people don't like the way that feels when you're eating like that but it sounds like what you're eating is much more whole food based. Yeah mine is just whole food based like a lot of the foods that I became actually a good cook now because of the fact that I had to learn to cook my own food. My wife she was busy becoming you know busy on her own doing her own thing so she wasn't able to cook for me like she was before but then I learned myself and through learning myself it just completely just like took the shackles off of me you know what I'm saying. Right took her own nice meals. Yeah so now I cook a lot of like West Indians type of foods because they have a really good vegetarian menu like a lot of chickpeas and things of that nature. There's a really good vegetarian Indian place around here that I go to sometimes. I love Indian food. Yeah it's really good. I haven't gone a month because I've been on this carnivore diet but this place was fantastic. Really interesting, weird you know vegetable dishes. Everything's vegetarian you know it's I guess it's with them it's a religious thing. A lot of a lot of Indians are vegetarian. Yeah vegetarian and that and I like a lot of Indian food just because of that you know and that whole food diet it just it just works for me but like like you said like these supplements like this this makes me like I feel like when I drink this like spirulina and just a lot of greens and even even like the mushrooms you know the quarter step mushrooms and stuff like that like I just have energy to just go and go and go. That life cycle tincture somebody gave me some of that. Yeah yes I gotta have them send you some. I gotta have them send you some. They send like they have like a really nice tincture set that he sent out. I should have bring it but it has like like it has Reishi it has Turkey's tail, Lion's mane, the quarter steps and it even gives you you know a schedule on when you should take it and when it's best for but it's a it's a really really good good mushrooms because you know they they put they infuse theirs with this it's it's it's Kakadu plum. It's a Kakadu plum. You ever hear that? No it's funny name. Yeah I know it's Kakadu plum is from Australia and it's it's like one of the most high high in vitamin C fruits there there is like it's way higher in vitamin C than oranges and everything else like that and they infuse. Kakadu plum. Yeah Kakadu plum. Okay. Yeah K-A-K-A-D-U plum. That sounds like something that a little kid right now. That's a Kakadu plant. Yeah. What? But that's I mean they it's a really really good supplement and I don't really like to recommend supplements too much but that's one that I I take and I'm like man I feel way better off. Do you eat a lot of beets? I do I do eat I do eat beets are really good. Beets are supposed to be really good for endurance. Yeah beets are really good but it's crazy like just eating greens like I've been eating greens I just don't I feel like I don't get tired like I used to like my body's just instantly recovering. What was your old diet like what would you what was it like when you're training for a fight would typical meals be like? It was pretty clean but it was I would eat a lot of meat I would eat a lot of meat and and I'm O positive so I eat like a lot of red meat and I felt really good when I ate red meat like it felt as if like when I eat red meat it almost felt like I can feel it like within like the next 20 30 minute like it my body breaks it down really fast you know. Yeah. So I felt I felt good eating it but I didn't feel like I had the like the endurance like I didn't feel the endurance aspect like I do right now you know. I see what you're saying. So that that's been like the best that I ever felt was when I fought tea to our teas I was eating I was eating red meat but I also was coupling that up with a lot of spinach I was eating a lot of spinach like I would go and get a. Fucking Popeye. Yeah get a big bag of spinach yeah that's exactly what I was doing I get a big bag of spinach and I'll just put it in a blender and just grind it up and then throw like some apples in it to make it a little bit sweeter to change the taste so it wouldn't be so so greenish like a green grass and then I would just drink those all the time but it just made me feel so strong. Interesting interesting now did you used to work with the nutritionist at all? I did yeah I did I work with because when you were cut in weight like how many fights did you have at 85? Two. Two fights at 85. Was that too much of a struggle? Yeah it was too much of a struggle like I'm in a weird position because I'm not I'm not a very big person I'm not big enough to be a light heavy weight but I'm not small enough to be a middleweight either like and feel like I can you know like so I was like in that weird weird space so when I cut down to 185 I felt like it felt drained drained I just didn't have the the movement in the pop you know but then at 205 I kind of felt undersized you know. Back then what did you walk around that? Back then I was walking around around like 225 230. And what was different because it was from eating the meat? Yeah from eating the meat from eating the meat I would get. That alone has got to probably increase your endurance just the loss of that much body mass yeah 20 plus pounds that your body doesn't have to pump blood through. Yeah you're absolutely right about that you know. Yeah so that just came off naturally when you stopped eating meat. Yeah and another thing too like I would um you know. This is another reason why like because when I wasn't fighting that was the problem because I would get into these bad eating habits because I would always know that when I had training camp I can just cut the weight and just lose it like that. But after a while that just becomes your habit anything you do over time that becomes your habit it becomes your lifestyle and I was eating a lot of sugar drinking a lot of booze and shit like that so I was like man I need to make a change for my life for the rest of my life you know. And that's why this whole lifestyle fit so much better in me you know. Do you think that would have changed your career had you eaten this way back when you were competing? I think so I think it would have but at the same time I don't know in which way you know what I'm saying I feel like. You made it a bit too chill. Yeah yeah I feel like. Does it feel so calm now? Yeah I feel like I was I was what I needed to be at the time I needed to be it you know. I see. 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