An Interview with Vegan Athlete Robert Cheeke!
When and why did you become vegan? I grew up on a farm and developed an appreciation for farm animals similar to the respect and appreciation someone might have for a dog or a cat. Given this perspective and my closeness to animals – raising them as pets – through my involvement in 4‐H, it seemed fitting to stop eating my animal friends. In the mid 90’s, as a teenager, I no longer wanted to contribute to animal cruelty and suffering and decided to go vegan. I have been vegan since December 8, 1995 (when I was 15 years old and 120 pounds – By 2003, I was up to 195 pounds and a competitive bodybuilder running www.veganbodybuilding.com). Was that before or after your interest in bodybuilding and what spurred that interest on? Growing up as a skinny kid, bodybuilding was always intriguing and something I was interested in from a young age. I didn’t pursue bodybuilding, or even weight training for that matter, until about five years after I became vegan. I quickly gained muscle and traded my running shoes for weight lifting gloves and became a competitive, 2‐time champion bodybuilder. What do you do for a living and what is your favorite part of that? In 2005 I joined Vega, a product line created by fellow vegan athlete Brendan Brazier and today,
Pizza!
continue to work for them. I work in sales for this innovative plant‐based nutrition company from Canada, focusing on outreach at vegetarian and vegan festivals around North America. Additionally, I run www.veganbodybuilding.com full‐time and am actively pursuing a writing career. Having published a best‐seller a few years ago called “Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness” I am currently editing my second book. My new project is a personal development book about finding your passion and making it happen. The best part of my work is that I am doing what I am passionate about, and the amazing travels and places it takes me to. In what ways does being vegan affect your ability to build muscle, maintain tone, and recover from workouts? From my experience as a vegan athlete the past seventeen years, coupled with my education from Cornell’s plant‐based nutrition certification program, I can say with a great deal of confidence that as opposed to a regular, meat‐centered western diet, a plant‐based whole food diet is optimal for providing energy, building healthy muscle and quickly recovering from exercise. This is because plant‐based whole foods are the original – and healthiest – sources of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, protein, fatty acids and other nutritional components necessary for optimal health. Getting nutrition from plants leads to
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