With the health benefits of vegetarian and vegan diets becoming more and more apparent as time goes by, it is more common now for athletes to want to try to make this change. However, many athletes start out as vegetarians or vegans with the best of intentions, only to fail and go back to their original diet as a meat eater.

For some, this may seem like a sign that these diets are not cut out for the world of sport, but the truth lies somewhere else. The main issue with many people, athlete or otherwise, when it comes to succeeding with a plant-based diet is that they make the switch with a lack of knowledge and they don’t understand the proper way to make this transition.

If you are an athlete that is interested in becoming a vegetarian or a vegan, then there is more to it than just cutting meat out of your diet. This is the mistake that so many people make; they eliminate meat from their diet, but then they make no meaningful changes to account for the nutrients that they were previously getting from animal sources.

If you make the change without doing anything to make up for the meat that is now missing from your diet, then you are setting yourself up for possible failure. Without a managed change, you are likely to feel hungry all the time, feel a lack of energy, and lack nutrients that are fundamental to your performance and the maintenance of your body. Along with replacing the protein and the fat, you also need to account for a reduction in the intake of iron, calcium, vitamin D, and vitamin B-12.