Informative, inspirational, and easy to digest. However, I did find much of the content to be either repetitive or fluff.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. The format was interesting and I enjoyed the advice from plant based athletes included and the fact that they include many recipes from them as well. While some of the recipes look a bit time consuming, most sounded quite yummy!

The biggest issue I had with the book is that the authors are not doctors, by any means, but they do dole out medical advice and recommend a completely vegan diet for improving or reversing certain medical conditions. The problem is that they are wrong. I am insulin resistant due to genetics and many pregnancies that have hit me with lots of crazy hormones and increased my odds even more. I have tried eating as they suggest and it increased my blood sugars to dangerous levels, increased LDL and cholesterol, messed up my thyroid, stopped absorbing vitamins (even with proper supplements), and gained weight. I was eating vegan with healthy grains, legumes, seeds, nuts, fruits, and tons of veggies (mainly green). It did not work for me. However, I found that by making sure I included small amounts of meat, plus fish and eggs, the issues went away. I also had to make sure grains were a very small portion and not go crazy on the legumes either. Many people will produce more cholesterol if they are not eating any and my body seemed to do just that. My HDL increased and LDL increased by adding some animal products back in. My point? Every body is different and certain people do better with certain foods and macro adjustments than others. To say otherwise shows a lack of knowledge in both nutrition sciences and biology. Some people function great on a vegan diet and some people do not. I personally know many who also had to add meat back in after a vegan diet made them sick. And again, this is a whole foods "healthy" vegan, not filled with processed junk food. The authors make it sound as if every person will function better on a vegan diet, but unfortunately, that just isn't the case. I am very much in favor of experimenting and finding what works for you, but the tone almost came across as shaming to those who don't adhere to vegan, when it isn't healthy for everyone, so that was grating. I am an advocate for a whole foods diet that is mainly plant based, so beyond that, I did enjoy the recommendations. It was fun to see that some of the elite athletes ate some similar shakes and meals to what I have created and utilized in my personal diet as well. I am not an elite athlete, but I do stay very active and fueling my body with food that helps it is very important to me. I found the section that included various athletes daily schedules as well as usual meal plans intriguing and it was great to hear how they have improved their health and quality of life through dietary changes.

An excellent, detail-oriented read, fixing the basics of the dirt and application to athletes. I learned a lot, and this read has helped me re-frame how I look at meal balance, proper protein amount and choices, and other ways to incorporate plant-based choices for a healthy lifestyle.

Read this!

The Plant-Based Athlete is a great book for those who are looking to move into the world of Plant-Forward eating. It's got great nutritional information for athletes who are thinking about making the switch.

See my full video review here: https://youtu.be/lWUra0xx0eY
See my text based review here: https://www.matthewschaefer.xyz/post/plant-based-athlete

This book starts off by listing many different athletes that have achieved success while eating a plant-based diet. Literally dozens of different athletes are mentioned, and their accomplishments are attributed to their dietary choices. About the first 25 pages of the book are spent describing these examples.

The second chapter begins with very basic nutritional concepts, like macro-nutrients, vitamins and calorie density. These basics should already be common knowledge for any athlete or anyone into fitness at all, but it could be beneficial to anyone that has never done any research into nutrition or fitness. Again, there are many different mini-testimonials included, and stories of various athletes that changed to a plant-based diet with positive results.

The chapter on protein was somewhat disappointing. First the authors suggest that meat industry propaganda is responsible for athletes believing that protein is super important. Then the authors quote the often cited USDA recommendations of .8g of protein per kilogram of body weight for adults engaged in moderate physical activity, which is pretty commonly accepted. The authors then contend that this equates to 56g of protein for men. There must be some plant-based protein website that provides these misleading figures, because I just reviewed another book yesterday that used the very same 56g number for men. This would be for a 155 lb moderately active man, when the average weight of an American male is somewhere around 195lbs, depending on the source. It seems like a pretty big coincidence that two different recently published books quote the same rather misleading number for protein requirements, instead of just using the average weight of a normal person. In this book, it is even more egregious, because the book is supposed to be focused on athletes, and the authors even acknowledge that athletes will require higher levels of protein in the 1.2 – 2.0g/kg/day range. For a male athlete that weighs the average American male weight of 195lbs, that would be 106.2g – 177g of protein daily. This is more difficult to achieve, but of course not impossible. It takes dedication and planning, and continuously quoting misleading examples is not going to make that easier for anyone.

The next few chapters discuss fat, carbohydrates, supplements, rest and recovery. Finally, starting at page 263 there is a recipe list. The recipes are divided into Breakfast, Lunch Dinner, Desserts and Condiments; with about 53 recipes in all.

Overall, I had mixed feelings about this book. I like the inclusion of all the recipes, and those recipes that I have tried so far have been great. I was somewhat disappointed in the actual science, as I had expected more rigorous technical advice, and perhaps evidence in the form of several specific scientific studies clearly demonstrating superior athletic performance in trained athletes on a plant based diet. Instead, the book is almost half testimonials, or examples of athletes that eat mostly plants. At least this can be motivating, but other than that it was not particularly helpful for me.

If you have seen the documentary The Game Changers (and if you haven't - you must) but wonder how to adopt a plant-based lifestyle into your training regimen - this is the book for you! The best thing about it is that it isn't one way of eating for muscle building, or one way of eating for endurance athletes - it is just one way of eating. Cheeke brings his decades long work in bodybuilding while Fraizer has his expertise in endurance sports to outline a program for both. It isn't based on fads and both men do not overpromise on results - they have looked at the evidence-based science, and have interviewed the experts, to create this book. I've been plant-based for 6 years and at 55, still kill my workouts in the gym. I've never felt better. This book also collects the stories of many, many plant-based champions to inspire the reader. People try to say plant-based eating is too restrictive. This "day in the life" stories of all kinds of athletes show that there are countless choices for all meals. You actually get the courage from this book's content to try new foods and new flavor combination - all while helping your body, the animals, and the environment. The authors aren't selling supplements you need to take or buying exclusive, expensive foods. With the staples of "peasant food" (rice, beans, etc), you can start on this pathway to better health and performance EVERYWHERE in your life.

If you watched The Game Changers and want to improve your nutrition while not sacrificing athletic performance, this is a great first stop for you. It is packed with information and includes a wealth of classic WFPB recipes (like Rip's Big Bowl - my husband's go-to breakfast for years!) and a lot of recipes that athletes have created and use themselves. This is good, actionable information for elite athletes but also for anyone who wants a different approach to changing to a whole food, plant-based diet for health, longevity, and performance.

The Plant-Based Athlete is a well written examination of high end performance training in athletics with a particular eye toward the impact nutrition has on physiology and exertion. Due out 15th June 2021 from HarperCollins, it's 336 pages and will be available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. It makes it so easy to find info with the search function.

This is a layman accessible, enthusiastically written, and evidence based monograph on the benefits and physiological practicality of a plant based diet for athletic training and performance. The authors, Robert Cheeke and Matt Frazier are experienced athletes and motivational speakers themselves who've made successful careers while following a plant-based diet and lifestyle.

The introductory chapters include a comprehensive list of former and current athletes who have followed no-meat lifestyles while training and performing at the highest levels of their respective sports. There is a necessary amount of technical information included in the chapters dealing with the physiology of nutrients and micronutrients; what our bodies use them for and the foods in which they're abundant. Calorie density of different food types is an important concept as well, and they do a good job of explaining why and how food types vary immensely in caloric content by weight and how to make informed choices to ingest what our bodies need without over or under eating.

They devote chapters to specific classes of macro-nutrients: proteins, carbohydrates, and fats as well as an interesting side-discussion of supplements and how/why/if to supplement. There are some general training and diet tips from several successful athletes as well as general encouragement and motivation.

The included recipes are arranged by meal: breakfast, lunch, dinner, desserts, and partial recipes/condiments/staples. Each recipe includes an introduction and contributor credits, ingredients arranged bullet style in a sidebar (measurements are in US standard only, no metric equivalents), followed by step-by-step preparation instructions. There are no serving suggestions or prep photos included in the book. Nutritional info per serving includes calories, protein, carbs, fat, and fiber. Recipe ingredients can be easily sourced at any well-stocked grocery store; nothing esoteric or difficult to find. The included recipes are -not- fancy - many are bowls or smoothies designed to fuel up the body and facilitate training and performance.

The book is very well annotated throughout and the chapter notes will provide readers with ample further reading.

Four stars. An enthusiastically and motivationally written book with very general recipes. The training content of the book is very general since it's not specifically aimed at any single sport. Readers will likely need more specific training advice as well as a broader selection of recipes (there are roughly 60 different recipes included, but many of them are quite similar). What the book does, and does well, is make a compelling argument for plant based nutrition being beneficial for health and performance.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

This book had a lot of repetitive information. As a vegetarian athlete who listens to the No Meat Athlete podcast often, there wasn’t much new here for me. I found the format to be similar to other books on the subject and it felt like review. I am sure the book will be helpful to those athletes intersted in the plant based diet, but not sure those already living that lifestyle will find it useful.

So first off, despite my critiques, I'm probably going to buy this book for the recipes in the back (so many faux cheeses!). I do think, however, that is has some issues.

I've been vegan for over ten years and an athlete for about the last five. I requested this book because trying to figure out macros makes my eyes cross and gives me a headache. The authors do a really good job of explaining them, and suggesting sample meal plans for a day based on your specific athletic goals. With that and the recipes, I like this book.

It seems to me, however, that the authors weren't entirely sure of their audience, and were trying to appeal to everyone at once. I don't need to be sold on a vegan diet (like athletes who are not plant-based), or receive encouragement to start working out (like vegans who may be worried about maintaining a fitness regimen without meat). As such, most of this book was really boring for me. The several stories in each chapter about award winning vegan athletes are surely inspiring to someone, but I know it's possible to succeed when just eating plants; I don't need to hear about all these people (again). I also hate books that list just series of quotes from different people at the end of the chapter. I'm hoping in the final version that the quotes will be inserted throughout the book instead of all grouped at the end. Again, there was good stuff in those quotes for sure, but I don't need them. I'm not entirely sure who those are for.

I used to teach English composition, and a thing I would work with my students on was confidence. If you end a paragraph with a quote instead of your own words, it undermines your argument. That's how the end of all these chapters felt to me. All the stories at the beginning of the chapters also bothered me. If you spend probably half a book showing example after example that you can be a world class athlete on a vegan diet, what that says to me is that the authors aren't confident enough in themselves to think that that readers would believe them without all this other data. I know people don't believe in a vegan diet, but surely there didn't need to be that many.

I thought making chapter ten the goals chapter, instead of chapter two, was weird. When I was starting out as an athlete, I needed goals before I needed to know about macros. I guess this book is more for athletes who aren't vegan yet, so the authors wanted to prove that macros can work. If it was meant more for vegans who want to start working out, goals should be first and foremost.

Again, even with the issues I had with this book, it does have something for everyone. Just skip the bits that aren't relevant to you, and be sure to try some of the recipes. You also might be interested in reading [book:Eat Plants, Lift Iron|25602614]Eat Plants, Lift Iron, which I enjoyed much more.

I was provided an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This book was so interesting! If you have ever been curious about cutting out meat and how that will affect your workouts give this book a read.Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!

This is a good introductory book to the benefits of a whole food, plant based diet, specifically targeting athletes. It was relatable and well organized, reminding me of the documentary, The Gamechangers

It's a book you can grab off the shelf and put into the hands of anytime who thinks you'll waste away eating plants. I love how many famous and hard working athletes are featured, either in anecdote or with a quote.

The research is sound. Give it a look.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This book lit a fire for me - I’m convinced I need a WFPB diet. I grew up with meat at the center of most meals and have always struggled with trying to move away from that. This book contains key information, testimonials from athletes, and more. A must read if you wish you could change your diet and think it’s impossible. This book will break it down and show you exactly what to do.

I’m not an athlete, but looking for a healthier alternative in my eating, and this book was wonderful. Yes, they speak of the health benefits of going plant-based, and give so many examples of different athletes, but my favorite portion of the book is that it offers ideas, even sharing food plans of many different athletes. Athletes lead very busy lives, so it’s sometimes difficult in my own office-based life to try to add healthy eating to an already hectic life, but this book is great at helping you to do so. Tips and ideas on meal plans, with recipes and guidelines. Also detailed information on athletes who are plant-based, what they’ve experienced, stories on their transition to plant-based, and their own routines. Any athlete interesting in being their personal best should read this book, as it also offers many other tips and techniques. But in reality, anyone interested in going plant-based and being their personal best in anything they do would benefit from this book. Highly recommended.

The Plant Based Diet is an interesting read about the pros of going vegan. It’s a mix of “how to” with a lot of “why”. I’ll admit that at first I was intrigued by reading a lot of the short readings about famous people going vegan, but after awhile o found myself skipping through as it somewhere started to feel more like name dropping than deep content. I would’ve liked a more personal look at stories about actual transition to a plant based diet, and the struggles people faced and how they overcame. I’m not a pro athlete with endless resources or a nutritionist, so while that’s great to know as an example of how the diet can compliment an athlete’s life, it doesn’t feel to translate to “how would I (an everyday athlete, mom, with a full time job) go about doing this. Maybe that’s not the purpose of this book, but that’s what I found myself wanting.

For now, I will continue to be Plant focused with my diet, and include some plant based meals through the week with my family. However, I’m not ready for the full transition to take dairy out of my diet. Cheese!!!!
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Thank you NetGalley, HarperCollins Publishers, Robert Cheeke, Matthew Frazier, and Rachel Holtzman for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is one of the best books about eating plants that I have read. Great details and great stories about athletes who follow this way of eating.