I have a very exciting couple of weeks with talks at the Portland Vegfest this Fri, Sat and Sun (yes, 3 talks!) and then I travel across the pond to visit Glasgow and the Scotland Vegfest. I’ll be speaking there Sat and Sun, December 5th and 6th.
Any recommendations in either of those cities? Do you plan on going? Be sure to say hi!
While I’m traveling be sure to follow me on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook for updates and more.
This Thursday I return to the difficult-to-spell state of Massachusetts to give a talk on vegan sports nutrition in Boston. It’s in collaboration with the Boston Veg Society and the Strong Hearts Vegan Power running team before they take on the Cape Cod Ragnar Relay! There’s a $15 vegan buffet option at the host restaurant, Walnut Grille. Please RSVP here for the dinner. The talk is free! There will also be a Q&A panel with some of the runners on the team. It’s a great opportunity to learn more about vegan nutrition- especially for curious friends who want to know how to eat plant-based and stay active. Can you still get enough protein? You sure can! Come learn how.
Plant-based and Powerful: How Vegan Athletes are Defying Stereotypes
Thur May 7th
5-7 buffet ($15)
7-815 talk and Q&A (free)
Walnut Grille
1203 Walnut St
Newton, MA 02461
617-964-1029
Then on Friday and Saturday I’ll be covering three Strong Hearts Vegan Power teams (36 vegan runners!) racing the 200-mile Cape Cod Ragnar Relay. I’ll be there as Strongest Hearts, where no doubt there will be lots of confusion about our similar names! Like we did with the Plantbuilt Team at the Naturally Fit Games, we’ll be documenting their experience in our video series. Follow our Twitter and Instagram for photos and updates through the weekend.
Little known fact: when I was a little kid I obsessively watched- and studied- Russel Simmons’ Def Comedy Jam because I wanted to be a stand-up comic. I never acted on that desire- except for always trying to be the funniest kid in class- but now I get to travel and speak in front of crowds in a different way. Not quite a comedian, but fortunately the bar is lower for being funny when you are talking about health and nutrition. So maybe I’m almost a comedian? Kind of like I am almost a stuntman- the only other ‘job’ I dreamed about when I was young. Just see Strongest Hearts for my stunt work!
This is just a long way of saying I’ve a number of speaking events happening in 2015. The next one up is in the East Bay this Sunday for the Berkeley Vegan Earth Day. If you are in the Bay Area please come by- there are excellent speakers and my friends from Food Empowerment Project (amongst others) will be tabling. I’ll have books and Strongest Hearts merchandise for sale too. My talk will be focused on the theme that you don’t need special or exotic foods to be a healthy vegan. I’ll talk about what constitutes healthy eating patterns, based on the research, and how to apply it to your own life. But in a fun/funny way. I hope.
Links and details for everything are below. Thanks to all the organizers; I’m grateful for these opportunities.
2015
*Sun April 19 Berkeley, CA. Berkeley Vegan Earth Day. Unraveling the Myth that Plant-based Foods are Expensive and Exotic.
*Thur May 7 Boston, MA. Details TBD! In collaboration with Strong Hearts Vegan Power running team and Boston Vegan Society.
*Fri-Sun May 22-24. Paso Robles, CA. The Great Western Bicycle Rally. I will be leading rides and giving a talk or two.
*Fri-Sun May 29-31. Austin, TX. Vida Vegan Con! I’ll be giving a talk called Science is Awesome and will be on the Vegan Athlete panel.
*Sat June 27 Madison, WI. Mad City Vegan Fest. Plant-based and Powerful: What we know about vegan athletes.
*Fri-Sun Sept 11-13 Raleigh, NC. Plant-based Prevention of Disease Conference.
*Fri-Sun Nov 13-15 Portland, OR. Portland Health Conference and Portland Vegfest.
I’m generally a very optimistic person, but I’m also realistic and shy away from misleading people into thinking something is going to be easier than it is. Why? Because making long-term, sustainable health behavior change takes, well, a lot of change. And work. Preparing people for this work helps them overcome the barriers that will no doubt arise. Too often I see/hear those who have spent years thinking about eating well, good nutrition, veganism, exercise, etc as saying these things are easy to do. You just need to want it! Just be disciplined! They forget what it was like to not know what they know now. Think about that for a minute- what was it like before you had the knowledge you have now? Are you even able to?
When I broke my dominant arm last year I had to write with my other hand. It’s incredibly hard. Why? Because I’ve had a lifetime of developing the habits and muscles memory to use a specific hand. Switching over just doesn’t make sense to my brain. What is this we are trying to do?? That’s an extreme example though clear in how we learn our behaviors over a lifetime to a point where we don’t think about them. We interpret this as being ‘easy.’
Our world today is not just full of unhealthy food, but cheap, heavily advertised food served in large portions. When we look at individuals’ diet/nutrition from this perspective- the influential environment- it’s no wonder we are in a health crisis with rampant chronic disease.
The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that a young person in the US sees 3000 advertisements a day.
Three thousand! If those advertisements weren’t influential it wouldn’t be a billion dollar industry. It’s as if our environment has been engineered to make eating healthy as difficult as possible.
I’ve been thinking about this because this Wednesday night is my 3rd lecture of four at the Digital Gym (put on with Cycling Camp San Diego who are also hosting the epic Dirty Devil this Saturday!). I’ll be talking about this topic- why is it so hard to eat healthy? What are the factors working against us? It’s an important lecture if you’ve had trouble turning knowledge into action. You are not alone! The fourth lecture, on Wednesday April 1st, will cover the ‘how to’ of eating plant-based and healthy. You can sign up for both here for a discount!
Both lectures start at 6pm at Digital Gym, 2921 El Cajon Boulevard, 92104 (map).
I’m so excited to announce a series of nutrition lectures! With the help of Cycling Camp San Diego and Digital Gym in North Park, I’ll be presenting four 75-minute lectures on nutrition. You can sign up for just one or the entire series for a discount. This is an excellent opportunity to sharpen your nutrition knowledge! With four workshops we can really get into not only understanding nutritional science, but applying it. While my focus is plant-based, I cover the basics of nutrition, disease prevention and the practical issues of eating healthy in today’s world. And these are fun, I promise! You can sign up here and there’s a facebook event page as well.
All lectures start at 6pm at Digital Gym, 2921 El Cajon Boulevard, 92104 (map).
Wed March 4th, 6pm (1)- Nutrition 101: What you need to know about the food you eat
From carbohydrates to gluten to antioxidants, we hear a lot of nutrition terms, but what do they all mean? Which components of foods are most important to consider for a healthy diet? Matt will discuss the basics of nutritional science and give you the vocabulary to understand dietary claims.
Wed March 11th, 6pm (2) – Diet and Disease: What the research says about risk and prevention
Does sugar cause diabetes? Will eating only fruit prevent cancer? There are many claims relating food to disease, but what does the research say? Matt will cover some of the bigger long-term research studies that look at diet, disease and death.
Wed March 25th, 6pm (3) Hard Fight: The challenge of eating well in today’s world
Ever feel like the world is working against your diet goals? It is! The food environment in America in 2015 is ripe with unhealthy choices at every turn. It’s no coincidence that the proliferation of empty calories has lead to an increase in obesity and disease. In this lecture you’ll learn how we got to this point.
Wed April 1st, 6pm (4) Take Action!: How to make healthy changes that last
Having knowledge and applying it are two different things. In this lecture Matt will discuss the behavior change ideas that will help you apply what you’ve learned so you can make lasting, sustainable health changes. Plenty of time for Q&A in this lecture too!
Please help me get the word out on this series. If you have friends who are curious about nutrition please let them know about this. Four lectures for a cost less than one consultation with me is a deal. You can sign up here or join the facebook page here. Hope to see you! If you have any questions please let me know.
For those of you in the Northeast enduring the harsh winter, I’d like to invite you to this talk I’m giving at UMass Amherst next week. I’m honored to be a guest of the UMass Nutrition Association, Kinesiology Club, Students in Graduate Nutrition and the Department of Nutrition. The topic will be my work with plant-based athletes and my experience in alternative career paths for dietitians. It will be fun and there will be snacks! This event is free and open to the public. More details below and on the facebook event page. Special thanks to Eliza Beth Mellion who has done a huge amount of leg work to make this happen.
Be sure to follow me on twitter and instagram for photos of snow and cold and to see how 13.5 years of living in Southern California has made me soft!
Austin, Texas is a great place. I was there on the No Meat Athlete book tour where we did an event at the Beard Bros factory and presented to the Whole Foods corporate office. And it happens to be one the first place I flew to on my own (with a friend) as a tiny, teenage BMXer. Austin, like where I grew up, is huge for BMX and an older friend / local hero had moved so we went to check it out and get away from the harsh Pennsylvania winter and ride our bikes.
Ever since, I have loved Austin so I jumped at the chance to be a part of the Whole Foods / Engine-2 28-Day Challenge this year.
Both are a combination cacao book signing and a talk about staying active while maintaining a plant-based diet. These are laid back events and I love answering questions so if you have friends in Austin please send them along!
*Thur Feb 5, 530pm. Bee Cave Whole Foods Market. Engine 2, 28-Day Challenge. Book signing and talk. 12601 Hill Country Blvd. Bee Cave, TX 78738.
*Sat Feb 7, 12pm. Lamar Flagship Whole Foods Market. Engine 2, Meet The Experts series. Book signing and talk. 525 N Lamar Blvd. Austin, TX 78703.
And I’ll be there in May for the awesome Vida Vegan Con blogger conference. I can’t wait. Strongest Hearts will be there and both Sasha and I are speaking!! And it just so happens the wonderful organizers will be in Austin this week and made this terrific map of vegan spots: Austin Vegan Food! And you can probably count on seeing food photos on my Instagram and the VVC Instagram. I know I can’t wait to eat some Tex-Mex.
I’ve a few other events already scheduled for 2015 that will get their own post, but you can peep them at my events page. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you at an event!
So stoked to finally, officially, make this announcement! Yes, an entire book about cacao and chocolate with 75 vegan (mostly savory!) recipes:
Superfoods For Life, Cacao (available: Indiebound | Skylight | Powell’s | Amazon | Barnes and Noble)
Indiebound | Skylight | Powell’s | Amazon | Barnes and Noble
Why cacao? Last year the No Meat Athlete book publisher asked if I was interested in writing a book in their series, Superfoods for Life. Super foods? Not necessarily my cup of tea. But when they said cacao, I said maybe. Then I spoke with DIY chef and friend Joshua Ploeg– who absolutely loves using ingredients in unique ways- and it was set. We’d do it. Yeah, I can’t believe it either!
I’m going to be writing about this more extensively over the next few months as this topic lends itself well to discussion. Like the woman in Mexico who is the current ‘oldest ever human’ who claims chocolate has played a role in her longevity (anecdotal, of course). Or this recent news article in the Las Vegas Review Journal that is totally inline with my view of the subject.
If you want to support me and the book here’s how you can help:
As always, I appreciate my readers and everyone who has supported my endeavors. Thanks for reading!
How’s summer going for you? Mine has been unusual, mostly because I’m still recovering from my broken wrist! What an experience this has been. I’m nearly back to normal; I’m riding my commuter bike and have gone on a few road rides, but no mountain biking (or even pushups!) just yet.
I’ve neglected my website, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. I’ve spent a lot of the last few months focused on Strongest Hearts, the new manifestation of our Day in the Life of Vegan Athletes project:
Like our videos showing that you can be vegan AND an athlete? Please share them. We make these as tools to crush stereotypes about vegan diets and rely on our fans to help get them out there. Thank you!
Between my facebook, twitter, instagram and this site, I’m constantly sharing lots of information, articles and stories about nutrition, adventure and everything else (especially dogs). It’s hard to keep up, so I created a newsletter where I can put the best, most important stuff in one place and send it directly to your inbox. Please sign up here so you can stay up to date on my speaking engagements and other announcements, as well. I promise to not send more than a few emails per month.
I keep burying info about the book, Superfoods for Life, Cacao, I wrote with superstar chef Joshua Ploeg because everything hasn’t been set up to make the big announcement. But that time is coming very soon since the book will be available September 1st! I cannot believe it. The cover and updated info STILL isn’t on the online sites, but it is available for pre-order. And here’s a sneak peak at a recipe. Ordering now, from anywhere, helps out a ton because it shows interest in the book to distributors AND you get it cheaper. Win-win. Big announcement and details soon, for now, see it here:
Our Kickstarter to fund the next phase of Strongest Hearts (previously Day in the Life of Vegan Athletes) is moving along nicely! Thank you to everyone who has donated or shared our campaign page. Every little bit helps and we need your help right now to reach our goal. Can you make a donation so we can continue to make these videos?
And the sooner we reach our goal the less I can stress about it! In our latest update we shared the graphics for the rad buttons (thanks bummerart and Pinbot) that will come with every donation over $20.
We make these videos to show the various ways veganism can work. We don’t preach one style of eating or body shame; we want plant-based eating and fitness to be accessible to the most people. Showing the interesting stories of athletes in a professional way has never been done. We believe activism and education can be positive, fun AND make a difference. It’s a lot of work to make these and both Sasha and I have invested a lot of time, energy and our own money into this project. So we are seriously indebted to the people who believe in us and have supported us financially!
We have great rewards- hoodies, t-shirts, Purist water bottles, signed books, cycling socks….check them all out at our campaign page and please share it widely with your networks. We are relying on our community to get this out there! Thank you so much.
