Smokeythebandit wrote:
5 years ago it was gluten free. Now it's vegan. Plenty of amazing vegan and non-vegan athletes.
My two cents is this: you're obviously are doing great on a vegan diet and your friend is doing great eating meat. But you're both actually on the same 'team' and that's wanting to get faster. So you've got more in common than you think.
I feel I do need to push back on the whole 'veganism is just a fad' idea.
People went gluten free entirely for their own health reasons, nothing more. The majority of vegans I know (which is a lot) switched either for animal welfare ethics or because of a wish to reduce their carbon footprint. Those reasons will always be there and so the idea that veganism is a fad is, in my opinion, misplaced.
I do agree that the people who switch diets purely seeking performance gains are unlikely to stick to veganism as it is a tough diet to maintain, especially if you travel a lot (airports are mostly vegan wastelands).
From a personal perspective, I switched 3 years ago (aged 49) and have been getting faster each year - for me that is just a bonus for adopting a diet that feels right for me from an ethical perspective.