America’s Only Male Weightlifter Competing in Rio Is 100% Vegan, Here’s What His Daily Diet Looks Like

We’ve seen the crazy 8,000-calorie diet that U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte consumes, which included plenty of pepperoni pizza, chicken fettucini, and steaks. Now, we check out the diet of Kendrick Farris, America’s only male weightlifter competing in Rio and who is also 100% vegan. The incredible 30-year-old American champion weightlifter is one of only three of Team USA’s 555’s athletes that are vegan competing in the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Farris was six years into his professional weightlifting career when he made the switch to a vegan lifestyle. “When I first told my wife, she laughed at me, because she didn’t think I was serious,” Farris told KTBS. “But I was like, nah, I’m serious…[and] I’ve just been sticking to it ever since.”

“My son was born almost two years ago, he was born in September 2014 and something happened where I was like I’m just seeing the whole thing. So I’m like I need to do something different. Like how do you get back to what is the most purest form of our life, our being and it started with the food.”

The dietary transformation did not hurt the weightlifter from Shreveport, Louisiana whatsoever. He can clean-and-jerk 438 pounds.

Farris won the gold medal at the past two Pan American Championships.

On May 8, Farris set an American record when he snatched 370 lbs and cleaned 460 lbs at the U.S. Olympic weightlifting trials in Salt Lake City.

Farris began lifting when he was 12-years-old after his uncle read a newspaper article about a weightlifting development center for young athletes. Farris won back-to-back National titles in 2006 and 2007 and qualified for the Olympic team in 2008, 2012, and 2016.

Huffington Post has the details on his daily vegan diet:

For breakfast, Farris usually has oats of (vegan) pancakes followed by a protein shake as a mid-day snack. For lunch, Farris will often have avocado quesadillas and then guacamole and black bean chips for a post-workout snack. More black beans are served at dinner in the form of black bean quesadillas. “I use black beans for everything,” said Katrina Farris, Kendrick’s wife and main cook in the family.

Katrina adds that she doesn’t spend her days scouring vegan blogs or recipe books, she just adapts the meat based recipes she knows and loves to include beans or plant-based cheese substitutes.

The vegan lifestyle has certainly worked out for Farris, and the proof is in the tofu pudding.

Farris will make his third Olympic appearance the men’s 94kg weightlifting on Saturday, August 13

[People]

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