 I'm John Venus, I'm a vegan athlete, I suppose I call myself, and I just focus on showing that you can build muscle and be healthy on a plant-based diet. How's your name in there? Jesse Simpson Ross, yeah, vegan, yeah, and yeah, bodybuilder man. How long have you been vegan for? A year and a half man. David. David, tell us about yourself. Recently I've done all my contest prep as a vegan. I didn't go vegan straight away, this is where the selfish element comes in. My concern with going vegan was, where am I going to get my protein? So everything clients have provides you with enough protein, like yeah you might need a bit of tofu here and there and you need tempeh, but there's so many products out there you can eat. And then it's just having enough carbohydrates to fuel your training. Yeah. It's pretty easy to tick those both off. I've said it a few times, like with the whole meat and dairy thing, you know I was tricked into believing that was the only way to get protein and also a lot of people believe that you know, overdosing your protein is necessary, but it's just not the case man. You can find everything from plants. I mean animals are getting it from plants as well because the animals we eat are herbivores. In hindsight it sounds sort of a little bit ridiculous to say, but that was my biggest concern was hey, what about my health? I've been told I need to get my protein, my calcium from animals. Well if you look at how big a cow gets for example and a lot of them are just grass fed men, so if they can get that big and that sort of amount of protein and that sort of muscle from grass alone, you've got a question you know, whether you really do have to eat an animal for protein man. Like saying that I can't go vegan because I'm a loose muscle is just foolish. I mean there's thousands of people out there who are vegan who have crazy performance and have crazy muscular feces anyway. I understand sort of why people think that because you're raised that way and you're told that's the only way to sort of get protein and things like that and you've got to drink your milk and you've got to eat your meat to get big and yeah I actually believed it for a long time myself. You don't need to eat meat to have good performance okay? In terms of absorption I actually noticed improved bits which is funny because I thought the opposite. You know I was skeptical at first but it turns out that it was you know I progressed even faster after switching to a plant based diet. My game in the gym improved man. Yeah I would say I was much stronger in the gym. I was training much better. I was looking better than ever. The only thing I did lose from going vegan was a bit of fat man. I feel like to live the best quality of life spiritually, physically, mentally to remove animal products you need to remove them from your diet. I struggled with digestive issues. I had a pretty severe case of constipation often so that was like removed instantly within two weeks. I was like feeling lighter and healthier. I also gained a lot of strength in the gym. And you've seen evidence of bodybuilders doing it without eating animals yeah? I have seen some yes. What about the guy behind the camera? The guy behind the camera. Yeah that's really impressive. He's one of the only few I've seen that is vegan and looks big. And I can say he looks a lot bigger in real life than a video. I can find you ten people who are training for ten years past. They'll say to you it's just that if you don't want to eat meat and train you're still going to make great results man. Just watch your diet. Just like anything else you know what I mean? All around improvements. Really? I can't really say that dropping the meat and dairy has done me or had any sort of negative impact man at all. It's only had positives man. That's the truth yeah. You're not sacrificing gains at all by switching to a plant based diet. It's exactly the same if not better. And I can honestly, I can honestly feel the difference in the gym. Body does not discriminate right? You've got to eat your macro goals. You've got to eat your protein, your carbohydrates and your fats. Now if we can get those from plant based sources that I've injected with sodium, hormones, cholesterol. Placens are bad for the body. You can get them in an ethical way that is sustainable. Then the answer is yes. It's a no brainer. About three years ago I watched this documentary called Earthlings with my girlfriend. And yeah prior to that was the biggest meteor ever. And you know eating barbecues twice a week. You know chicken hearts, rum steak with my favorite meal. So after watching that it's something just clicked and I just, I found it really hard to watch. Mentally I don't feel good consuming chicken. You know I used to consume a lot of chicken. Heaps of chicken. Like heaps of chicken. And I just don't like having that weight on my shoulders too much. For what? You know what I mean for what? A few years ago I was actually doing some work for a farmer. Now he has turkeys and chickens on different allotments. I still remember pulling up the roof and just seeing this shed just full of turkeys. Like I mean full. Like they could not move. And I was under the assumption that this was maybe a caged environment. But no it was actually certified free range. Seeing you know actual real footage of these animals. You know just like minutes before getting slaughtered just really connected with me. You could see their suffering and fear like just in their eyes. Just as you would with your own pets. And I own a dog as well so I just couldn't ignore this anymore. So yeah I just decided to change there and then like that's it for me. So I was going to say obviously animals have to go to slaughterhouses and they have to get killed so we can eat their bodies. Do you think it's unnecessary to do that to animals if we can look like this without eating animals? Oh look man, I don't even want to comment on that. Like I have seen slaughterhouse videos and it's fucked up what they do to me. It's not good. Training so much more than just being physically muscular. It's everything that comes along with it. Training has taught me how to live. It's taught me especially how to live compassionately with empathy and just how to navigate through life man. Do you know what I mean? And I feel like eating animal products takes away from that. There was turkeys with broken wings. You name the deformity, it was there, cannibalism, all that sort of stuff. If people sort of understood the cruelty behind the steak man and just saw what those animals go through so you can eat a steak. It's just like when people go vegan they start to live their life for a bigger purpose. Like their purpose reaches outside of themselves now and they start to see the world with different eyes. You start to see training with different eyes. And I said guys why would you stop the turkeys? And they said oh they're only worth a dollar twenty and it costs more in wages to go and collect the turkeys, the one that sort of get out and try to run away. So if the turkeys don't listen, they got stomped. I couldn't shake the feeling that I got from that experience. I think a lot of people think that it's manly to eat meat and you know I don't blame people. I mean I thought the same way myself and you know we all grow up with these action movies with you know Arnold Schwarzenegger eating lots of steak and beef and they almost feel like they're not a man if they're not eating steak and chicken and shit like that and I don't understand how supporting cruelty makes you a man. Yeah it's a complete opposite in my opinion man. That's just the bottom line and I feel like if you want to train long term and you want to live the most quality of life, the highest quality of life well then you need to be vegan and trained. Not only physically, has it been amazing for me but for me emotionally I guess. I just feel great. There is nothing manly about eating meat when you actually think about it when you see the issues that we face today when you see the cruelty that we're causing these animals there's nothing manly about pushing your power over someone else who is incapable of defending themselves. You know you get over it man. You know what I mean? You get over yourself. Well you should get over yourself and that's a big thing you know. And once you do get over yourself you have to start training for different reasons and being vegan to open the door for that man. It's a whole different way of thinking. You know just protect, like be the protect because we're the strong people so why are the strongest people on this planet trying to you know take advantage of innocent you know weaker beings. It doesn't make any sense. I'll tell you the question things man. Yeah honestly look into things a bit more. Stop looking at what everyone else is doing and follow them you know be your own man think for yourself. Even for me finding the information I felt like there's so much conflicting information it's almost like where do you start and who do you believe. My friend here on the camera he's in competition prep. He's done it all vegan. Is that surprising? Yeah it is surprising to me man because you actually look really good. I just challenge you to just be open minded just look at different examples out there. There are vegan bodybuilders out there with impressive physiques that almost no one else has and obviously they're doing something right. If we were to like give you some tips and like show you how you know I personally eat to you know make gains and stay super energetic and that kind of stuff would you consider trying again? I'd definitely listen to what you got to say obviously because you're doing something right that's for sure. Your mind goes from like this to like you know what I mean it's like full blown you're living the highest quality of life there is man. You know what I mean? You feel like you're in alignment you're truthfully doing that you know what I mean? I said I've got Australian titles coming up and I just drew a line in my head and I said look I'm gonna do this vegan no matter what and I've never felt better it was the best decision I made. Yeah plant based diet in my opinion you can truly build more muscle man it's cleaner muscle it's healthier muscle and you know it's doing no harm to anyone including yourself man it's as simple as that. I guess my actions are now reflecting my morals. It's just it's part of who we are it's part of who we are as humans we eat meat we're omnivores so I'm not gonna say let's not eat meat but then again like you can't be healthy without it. I ate meat for 23 years man but I stood back and questioned things then I went alright I've been wrong man and yeah it takes a man to admit when you're wrong and yeah be a man and look into things and question man simple as that yeah.