• Home
  • Resources
    • Articles
    • Videos
    • Training
    • Nutrition
    • Recipes
  • Coaching
    • Coaching Questionnaire
  • The Aethix Approach Podcast
  • Shop
  • Cart
  • My account
  • About
  • Contact

Cart

Aethix Fitness Header Logo 2
  • Home
  • Resources
    • Articles
    • Videos
    • Training
    • Nutrition
    • Recipes
  • Coaching
    • Coaching Questionnaire
  • The Aethix Approach Podcast
  • Shop
  • Cart
  • My account
  • About
  • Contact

Contact

For any inquiries including questions about online coaching, please e-mail ryan@aethixfitness.com. Instagram DM's at @tofustrong work as well!
Instagram Facebook-f Twitter Youtube

Follow Me

tofustrong

Vegan stuff, lifting stuff, weeb stuff
Aethix Fitness
⬇️ For coaching services, articles, free resources, YouTube, podcast & more

Ryan Rakes
Things people have said to me in person over the y Things people have said to me in person over the years as a vegan lifter:

1.) Where do you get your protein?! (Most common)
My answer: Everything I eat but the staples are tofu, tempeh, seitan, vegan meat alternatives, and legume/legume based foods like bean pasta. This is usually followed by “Can you get enough protein from that?” or “What the hell is seitan/tempeh?” but by this time, I already faded into oblivion from protein deficiency and can’t answer anything else.

2.) I would go vegan but I could never give up (insert animal product here).
My answer: I thought the same thing and when I gave it a shot, I found that my cravings for those foods disappeared in only about a few weeks of not eating them at all!

3.) You’re vegan and into fitness? You must be so healthy.
My answer: *Too busy shoveling Ben and Jerry’s Non-dairy Cookie Dough in my mouth to respond*

4.) How do you get enough (inset micronutrient here)?
My answer: Fruits and vegetables are some of the most micronutrient dense foods on the planet! A lot of foods like plant based milks, cereal, nutritional yeast and more are also fortified with additional vitamins and minerals, including B12. If you’re concerned about a specific vitamin/mineral/other nutrient, take a supplement or look up specific foods that have it. After this, I pound a shot of sublingual cherry flavored Vitamin B12 and leave the bar. 

5.) Why are you vegan?
My answer: We don’t need to eat animal products to thrive in modern times so why continue to support a cruel industry that is also extremely harmful to the planet we live on? Oh and it’s just cool to know that I’m building my muscle fibers from literal broccoli and beans 😂
Who else is an oatmeal junkie and what do you add Who else is an oatmeal junkie and what do you add to yours? Open to suggestions here!! 🙋‍♂️ 

I never thought I was an oatmeal guy until I figured out how to make it RIGHT! I used to just make plain oatmeal and maybe slice a banana into it and wonder why everyone else liked oatmeal so much. Rookie mistake! 

You can load a good bowl of oatmeal up with so much tasty stuff and make it chock full of macro and micro nutrients! I always mix a half scoop or full scoop of vegan protein powder into mine (since eating protein is way more fun than just drinking protein shakes!), hemp and/or chia or flax seeds, blueberries, granola, banana, raisins or other dried fruit and peanut butter! You can make it super high calorie if you’re struggling to get a lot of calories in throughout the day or go minimal for a lower calorie option that’s still packed with fiber and other nutrients!
Which plant milk is your go-to?! There are SO ma Which plant milk is your go-to?! 

There are SO many plant based milk options and more seem to be popping up yearly! I’ve seen the usuals like soy, cashew and almond but I remember when oat milk was “new” to the markets and then there’s some more obscure ones like banana milk, hazelnut milk and even avocado milk! Any I’m missing?! 😂

Some tend to be thinner like most almond, rice and cashew milk options and then there are creamier options like soy and hemp. Textures and taste will obviously differ quite a bit but so do macronutrient compositions!

I tend to opt for soy milk most often because of the higher relative protein content (7-8g, normally) but when I’m deep into a cut, sometimes I’ll prefer almond or cashew milk since it’s only about 30 calories per serving. The latter is also my coffee creamer of choice 😉
When I first started lifting in the summer of 2009 When I first started lifting in the summer of 2009, there weren’t many informational resources online about how to build muscle and strength optimally. I pretty much followed a “bro split” for four years while going to Planet Fitness and just chalked myself up to having bad genetics for building muscle while still looking like a “DYEL”. 

I was still determined to progress and I felt like that I had to be missing SOMETHING, even if I did just have bad genetics. After diving in head first, I found some good resources and educated myself on proper training programming which I made use of. I was shocked when my progress picked up after years of spinning my wheels and put on another 15 lbs of muscle and consequently way stronger than I ever was. 

Fast forward to now and I firmly believe that having a strong knowledge base of effective programming is key to getting the most progress, especially for “hardgainers”. I still don’t think I am naturally gifted at all with building muscle or strength, but I’m confident that I’ve maximized my personal progress through smart training, nutrition and consistency.

Check out the article I just published on Aethix Fitness about how to intelligently structure your programming if you’re unfamiliar! Link in bio or go to aethixfitness.com. It’s a doozy!
New episode of The Aethix Approach just published! New episode of The Aethix Approach just published! Go check it out via the link in my bio or anywhere you listen to your podcasts!

1️⃣2️⃣ In this episode, I speak with Mateo Way, a vegan powerlifter and bodybuilder, about what led him to lifting and veganism, differences between bodybuilding and powerlifting training, effective diet and nutrition strategies, individual genetic differences, vegan stereotypes and much, much more. Mateo is a burly ass dude with a 529 lb squat, 365 lb bench and 627 Lb deadlift at a bodyweight of 228 lbs. He’s been vegan for 15 years in just a couple months and for the entirety of his lifting career so virtually all of his strength was built on a plant based diet. Mateo drops tons of knowledge bombs in this episode and I think it’s incredibly useful information even for a seasoned lifter. I hope you enjoy the episode as much as I enjoyed our chat!

You can find Mateo at @mateo.way or his business account at @grit.lapidary . Thanks again, Mateo!
These loaded baked sweet potatoes are so packed fu These loaded baked sweet potatoes are so packed full of chickpeas, cucumber, fresh parsley, tahini sauce, sesame seeds and chili flakes that you can hardly tell there are sweet potatoes under there! 

Simply bake the sweet potatoes, slice open when done, smear on tahini sauce (pretty much any recipe online will do), and top with slightly roasted or air fried chickpeas, chopped raw cucumber, fresh parsley, sesame seeds and the chili flakes if you’re down with the spice. Add tempeh crumbles for a protein option if you’d like also! 

Super tasty, easy recipe PACKED full of nutrients!
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Follow Aethix

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

Search the site

  • Home
  • Resources
  • Coaching
  • The Aethix Approach Podcast
  • Shop
  • Cart
  • My account
  • About
  • Contact

© 2020 Aethix Fitness