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FOUNDER OF VEGAN BODYBUILDING AND FITNESS SEES BRIGHT FUTURE
“A few years ago, I changed
my viewpoint on a number of popular and controversial topics, including protein
consumption, supplement use, and my overall views about the sport of
bodybuilding.”
Robert Cheeke is responsible
for creating one of the first plant-based fitness websites in history,
and has over 20 years’ experience as a vegan athlete. It’s pioneers like him that
have made it possible for bodybuilders, athletes, and gym rats like me to wake
up to a healthier path of fitness.
Robert and I agree almost
entirely on the topic of bodybuilding nutrition.
We both believe that
a supplement-free, whole-food, plant-based diet is optimal.
The only difference between in
our philosophies is that he advocates a low-protein diet across the board.
“Whereas, I think some
individuals may need more protein based on genetics, fitness goals, etc.”
That said, I try to stay open
and remain willing to learn more.
Hell, I used to think that
eating exuberant amounts of meat was the only path to packing on muscle
and now I own a website called VegetarianBodybuilding.com.
It’s nice knowing that a guy
like Robert is traveling the globe, spreading the good word about our
lifestyle, and bringing us together.
Our tribe is much stronger
because of him without question. I also share and respect his belief in
consistency and creating positive habits.
You will certainly have an
opportunity to learn a lot from him in this interview!
Q: What does your morning ritual look like (first 30-60 minutes)?
When I wake up, I cuddle with
my little Chihuahua, Benny, for a few minutes before using the bathroom and
brushing my teeth. I then check my email, Facebook, and Twitter from my phone
as I wake myself up. Once I’m up, I take Benny out for a walk and then make my
way to the kitchen for some fruit.
I usually grab a handful of bananas and a bottle of yerba mate or glass
of water, and fire up my laptop and start working for the day. My girlfriend,
Karen, makes a bowl of oatmeal with fruit and walnuts and checks for book and
clothing orders that came in during the night to prepare packages to be shipped
out.
I sign books if necessary and
then settle into social media work, promoting my Vegan Bodybuilding &
Fitness brand from my laptop in my home office. That covers my first hour upon
waking.
Q: What key
rituals/practices do you try to maintain at all costs, even while you
travel?
One of the rituals I am very
proud of is my daily commitment to completing more than 100 push-ups and
crunches per day. I have not missed a day performing at least 100 of each since
August 16, 2013. I average about 145 push-ups and 285 crunches completed per
day.
“Regardless of where I am,
what time zone or country, I do these exercises every single day. I believe in
consistency and creating positive habits, and this is my longest-running
current daily practice.”
Q: Who were/are your
mentors in life? Tell us about them and why.
When I look back at my mentors
over the years, the people who stand out are my high school psychology of
success teacher, Eric Dazey; my high school soccer coach, Jon Bullock;
America’s Greatest Running Legend, Steve Prefontaine; my older sister, Tanya;
and most recently, Dr. T. Colin Campbell.
Mr. Dazey helped me create
formulas for success, and his leadership transformed my academic performance
during an important time in my life, when I was a freshman in high school
struggling to adjust academically.
I just bumped into Mr. Dazey in
my hometown in July 2015, and it was one of the highlights of my summer.
“Coach Bullock taught me to
demand excellence and work hard to achieve meaningful goals. He challenged me
to become a leader on my team and in my community.”
I just saw him in a TEDx video
a couple of weeks ago, giving a motivational speech about creating a
compassionate world. I’m proud to call him a friend and mentor.
“Prefontaine showed me what
the human body is capable of when you give everything you have to your sport
and follow your passion fully.”
Steve “Pre” Prefontaine was the
athlete I looked up to above all others. He died before I was born, but his
legacy impacted me more than anyone else and shaped the way I would approach my
own athletic performance for the rest of my life – with reckless abandon and
disciplined hard work.
My older sister, Tanya,
introduced me to the vegan lifestyle back in 1995 and has been a
continual role model for me ever since. It was her leadership that changed
my life forever and influenced the paths I would take and dreams I would
pursue.
Lately, Dr. T. Colin Campbell
has been one of my greatest role models, impacting the way I look at food,
health, and the intellectual honesty that is part of a public discussion I now
have about the whole-food, plant-based lifestyle.
I am honored to be an annual
featured speaker on the Holistic Holiday at Sea Vegan-friendly Cruise with Dr.
Campbell and other leaders.
Q: What is something
you believe in that other people usually think is crazy/different (besides
vegan-related topics)?
One thing that is a little
different about me is that I still write handwritten thank you cards on a
regular basis.
When I offer online contests,
giveaways, and incentive prizes, I include a handwritten thank you card with
each package I ship out. I sent out more than 500 personal thank you cards in
2014.
I leave handwritten thank you
notes for the cleaning staff in motels and hotels, along with a cash tip, and I
even include thank you cards when I pay bills via check in the mail. I feel
like handwritten notes are a lost art these days, but it is something I enjoy
doing.
“Based on the feedback I’ve
received over the years, the thank you cards are greatly appreciated by the
recipients, and it brings a smile to their face and joy to their day. That’s
ultimately why I do it.”
Q: What have you
changed your mind about in the past 10 years?
A few years ago, I changed my
viewpoint on a number of popular and controversial topics, including protein
consumption, supplement use, and my overall views about
the sport of bodybuilding.
For many years, I was an
advocate and promoter of a high-protein diet. I believed it was necessary for muscle growth and synonymous with the sport
of bodybuilding.
In 2012, I took Dr. T. Colin
Campbell’s Plant-Based Nutrition Certification Course through Cornell
University, and based on what I learned, I adopted a relatively low-protein
diet. As a result of that course, I also decided to give up use of all
supplements aside from vitamin B12.
My views of the mainstream
sport of bodybuilding had been waning for years, and the obsession with
animal-based supplements among the mainstream bodybuilding community was
another turnoff.
As a result, I became a lesser
fan of the sport of bodybuilding than I had been for years.
“I appreciate the art of
weight training and building one’s physique and all the hard work that goes
into it, but supporting mainstream competitive bodybuilding is becoming more
challenging for me since I disagree with the animal-based diet and supplements
that are so prevalent in the sport.”
I am now into my fourth year on
a low-protein, supplement-free, whole-food, plant-based diet, focusing on promoting vegan bodybuilding within a mainstream
bodybuilding culture.
“I’m in my 20th year as a vegan athlete, and I am as strong now as I ever was
when I was using supplements and consuming copious amounts of protein.”
Today, I follow a 70/15/15 approach,
consuming approximately 70 percent of my calories from whole-food carbohydrates
and 15 percent of each proteins and fats. I prefer to promote the general
fitness lifestyle over competitive bodybuilding, as fitness appeals to far more individuals.
I have also become an expert on
fat loss and muscle growth with a high-carbohydrate, low-protein, whole-food, plant-based diet from my years of
experience following this approach and writing about it extensively in my
latest book, “Shred It!”
Q: What would your
friends/colleagues say you’re really good at?
My friends and colleagues would
probably say that I am good at leading by example:
- I created
www.veganbodybuilding.com back in 2003
- Produced a vegan
athlete documentary in 2005
- Wrote a bestselling
book about vegan bodybuilding in 2010
- Released another
bestselling book about the whole-food, plant-based athlete lifestyle in 2014
- I run the largest
vegan athlete social media pages on the Internet
As a result of those efforts, I
believe many friends would say I lead by example from putting in the work to
create projects I believe in.
Q: What would your
naysayers say you’re bad at?
I believe naysayers would say
I’m bad at building muscle as a vegan by comparing me
to mainstream steroid-using bodybuilders. They might also say that I am bad at
running my website and that I’m not very good at responding to emails.
I have 700 unread emails in my
main email account, and I run an out-of-date-looking website, so I would agree
with the criticism, and I actively work hard to improve in many areas that I
currently struggle to thrive in.
Q: What would you tell
your 18-year-old self?
If I could go back in time, I
would tell my 18-year-old self to spend more time in school. Though I have
become successful in many areas, both personally and professionally, I never
went to a traditional college or university, and I don’t have a degree in
anything.
I relied on hard work to get
where I am today, but I think I would have enjoyed college, learning and
becoming smarter, as well as developing life-long friendships during those
post-high school years in my late teens and early twenties.
Q: What are your three
favorite books?
My three favorite books are:
1. “How to Win Friends and
Influence People” by Dale Carnegie
2. “The Thank You Economy” by Gary Vaynerchuk
3. “Made to Stick” by Dan and Chip Heath
Q: What was the hardest
part of writing your book? Tell us about the events that led to the
decision to write it.
The hardest part about writing
“Shred It!” was creating a 300-page book following my 300-page “Vegan
Bodybuilding & Fitness” book released in 2010.
Coming up with new material
covering a similar topic is always a challenge.
Fortunately for me, I have had
a dramatic change in my views about protein consumption, supplement use,
training, and other related topics, so I was able to write about a lot of
completely fresh and innovative ideas.
Following my completion of Dr.
Campbell’s Plant-Based Nutrition Certification Course, I was determined to
write a plant-based fitness book. One that
contained the fundamental principles of eating real, healthy whole plant foods
combined with enjoyable exercise.
Perhaps the aspect that I am
most proud involving my latest book is the endorsements I received from many of
my biggest role models, including Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Dr. Caldwell B.
Esselstyn, Jr., and the producer of “Forks Over Knives,” Brian Wendel.
It took nearly two years to
write “Shred It!” when factoring in my initial drafts, hiring and working with
an award-winning professional editor for six months, doing the photo shoots and
book layout, and recruiting 28 world-renowned experts to peer review and
endorse the book.
I am very proud that “Shred
It!” is one of the bestselling vegan books of 2015 and has inspired thousands
of people to achieve their health and fitness goals.
Q: What are the three
biggest changes in fitness you’ve observed over the past decade?
Over the past decade, the
biggest changes I’ve seen in the fitness industry are the trends that
include CrossFit, the use of kettlebells, and the growing popularity of
calisthenics and Parkour, or bodyweight training.
Programs such as P90X and other
DVD training programs seem to be at an all-time high, as well. In general, I
view these changes to be a good thing, because there are now more options
available to the mainstream public, which appeal to mass audiences.
This, in turn, gets more people
to become active, and should result in improved levels of health for this and
the next generation if the fitness lifestyle is supported by healthy eating
practices.
I believe changes and trends in
fitness come and go, but as long as people are active and enjoying themselves
doing physical activities, I think we’re on the right path.
Q: How did you become
the founder/president of Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness?
When I became vegan, I was a 15-year old, 120-pound
sophomore in high school in 1995.
I was a five-sport athlete,
finding most of my success in endurance sports such as cross-country, soccer,
and track and field.
As a skinny teenage athlete, I
wanted to be bigger and stronger.
It wasn’t until 1999 that I
decided to start lifting weights. I wasn’t even familiar with the sport of
bodybuilding, but I knew I wanted to build muscle.
The following year, I
discovered there was an actual competitive sport of bodybuilding and embraced
it, adding 30 pounds in one year, peaking at 185 pounds in 2001.
In 2002, at age 22, I founded
Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness, a brand designed to share my vegan bodybuilding lifestyle with others.
My website,
www.veganbodybuilding.com, went online in early 2003. By that year, I weighed
195 pounds and had been featured in FLEX Magazine three times.
The vegan bodybuilding lifestyle was put on the
map in a major way when I started competing and winning bodybuilding
competitions in the mid-2000s.
I shared those experiences in
newspapers, on TV, on the radio, in books, and all over the Internet.
“My vision behind creating
Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness was to lead by example to show that you can
successfully build muscle on a vegan diet and achieve fitness goals without
having to compromise ethics to excel in athletics. Ultimately, I wanted my
actions to inspire others to lead to a more compassionate world.”
I went from weighing 120 pounds
when I became vegan
to weighing 195 pounds eight years later, and felt like I had a compelling
story to share.
That story is still relevant
today, as I am a keynote speaker sharing my transformation from skinny farm kid
to champion vegan bodybuilder to audiences around the
world.
Q: Next big plans for
the site and you personally?
One of the exciting things that
is part of my role in the vegan fitness industry is that I really
never know what is next. I work hard to create opportunities by writing books,
setting up speaking tours, and completing other projects, but there is also a
lot of spontaneity and unique opportunities that arise on a regular basis.
For example, I take off to
Australia for a three-week tour in October 2015, and I’m still piecing things
together. I also plan to take a trip to Thailand in the New Year and possibly
relocate to Venice Beach for a couple of months in early 2016, but these are
just possibilities in the broad scope of life to be determined as time goes on.
Professionally, I plan to write
more books in the near future, and I will continue to tour and speak to
audiences around the world. Personally, I plan to do a lot of traveling to
exotic places to explore the planet while sharing the compassionate vegan lifestyle with people all over the
globe.
As for Vegan Bodybuilding &
Fitness, we’ll be improving our website, growing our social media communities,
releasing some companion books to “Shred It!,” producing more vegan fitness clothing, and writing more
content for many publications.
Q: What does the future
of plant-based fitness look like in the next five to 10 years?
The future for plant-based fitness is a bright one.
I was a plant-based athlete before the Internet
came of age, and a whole lot has changed over the past couple of decades. The
awareness of the vegan lifestyle is at an all-time high and
growing rapidly, as is the acceptance of vegans in the athletic industry.
“There are more successful
vegan athletes from all walks of life than we have ever seen, and this will
only continue to perpetuate throughout all sports for years to come.”
I predict that there will be
big stars in all major men’s and women’s sports who publicly adopt and promote
a plant-based lifestyle within the next
decade. This will truly be exciting to watch.
My latest book, “Shred It!,”
can be found on www.veganbodybuilding.com.
Wishing you all the very best.
Follow your passion and make it happen!
To get more ideas about vegan bodybuilding and fitness, watch this
video - FULL GUIDE TO VEGAN BODYBUILDING
Author
Bio:
Chris
Willitts (creator of V3), is the founder and owner of Vegetarian Bodybuilding.
V3 Vegetarian Bodybuilding System is a
mixture of science and author’s advice, providing users with
optimal diet and exercise. This system is designed for vegans and vegetarians
only.
A
lot of research has been put in this program. Furthermore, a lot of
professional bodybuilders and athletes tried and tested the program, praising
its progressiveness and efficiency.
The
program is about taking control of your own body and health according to your
potential and needs. And worry not; you’ll get plenty of proteins with this
system. It will boost you with energy, and you’ll feel just a strong as any
carnivore would (perhaps even stronger, depending on how much you invest in
your exercise). It avoids vitamins deficiency and provides you with a lot of
proteins, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
Instead
of saying things like “I think a plant-based diet is good for athletes and
bodybuilders,” the V3 Vegetarian Bodybuilding System claims “I know a
plant-based diet is good for athletes and bodybuilders, and I have results to
prove it.”
To
find out more, visit the website at V3 Bodybuilding – Vegan Bodybuilding and Fitness
