Vegan Bodybuilder, Activist and Health Food Entrepreneur (Interview).

and the minute I understood is that if
something has eyes it has a brain if it has a brain it has a nervous system a nervous system it feels pain and if they feel pain it does not want to die and honestly I believe food isn't one of the biggest forms of activism because if I can win people over with my food and then you can have that conversation you can have that talk to me like you want you enjoyed this this was beets and brown rice and it looked like a burger and it tasted like a burger and it had everything like that and there was no fat and there was good fiber did stuff like this so why didn't why do we need to eat that beef if we can do this with time based time [Music] baddest yen you just came out of a meeting dealing with veganism and miss football Tex says a local vegan opinion leader here Jordan right shirt he's running for City Council and there's a lot of talk about how to take I guess it's a the animal rights message rather than a vegan message and get it into a form that will win votes at City Hall so that's topic for another video but at this meeting unmet Randy so Randy just it's a it's a public meeting about 20 to 25 people there he just put his hand to speak a little bit but I learned a lot of interesting things about him just for the few things he missed about zone it's really as soon as I saw him I could tell he lifts a lot of weight I just wonder go what if she goes the same gym circuit tell me some kind of body weight left there you mentioned that you had a history of about 10 years he like you felt were wasted with with drug use yeah it's at some point about two years ago he got into veganism and then from just veganism into being in activism and now this is a bigger bigger part of your life and your your bodybuilding health and fitness interest is actually spun off into a into a business interest also yeah yeah it's kind of go I want to talk to alright first question first which is key member the first time you've heard the word Anita because like at some point you didn't know what the word meant right um when I heard the word vegan it was obviously because I've been lifting for many many years and when when I heard the term vegan it was like somebody that doesn't consume animal products so no meat so as a bodybuilder I was like how you give me get your protein and the infamous question right it's ridiculous and I kind of laugh because I'm like this it just seems outrageous like somebody and eating plants so first time I actually heard and understood one being is my son of the Joker when did that ship what challenge that something I let people also who thought with the first one that heard would be innocent like oh that would be great if only it wasn't impossible I guess a little bit of background about myself is I did suffer with you know addictions for about a decade and I was living Chowdhury and I more likely to give it a clean start to my life so I moved to Prince Rupert and in the meantime my ex-wife and I we'd separated and when I kind of got my legs together she's like alright let's go try to give this another goal now that usually sober and you know got your life together in the meantime she adopted a vegan lifestyle so when we ended up getting back together I think you know what I'll just I'll eat the food that you're gonna cook because I just want to try to make this transition a little bit easier and then I was like wow there was such a different taste of palates there was beans and lentils chickpeas in falafel and you know and all these kind of different things that I'm not I was just chicken and rice fish and rice chicken rice hey how you see two chickens a day that was my goal is I used to eat two chickens a day because that's I hadn't got my protein right which is just ridiculous in hindsight now but then she's like okay and I question that was like why why did you choose me man and she's like Kaiba was a few shows would you be interested in watching so we watched cowspiracy and we watch Earthlings and it was I don't know it was March eights two years ago was my birthday and that was the last time it took goodbye to me but above I watched your house for your seeing their Earthlings and I wouldn't be fair about it was my birthday I'm gonna trace myself I'm gonna go away to be brought to Rick many big Chuck Amina and I had a fight and I was like this and I just put it down and I said nice to know this and from that home I wouldn't understand vegan and then we'll be into the separating for the final time i hate's come to victoria i heard is a very vegan friendly community and I wanted to do everything I could to support animal activism and at that point I was working construction that would even be and I was still getting bigger stronger I was feeling healthier and I was still putting on a muscle in the gym I became the personal trainer in the meantime - and then then when I moved here then I started to become more more involved and that's why I met Jordan and that's how I started to get involved in this community and then it still spilled my bodybuilding career and my passion in that in this year I actually qualified to the national level I got fifth place at the Popeyes Fall Classic which is in Vancouver which is the biggest bodybuilding show of the year in DC and then all on 100% vegan diet and it was a super competitive class so now when it comes to my business and my thing is people were always following my food oh man your your food looks so good you're in such good shape and they're like you know everyone when I just be able to pay you and you just drop food off of my health and I was like like I said after about 500 people heat you up on your inbox like I don't turn this into a career so I talked to a few friends or like we'd have fun this I just mentioned she showed me the photos on his phone of this prepare it does look very impressive now you see the macros but I take it they're bodybuilding oriented food that is what we spend we've done a lot of vegan restaurant food videos we're looking it going to food service to themselves but at first way that's at least on the face let me put it this way I can see right away you've got a competitive product with a significant market me significant even in a town the size of Victoria the first thought in my mind is you make so much more money in Los Angeles but be that as it may well yes do not be a warm-up for a franchise with and also with my background I became certified by the International Sports Sciences Association so I am allowed any professional advice so I really understand it just because your certification as a sports therapist or those it's just important it's a personal trainer but personal training could be its mood it's very in-depth it's not a weekend course it's like a 900-page book and they took me a month to write the final exam just as practical stuff like you friary is it's one of the better personal training without actually going into like a post-secondary so I understand macro i understand science i've applied to myself i walk around it to almost 200 pounds at under ten percent body fat you're around on a vegan diet because I understand how food with protein fats and carbs and carb cycling and everything like this so what I want to do too often Victoria because I want to offer a specific macro base food vegan delivery service so if somebody has you have your fitness goals you say you want Randy I want to get down to this percent body fat here's how many times a week I work out you're my age my height my background I can be like you know what I'll figure I'll do the math is simple sciences and I will prepare that food natural base for you that you say you know I just eat that food you continue doing what you're doing and you will get results now look one reason I'm gonna ask you this guys email is people ask me those questions and I always say I'm not an expert I'm not a trainer Christmas I can tell you what I do but come on you're good it's your semester what you refer to because exactly what you're talking about I think but nothing there are a lot of like health gurus on the internet but I think what they lack is a sensitivity in the fact that that advice has to be relative to the particular person's life like if they were stressed out with a full-time job and two kids how many hours really look at what's a diet that works in that everything sways factor how much are you sleeping at you what your stress level is like what's your activity level and what's your hydration uniform adjust there's so many it's more than just food it's a big piece of the pie but it fundamentally diet and exercise I constantly avoided giving that advice and this made me say go for it you know I haven't come up with a name exact company brand but being in a case like this you'd be like I don't know if somebody asked you have questions you're like I'm at wedding you talk to like the vegan guy so I think I'm literally the company name there I do that I'm gonna call it like the beacon got it just because lots of people I'm like literally one of the go-to people when it comes to nutritional advice because like I said I am qualified I am living proof and I do and product of my own knowledge and so you can just slide it Michael's being Guymon and goes from there so I think it's kind of catchy I'm copywriting and even Canada costs $450 Quebec you mentioned um you know you did an official get the idea from your ex ex-wife or ex-girlfriend uh you know a lot of men stereotypically or in that situation so Melissa William camera here her ex-boyfriend he basically just became vegans because of huge when you broke up with them he went back to eating need five minutes later so I mean you know I just say if that's you know who you are because they were in a car accident they're people who come beating is that a heart attack you know I think if there's no shame in your game you know it's what you do after that it's once you know it's once you have it I think this is an example of someone let me just sort the level of activism engagement something who's mentioned you've been doing cube of truth demonstration to be deployed absolutely everybody apart from the the food business side of it is really passionate or veganism which is rare for anyone but is especially rare for people who were you know dragged into it by their girlfriend she's a bit of a stereotype and my buddy and I his name's Mike Downey and he's he's been on the island for a long time he's he's got a story it was the city chick the mother city limits put his pot-bellied pigs so actually my peplum and he's he's at 240 pounds 6 foot 3 guy he I did his contest meal prep to be qualified for Nationals as well on vegan diet we actually have a Facebook page called Mike and Randy warriors and concoction so we even have a company brand that we literally are warriors of compassion we do everything we can for activism and and to show people that you can be a good healthy fit young guy on a vegan diet you don't need to do it and the minute I understood is that if something has eyes it has a brain if it has a brand it has a nervous system and the nervous system it feels pain and if they feels pain it does not want to die so who are we to go take that animal's life no it's my choice TV what about the animals choice just gonna be don't hear their voice doesn't mean they don't have a right so that's that's where I and in my passion for food and and honestly I believe food is the one of the biggest forms of activism because if I can win people over with my food and then you can have that conversation you can have that out I'll talk to be like you want you enjoyed this this was beets and brown rice and it looked like the burger and it tasted like a burger and had everything like that and there was no fat and there was good fiber and stuff like this so why did why do we need to eat that beef if we can do this with the time base time yeah I killed my enemies and I won't kill them home cinema politics and you know that's I you know the cow never cross me the wrong way yeah that's why we're about to get into you convey thing right videos regularly you don't want to be an hour long discussion Garrett but you know it's gonna say so just now in this meeting we had I introduced myself as kind of a politics tone and you can see people who are as a little cold in that no one's all that happy to hear oh really you have a degree in political science you know a lot about elections and how ironic it man nobody even though that's what that meetings about nobody's that very the reaction from that room would have been totally different if I said hi guys I'm ruled to learn baking you know I love bread and pastry and about this time next year I'm gonna have my own baking business and you guys can all sign up everywhere we've been a totally different reaction you see you're gonna see this too because you had reaction you've had the experience that's real activism now with this kind of you know local political organizer and it's totally different you mean you say yes food food is activism well you can see just how warm or more subtly presenting it to people's yeah I do I do food everything everyone's much more possible with that and then running the politics kind of come in through the side door ya know doing so good standing on the street wearing a mask I always wear like a tight muscle shirt and like you guys had some of this like I'm super lean so I either tell people come up to me and they're just like they're almost antagonistic great out of the hop yeah it's a scary muscle-bound dude and the mass right yeah for gel I'm super calm and I'm just like yo anybody it creates that like how are you big and you know and it almost it helps to because it does right at that conversation but so no but I think you're gonna see it very different conversation new food services service and is that I mean you know it's like your relationship with your grandmother hopefully unless you have a horrible grandmother but you know it's that you know you are feeding people you're providing service for people and you know the fact that it's they may think of it first and foremost is healthy food that happens to be vegan I mean when you're when you're rich other people or non-vegan where the interesting bit of your kisses convenient food or you don't work out food or whatever it's it can be branded in a lot of different ways and then at some point they start thinking about those overwhelming other aspects like hey guys everyday try to visualize what you know a million slaughtered pigs produce in terms of dud and poo going into the rivers at oceans you know that's what arable let's scale it up a bit and make a little with you on the play anyway this is the first day I've met Randy I'm really happy to this is for me and exciting fine you know and look you know Victoria is a small town I I did super small town it is like it's big city but it's so small I'd be very happy to collaborate with you it may be between the two of us we can make oh really I'm 107 friend banished Ian