Successful vegan bodybuilder and social media star, Jon Venus, shares his simple daily diet to stay fit and healthy whilst building muscle. Jon promotes a vegan diet on his You Tube channel with wife Katherine Moen, a nutritionist who helps with meal planning to ensure all the necessary vitamins, nutrients and protein are packed in.
Jon consumes his calories from legumes, carbohydrates and of course lots of fruit and vegetables. As Jon says ‘carbs are really king’, he advocates a whole foods diet and avoids heavily processed foods or refined carbohydrates such as white pasta or bread. Jon has also tried a raw vegan diet however opts long term for cooked protein sources such as beans, lentils and chickpeas.
Jon east anywhere between 2700 and 4000 calories a day all from plant based sources to maintain high intensity workouts and weight lifting. His videos include his meal planning and prep with quantities of food and a review of macro and micro nutrients consumed each day through CRON-O-Meter. This App allows you to log and track your diet and exercise whilst restricting calories, ensuring you get optimum levels of nutrients.
So what does this vegan bodybuilder eat everyday?
Breakfast
Jon opts for a post workout smoothie with fresh fruit. He typically has a banana, frozen berries, plant based protein powder and chia seeds. He eats lots of watermelon and peach on the side too.
Snack
Jon eats loads of fruit, he even says “you may be thinking that this is way too much fruit, way too many carbs, way too much sugar…… but you have to remember that there’s a huge difference between refined sugar or processed foods – which include refined sugar and fruits – or other complex carbohydrates, because they’re attached to fibre and they digest completely differently.”
His go to snack is a date topped with peanut butter. He says if you like peanut butter cups then you’ll love this!
Lunch
He often has a quick lunch of tofu and veggies. He says even he can’t always be bothered to cook rice all the time! He fries tofu marinated in a little teriyaki without any oil, juts a little water. Oil adds unnecessary calories and fat whilst increasing inflammation in the body he says. He seasons the tofu with turmeric and black pepper, both known for their anti inflammatory benefits. He adds to the same pan some asparagus and a big handful of mushrooms, he serves this with a hearty dollop of guacamole.
Dinner
To pack protein and calories he has big servings of whole foods which are also easy to prepare. We liked his Burrito Bowl consisting of brown rice, chopped tomatoes and bell pepper, taco salsa, baked tofu, baked sweet potato chunks, and steamed broccoli, finished off with re-fried pinto beans (again fried in just water).
So if you want to build muscle like Jon check out his You Tube channel and let us know you’re favourite protein packed meal.
Image Credit: You Tube | Tastefulventure
Video Credit: You Tube
