The Newark Town players are trying the 21 day vegan challenge
Ditching meat and trying a plant-based diet for the next three weeks is the goal of these footballers.
Six players from Newark Town Football Club, along with their manager Damo Parkinson, are starting a 21-day vegan challenge today.
The aim is to compare their fitness and recovery levels after eating a completely vegan diet for three weeks against those of their meat-eating team-mates in the same time period.
The players taking part are Ricky North, Nathan Burrows, Lewis Chambers, Matt Stevens, Craig Bridge and Luke Parsons, with Damo helping out.
Damo became a vegan himself in July, and was inspired to suggest the challenge to his players after watching the documentary Game Changers, which follows vegan sports stars including Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton, top tennis player Novak Djokovic, and even World’s Strongest Man competitior Patrick Baboumian.
Damo said: “It was interesting to see how a plant-based diet can benefit sports performance and recovery time, as well as injury prevention.
“People have said that you can’t break world records on a plant-based diet because you’d be lacking in certain nutrients, but these sportsmen have proved them wrong.”
“Since I became a vegan I’ve lost weight and my energy levels have increased.
“So I put it to our 22 players, looking for six or seven to complete the vegan challenge to compare with another six or seven who were following their usual diet, and we were inundated with volunteers.”
The participants’ evening meals are being provided by Lincoln-based family-run vegan food business, Veg-Out Lincoln and they will also be easing themselves into the new diet with the help of food supplements provided by Collingham-based business Gusto Homes, which is also sponsoring them.
Just some of the tasty vegan meals the players could be sampling include a sweet potato and lentil cottage pie, falafel burgers and broccoli, chickpea and coconut curry.
The players underwent a fitness and recovery test yesterday, before they started the challenge, with a cardio and flexibility test followed by a strength and power test, along with another group of six players who are not taking part in the challenge.
Both groups will then be tested again at the end of the 21 days to see if there has been an improvement in the fitness or recovery of the group who have done the vegan challenge.
The Advertiser will be following the players’ progress over the next 21 days.
