Our third panel, the last one this year, was held last night!
“Is plant-based food a benefit in sports?” was again moderated by Vildana Hrnjić, who greeted everyone on behalf of VivaBiH and introduced our panelists.
To our great pleasure, our panelists were a former bodybuilder and coach, Mislav Skrepnik, as well as two plant-based nutritionists and fitness trainers, Marko Samardžija and Ivana Martinec.
First topic of this panel was their decision to become vegan, as well as the food supplements they use. It is interesting that their paths are different even though they have a lot of similar opinions. Marko and Ivana primarily became vegan for health reasons, but the ethics and compassion followed shortly after, whereas Mislav primarily emphasized ethics.
We talked about nutrients such as B12, vitamin D, zinc etc., which our panelists believe to be very important to take, especially if one is actively doing sports, emphasizing that they intake all necessary nutrients through food.
During the discussion, we touched upon another interesting topic, panelists’ clients, and their experience with non-vegan clients, and how hard it is to change someone’s bad diet habits even though they want to become vegan. In the Balkans, people generally live an unhealthy lifestyle and that veganism and doing sports is a completely unknown world to the majority of people. New food habits and training demand time. Strong decision and persistence are important in those moments when you want to give up until something becomes a real habit. Ivana emphasized the fact that we need to be ready to dedicate ourselves to better food habits and active training, because, if we lived unhealthy for a long time, then we definitely have time to be healthy as well.
Mislav, Marko and Ivana emphasized that they generally have positive experiences with their clients, and when they work with people who eat meat, they strive to find a compromise where they can show the benefits of a plant-based diet. Also, it is important for us to be aware that we cannot get results in a month, but that it is a process to which we can dedicate more time.
Through the audience’s questions, we also mentioned some ingredients such as soy, as well as some tips for gaining weight on vegan diet. We also talked about why other fitness trainers don’t emphasize plant-based diet as a healthy diet. A special topic that we touched upon towards the end of the panel is food preparation and organization for people who have steady jobs. Our panelists gave some very interesting and practical tips on how to prepare food for a few days in advance.
On the panel, we heard plenty of useful information on how important it is to combine more ingredients to have a balanced diet and we hope that it will help you accomplish your health and fitness goals.
Thanks to everyone who followed our panel for two hours and participated in the discussion. Special thanks to our panelists for their time. In case you missed our panel, you can still find and watch it on our Facebook page.
Also, in the spirit of healthy lifestyle and veganism, next month we have organized our program called Vegolution, a monthly diet plan by an MA of nutritionism. If this panel inspired you to change your lifestyle habits, apply using this FORM!
It is important to mention that we also rewarded three people who watched our panel with a special VivaBiH gift, to make their holidays more vegan and happy.