In our vast practical experience working directly with CrossFitting clients, we’ve yet to see a single person truly achieve optimal health on a strict vegetarian regimen. And ALL have improved when they introduced some high quality animal products into their diets. But then again, we’re not doctors. (Maybe for our clients, however, that’s for the best.)

@Mae: Thank you for your testimonial. That has been our experience too, although as we said, we are more than open to working within whatever parameters our clients have set for themselves. We appreciate your contribution here!

Try all the doctors that recommend cutting out meat, dairy & eggs for heart health. My own father was steered in that direction after his heart attack. Not that I’m saying doctors necessarily know what they’re talking about when it comes to nutrition, especially not vegetarian nutrition. I think we’ve all heard about how little training your average GP has in that field. When you look at it like that, perhaps it doesn’t really matter that you’ve heard that doctors advise vegetarian patients to start scarfing down ribs?

I hope vegetarians and vegans who HAVE researched their diet don’t back down from what they know: veg*nism and Crossfit can fit together very well, and as Anu mentions above, adopting a better diet is going to improve your health and athletic performance without necessarily compromising your religious, ethical, or environmental beliefs.

And yes, Emily M., nutritionally educated veg*ns do exist, we’re just not necessarily the ones bringing it up in conversation because we’re 18 and recently decided to subsist on a diet of spaghetti from the can and white rice because our favourite band did an ad for PETA. Maybe get out and meet a few more before you start throwing out statisics you pulled from your nether regions?

You may also want to take into account that the western world is set up for meat eaters, not veg*ns; we have to work a lot harder than you to get proper dietary information and advice. It’s only natural that our process of discovery might take longer. Luckily, many new vegetarians will at least try to lay their hands on information about their new diet, unlike people raised omnivorous who may never need to seek it out.

“So in the same vein as not preaching the Paleo Gospel, we’re not out to “rebut” the “arguments” for vegetarianism. We simply strive to present valuable information to people about how to live happier, healthier (and less confrontational!) lives, and let them decide for themselves what is the best path for them.”

Dallas and Melissa – I appreciate your attitude toward veg*n Crossfitters interested in nutrition: understanding and accepting of other diets while still trying to keep everyone as healthy as possible.

Feel free to drop your favorite veggies recipes on us – we’d love to share them with the community! Thanks for posting.

@Anu: I was hoping to see you here – our recent emails were part of the motivation for this post. Excellent point you offer – you can always make better choices and while still honoring your self-imposed dietary restrictions. I’m glad you discovered that on your own, and thanks for sharing your experience with us.

I am a vegetarian CF-er. My entire family is vegetarian and have been for generations. It is our way of life and is so for a lot of Indians. Before learning about paleo, I was eating rice, bread, oatmeal, you name it. Then tried the zone. Then I did my version of paleo – which I refer to as Vegetarian Paleo – eating vegetarian the paleo way. The results of switching to vegetarian paleo are still AMAZING! I’ve lost fat, gained strength. My workouts continue to get better. I get my protein from greek yogurt I make at home, from some soy, milk, cheese. I eat a lot of fat, vegetables and some berries. I eat no grains or sugar. While I may not see the same strength gains as someone who’s truly paleo, eating meat, that is just fine with me – omitting grains and sugar STILL works.

I guess what I’m trying to say is- even if you are a vegetarian, you can still eat paleo by omitting the grains and sugar and still get most of the benefits of paleo.

Just wanted to share my experience on this topic. Keep up the awesome work you guys bring to this community and am looking forward to the new and exciting announcements.

Dallas, I’ve never tried to win any converts. All I try to do is educate why eating meat is a good and natural thing, especially when you are smart about your meat sources. For example, as long as it is deer season, I eat exclusively venison for red meat. That doe lived a long and happy life, and rather than dying a slow death of starvation in the snows this winter, she met a quick and easy end at the pointy end of my friend’s rifle. I think that’s more humane than the chemical waste dump that we turn our world into with our grain production.

The best way to lead by example is when the improvements in your lifestyle are so noticeable that when a skeptic starts pushing back, a friend or colleague overhearing steps in, saying, “Oh, no, you didn’t know Emily a year ago. She knows what’s she’s talking about.”

I have found that the biggest hurdles to overcome with anyone, including vegetarians, are the fears of difficulty and boredom. I can whip up an excellent paleo meal in less time than it would take me to drive to McD’s and back. Sure, sometimes I take more time, but I’ll cook for an army and freeze it, so it makes for less time per meal spent cooking. The boredom issue is a tough one. I think that just takes experience to overcome. I think I would die if I had to eat chicken and broccoli for the rest of my life. I have been cooking for nearly 20 years. I have a huge recipe index in my brain and can wing it pretty easily.

But back to vegetarians, it is rare to find one who is actually truly morally convicted and educated about their convictions. Most are hanging onto the health kick bandwagon or the popularity train.

If you’re not able to physically make it to one of our Workshops-on-the-Road, hang tight for a second. We’ve got some really awesome opportunities for folks just like you in the works, and should have some exciting announcements about that really soon… We’re addressing those travel limitations that lots of folks have as best we can. Stay tuned!

Adam,

Glad we could give you some ideas on how to connect with people in a congenial-but-still-opinionated manner. I spent 20 years or so as a vegetarian, but I never tried to convince my omnivorous friends to stop eating animals. I’m awfully thankful that we still get to make some choices for ourselves – like what we get to eat. When you look around the world, we’re very fortunate to have that luxury. Thanks for stopping by.

Cliff and George,

While we appreciate the sharing of intelligent references like Lierre Keith’s book, it should be made clear that we are not attempting to win converts to the Carnivorous Religion of Paleolithicism. In fact, we try to avoid using labels like “Paleo” altogether because people tend to get all tangled up in whether agave nectar or 100% cocoa or heavy cream is considered “Paleo” and miss the point that food should make you healthy. We don’t eat meat because Mark Sisson says Grok would have, we eat it because it’s a dense protein source that allows us to adequately recover from the rough-and-tough lives we live (including our high-intensity, varied exercise program that could be considered “CrossFit”, or not. I mean, do we have to do Fight Gone Bad and Filthy Fifty and Angie monthly to be “CrossFit”? I digress…). So in the same vein as not preaching the Paleo Gospel, we’re not out to “rebut” the “arguments” for vegetarianism. We simply strive to present valuable information to people about how to live happier, healthier (and less confrontational!) lives, and let them decide for themselves what is the best path for them. Whether my vegetarian friends eat meat or not has no bearing on how healthy I am, and at the end of the day, I can only control what goes in my own mouth. Thanks for posting the resources. Eat Good Food, exercise hard and often, and be good to your neighbors.

Dallas

http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804/ref=sr_1_1