I’m Vegan Now, Where’s The Fucking Protein?!

While writing my upcoming nutrition book(s), I got somewhat distracted during my research phase. Drawn into the world of industrial meat production, a corrupt self-regulating industry where profits are placed above nutrition or health, I became conflicted.

On one hand, I’m a Modern Viking leading over 12,000 men towards an improved definition of modern masculinity and self-improvement. A manly man. A warrior. A fucking beast!

But on the other hand… I’m an intelligent academic who has been recently blessed with the luxury of making my personal health into a full-time profession. Privileged with the extra time, both in research and lifestyle, to pursue alternative diet lifestyles, I don’t need to make the same health compromises of a typical stressed-out white-collar worker.

So fine. I’ll risk reputation, ridicule, and gains to switch to a vegan diet. 

(I slept better immediately, just so you know.)

First thing I had to learn a LOT about is protein. Damn fucking plant protein.

I originally mocked plant-protein eaters in earlier editions of my book. I said vegans were weak and would have diet on the battlefield in minutes.

Honestly – I still stand by that, in part. Most vegans I meet are much smaller and weaker. Because despite what anyone might tell you, finding high concentrations of plant-based protein is harder!

That doesn’t mean you can’t be just as strong on a vegan diet! It just means many vegans do it wrong. It’s possible to get it wrong on a meat-eating diet, and still gain muscle and strength. But a vegan needs to do their homework!

People told me I’d get “protein deficiency”… Haha don’t be fucking stupid! Do you know how much protein a human needs to get by each day? Around 50-70g. That’s easy. No one in the Western World get’s protein deficiency unless actively trying to starve themselves.

“2g of protein per kg of lean bodyweight” is an infamous protein guideline that only really applies to people trying to gain new muscle mass. The average person is not. The average person can kinda just stumble through their days and accidentally eat enough protein.

I’m not talking about medical protein deficiency. But finding the obscene amounts of protein that a warrior needs? A strongman, a bodybuilder, a powerlifter… yeah that’s harder.

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Food Is Füel: My 1300 Calorie Breakfast Smoothie

When you’re in Raiding Season (losing fat and increasing muscle definition), packing in all of the extra calories isn’t a huge priority. You can casually eat what you feel like and trust your appetite. Combined with all of the extra supersets and drop-sets in your workouts, you’ll achieve a calorie deficit and cut down your body fat.

But what about when you’re mass building and need hella calories?!

When you’re in Winter Season, you’re trying to pile on the mass, and get beast mode huge and strong. It’s when your body does it’s growing, and that requires lots of calories.

But that’s not always easy for Modern Vikings with the stresses and problems of a modern lifestyle.

What if you overslept and now there’s no time to prep your regular Viking breakfast before getting the kids ready for school? What if you know it’s going to be a mixed up day and you’ll struggle to make all 6 meals and 5,000 calories (My personal goal is 5,000 /day but yours could be 3,000 – 5,000).

What if you just want to blast down the nutrition you need because at the end of the day – Food Is Füel and you really don’t want to spend your day worrying about each meal being good?

Well for those days, here’s my personal breakfast smoothie recipe. I find breakfast is by far the easiest meal to get right and even if the rest of the day fucks up, as long as I smash breakfast, I’ll have an epic workout and an epic day.

This smoothie gives you a 1,300 calorie kick and 82g of protein (overkill but whatever) and it tastes good (“good” is as good as it gets in a 1,300 calorie shake, sorry but thats the truth)

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Becoming Attractive: Do You Want To Be Big Or Lean?

When I began my own fitness journey, I didn’t necessarily have an end goal in mind.

If I’m being honest, at first I just needed the structure in my day. Something to drag my ass out of bed, pull myself out of the dark places my mind could wander to in those days, and clear my mind with the therapy of hard labour.

But then I changed.

I decided I wanted to look better. I was in a city surrounded by beautiful women (I was in Barcelona) and I decided that I wanted to look more attractive. While many things were fucked in my life and in my mind back then, one of the biggest causes for my lack of confidence was that I’d not had a women look at me in that way in years.

But becoming more attractive to women – did that mean getting big, like a lumberjack, or getting lean like a soccer player?

Khal Drago or Tyler Durden?

Brad-Pitt-Fight-Club

khal drago

Very quickly I learned that my end goals would dictate the sort of training I should do, the diet I would eat and the lifestyle I would live. I also (incorrectly) assumed that there was a single “correct” physique that would be more universally attractive to all women.

So I needed to make a choice (and unknowingly at the time, this choice would shape the entire training philosophy of my Mens Self-Help book, Modern Viking!)

I needed to decide – did I want to be Big or did I want to be Lean?

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What Does It Mean To Be A Modern Viking?

I’ve spent a lot of time and energy on social media in the last few months talking about becoming a Modern Viking. And today I just hit publish on the first release of a book titled “Becoming a Modern Viking”.

But the number one question I’ve been getting asked is:

“What exactly is a Modern Viking?”

I’ve had interest from people who identify as modern day pagans. I’ve had interest from people who listen to heavy metal music and wear Thor amulets. I’ve had interest from powerlifters and strongmen. 

A lot of people want to know – is this any good and is it for me?

I created the concept of a Modern Viking to become an ideal that a man could work towards. I created it for myself, for my own journey, but part of my own journey was that I wanted to inspire and help other men along their own path too.

So here’s an introduction to what I think a Modern Viking is.

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