FROM THE EDITOR
Meat ( less )
Head
Our editor tried
Meatless Mondays—and
lived to tell about it!
I’VE BEEN AN INVETERATE
musclehead since Jimmy Carter was
president, which is to say, for a very,
very long time. In past issues I’ve told
of how I received my first copy of
M&F when I was 13, and while never
achieving my boyhood dream of
becoming the world’s greatest
bodybuilder (nor, for that matter, a
halfway decent one), I’ve faithfully
followed the bodybuilding lifestyle
ever since. That, of course, has meant
lots of hard training and the consump-
tion of copious amounts of protein—
animal protein in particular.
Then, a few years ago, I watched
the meat industry
documentary Glass
FOLLOW
Walls, narrated by
SHAWN
Paul McCartney,
on Twitter:
@shawnperine
and could no longer
look at red meat
without feeling
queasy. I had qualms about eating
poultry, too, but reasoned that
chickens are lower on the evolution-
ary scale than cows and…hey, I had to
have some kind of animal protein if
I wanted to continue to keep my
muscles! Still, a nagging voice in my
head asked if I really needed to
adhere to such a meat-centric diet.
A couple of months ago my girlfriend
started doing “Meatless Mondays”—
a movement that encourages people
to forgo animal products one day a
week—for ethical, health, and sustain-
ability reasons. Then, this past Decem-
ber, that pillar of the M&F lifestyle,
Arnold Schwarzenegger, pronounced
that he would begin practicing
Meatless Mondays himself (see his
18
MUSCLE & FITNESS
NOTHING TO LOSE
Our editor cut his meat
intake by half and hasn’t
lost an ounce of muscle.
column on page 150). Never a big eater
to begin with (despite his big biceps),
Arnold knows that raising cows and
bringing them to market account for
more greenhouse gases than all forms
of transportation on this planet
combined. Ever the environmentalist,
he decided to put his veggies where
his mouth is one day a week and, in
doing so, make a stand for the planet.
What more motivation did I need?
So a couple of Mondays ago I ditched
meat in favor of a vegetable-based
diet for one day. At the end of that day
I found that I not only didn’t miss
indulging my inner carnivore, but I
was “lighter” inside—not as weighed
down by my food as I normally would
have been. The health benefits I felt
from supplanting meat with vegeta-
bles and fiber were almost immediate.
Without giving it much thought, I
ended up forgoing animal protein two
FEBRUARY 2016
more days that week, and so began a
new way of eating for me.
I’m not vegan or even vegetarian. I
still eat some fish, poultry (pasture-
raised, organically fed, humanely
raised and slaughtered), and eggs, but
I’ve found that reducing my meat
intake by a good 50% hasn’t resulted
in the loss of an ounce of muscle
mass and has me feeling more
energetic. Plus, the peace of mind I’ve
gained makes it a no-brainer.
Should you give it a try, I want to
know how it went. E-mail me at
editor@muscleandfitness.com and
let me know!
More Power to You,
Shawn Perine
Editor in Chief
PER BERNAL