Fear of the Unknown“I feel like I have a basketball in my stomach”, I said to my friend Tanner as we jogged down the road.  We were on the second run of a bike, run, bike, run, double brick session.  It was the end of summer of 2013 and we were heading into the multi-sport offseason.  I had just started competing in amateur multi-sport races such as duathlons and triathlons the year prior.  I was getting faster but not at the rate I expected and I felt awful all the time.  Tanner said “It is probably all that meat you are eating”.  I laughed at first not realizing he was somewhat serious.  I had been dealing with stomach pain and bloating every time I would train, especially on the runs.  I started even noticing stomach discomfort in my strength training sessions and sometimes even when I didn’t train at all.  I had tried training where I didn’t eat 2, 3, and 4 hours before workouts and that didn’t help.  I tried fasted morning workouts and there was no improvement.  Tanner made it clear that he was not joking and had in fact been eating a plants based diet that entire year and was feeling good.  I was curious. I wanted to feel better and wondered if something in the animal products I was consuming was bothering me.  “Where do you get your protein?” I asked.  Now I hate myself for asking that question because it is ridiculous, but at the time I did not know any better.  At that time I had worked in the fitness and healthcare industry for over 13 years and was a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist.  I had a degree in Human Biology.  I took courses in nutrition at KU and for my certification.  I feel like I should have known better.  “I get plenty of protein”, Tanner said.Dairy AddictionA few days later I got a text from Tanner saying I should have a listen to the Rich Roll Podcast. Rich is a well-known plant power endurance athlete and successful podcaster.  I listened to one episode where John Joseph was a guest and I was immediately inspired to try a plants based diet!  The next day I dropped meat from my diet and two days later I cut out dairy and all other animal food sources.  I didn’t feel much different when I cut meat out those first few days but when I got rid of dairy it was major.  I had absolutely horrible headaches and felt sluggish for two days.  It seems that I was having some type of withdrawal from dairy.  Yes I know, 1 million different things can cause headaches but I was fairly careful to remove all variables and do everything exactly the same as I normally would, just without the animal products.  All you have to do is a Google search on opiates in dairy and you will arrive at a firestorm of opinions on whether or not the science is good enough to declare dairy as addictive.  My opinion is that dairy and I did not jive, but due to the addictive properties I kept coming back for more, and then when I cut it out completely one day, my body had withdrawals in the form of headaches.  Then after the 2 days of headaches were over I started to feel better.  Initially, and foolishly, I inserted soy products in place of many of the dairy items I was consuming such as soy milk, tofu, soy yogurt, soy ice cream, etc.  I later found out that soy and I do not get along very well either, but I will cover that as a blog podcast topic on its own later.  In short, I was trying to replace everything that I was formally taking in with dairy…which really wasn’t necessary.Protein BoyI dove straight into the deep end, as you might say, and have been eating plants-based ever since September 12, 2013.  I did not do it for philosophical reasons.  Notice I didn’t say “vegan”.  Even though I technically am a vegan, from a nutritional standpoint, I think that sadly there is some negative connotation that comes wi...