I just think it has always been in me naturally and it really really ascended when I went through incarceration because everything that happened to me with respect to being incarcerated and in those close conditions and even going in a hole and being in a humane situation when I was in a hole for 40 nights animals go through but animals go through worse the only thing different between me and that situation of being in a hole and an animal they don't come out alive so that's why I'm really passionate about some of the same things they go through. All right so here we are another episode of the Carb Strong cast I'm really excited for this one here we have Dominic Thompson who's a vegan athlete an entrepreneur and an activist how you going Dom? I'm doing good thanks for having me on this platform I really appreciate it. Thanks for coming in such short notice I've been following you on Instagram for a while I've had a little bit of a look as you know sometimes you get sort of caught up in your own platform but I had a look at yours and I noticed that you have a very similar background to me in many ways and I'm really really interested for you to tell your story from the beginning so for those who don't know you maybe you could give a brief overview of what you do now and then start from the beginning. Sure what I do now is I speak out and use my platform to talk about human rights as well as animal rights social justice talk about the in the US we have a very big problem with respect to the criminal justice system so I talk about a lot of that stuff and of course I started my activism off from the days that I used to be incarcerated because I've seen the way going through that different type of system you know being put placed in a box I did about three years of time in federal prison and being put placed in that situation and some inhumane conditions kind of triggered me to go down this pathway so I use my platform to talk about a lot of those different things as well as to create different lines of services that will have an impact on change on what they call now like a social entrepreneur where you create products and lines of service that have an impact on the system and impact on society well and that's why I form crazies and weirdos which is one of the original older clothing vegan companies out there we have a lot of successful lines of services also created a food and nutrition company called eat well elephants eat where we teach people how to eat plant base okay we're launching a restaurant next year um in the states which is going to be starting off in the landed area then we're going to do a counterclockwise uh head around the states wow so I want to talk about the early years for you before all of this transformation happened because I'm really fascinated on how someone ends up in prison like where does it begin like what neighborhood where you were from what influences did you have or didn't have like how does that all start yeah I'm from Chicago originally I don't know if any people are familiar with that area we they call it the kids call it now shy rack yeah uh because it's one of the cities for years has been known as the murder capital of the US uh goes up it goes back and forth with a couple other cities so I'm from the west side of Chicago I'm a former gang member I used to be a part of a gang called a four corner hustlers I also in that gang I sold drugs and without going into details of that type of lifestyle but that specific path placed me in different scenarios where I end up eventually getting indicted and when I say I sold drugs it wasn't nickel and dimes or nothing like that it was at a large weight and large quantity that had the US government knocking on my door eventually that kind of started you know when I was a kid grew up in a single parent home no father around a cliche and I'm not making excuses I'm not playing victim or nothing like that but I'm just giving you the facts that it was me my mother and my two sisters living in one bedroom apartment full of roaches and mice and it was a very uncomfortable situation and only thing that we had around us in that neighborhood at that time that specific timeline that I'm describing is gangsters drug dealers all types of different personality types that was out there and even it ran deep in my bloodline I come from a family full of high ranking street individuals sadly they all are either dead or doing permanent time in the system right now but that had an influence on me growing up where you know sometimes you have to do what you have to do to survive and in those scenarios you have to either go through it go around it or you're going to get destroyed by it and I chose to go through it you know not around it not to run from it and it placed me in that scenario where I did all I could to get out of it and I was getting out of it and it just so happened to caught up with me you know with that with that specific lifestyle yeah um you say but being brought up in a home with a single parent is kind of cliche but so did I and it was something about not having that father fatherly influence that I started to look for that influence in other men who I looked up to who I felt were powerful and did you have like those types of influences around you yeah yeah I mean and I say it's cliche because in my culture coming from I'm a man of color living in in Chicago me my peers my friends it's it's norm it's considered the norm you know you don't you don't walk around like where's my dad it's like everybody doesn't have a dad in that scenario where I'm from it's not till you get older where you can look back like that wasn't normal not having a father around to tell you right and wrong so yeah I had cousins and and and other people in that neighborhood I lived on one of my most one of the guys that influenced me the most was my cousin booby he was a big-time dope dealer from head to toes getting money fast money had multiple cars ran multiple blocks and and areas and stuff like that he was supposed to call a chief of a gang he was part of the uh the vice lawyers and you know he used to scoop me up you know right around his regal bump an nwa rocking and stuff like that and he was a big influence on me like he kept things away from me but in a sense also educating me on a lot of other things yeah in that sense so yeah I kind of gravitated towards that yeah so you learned quick that there's a good way to get money and and power and respect yeah well it's not just that it's again my era is different in the era now like I grew up in 80s and and gangs back then I think people always place gangs as people like to demonize gangs and gangs was originally if you know your history on gangs especially in the US I don't know how it is over here but in the US gangs was especially black gangs was formed to protect the community well you know it was formed like the black panthers were to empower black men and women and there's a lot of gang members that are women too so it was created to empower the community protect the community from a lot of systematic stuff that was happening a lot of redlining and more and just educate people about black owned businesses and and more and then this was when drugs specifically crack cocaine got introduced into our communities and things started shifting a little bit differently since when you started introducing that fast money and you know I don't want to get into like conspiracies and stuff like that but a lot of people do understand that this is not a conspiracy on how the US government actually had a big role in that we're trying to destroy the black communities so yeah yeah that's why gangs was originally formed and you have your principles you have your laws you have you have your meetings just like a fraternity and stuff like that it wasn't set up to let's go terrorize the neighborhood let's go go destroy and kill people it was set up to protect and to empower so it wasn't that wasn't what's really drawn a lot of us from the original gangs and stuff like that it was just part of our culture and life and just being part of a membership a manhood and sisterhood yeah yeah so you obviously felt protected and guided and you're you're a part of something there and so obviously you know you start off lower level dealing and then it just grows and grows and you get more money and you start what happens there I wouldn't call it really level low level dealing um I'm the type that if I'm gonna jump out off off the out the window I'm gonna go to the roof and that's just being real like so it wasn't I I would say maybe at the most mid yeah tier you know I mean it was never like low low I mean uh in that sense it's just that the gangs was going through a transition around the time I was coming of age okay and getting involved in that where uh it was a little bit more flexibility to do be your own entrepreneur in a sense of okay if you had a plug and that plug trusts you you know and you can make it happen and you have a clientele yep or some communities or even low level dealers you can serve and you do what you do you know yeah wow and you never got involved with taking the drugs yourself no not at all again that's that's a culture disconnect me like we it's actually considered a violation of the game yeah to take drugs and stuff like that we wasn't brought up taking drugs we was about to sell it I mean we was educated to sell it could we see what it done done to what we call back in those days dope fiends and people that was just strong out on it uh but no never took any drugs only drug that I would took or experiment with was marijuana uh and that's it and I had my first drink when I was like 13 uh but yeah I never got into like drugs as a someone that used drugs like that I'm not engineered like that too some people are curious and people like to explore yeah I'm not engineered I'm not one of those personality types that like to explore things in that sense I'm I'm fine with the sense of reality that I'm in right now that shows a strong sense of character because a lot of people use the drugs in that world to escape from the reality of it uh to deal with certain problems um to to mask certain emotions and then they fall into it a lot of people are more predisposed to drug use but it's good it's one good thing that the gang sort of tried to outlaw and considered it a violation but obviously with um being on the streets there's a culture surrounding street justice and violence um could you tell us anything about how that affected you or did you have like a different view on morality back then as you do now say the funny thing about it I always had compassion in me like I was never one of those high heads like you bump into me I want to destroy you or this person didn't pay what's called a rent on the corner yeah in in our system growing up in that day and age you have corners that you have to pay rent towards the hierarchy or the leadership of those different gangs and that's even even some games even co-work integrated with each other if one was what's called a drought we had a drought we'll let us continue to supply your clientele and your your your community but we'll pay rent give you a percentage and stuff like that uh but as far as the violent part of all of that stuff it was never again I think that's more of a personality type because I I know I'm not innocent in a sense like I haven't rough you know been been around a corner and how to get involved in things but I know my ability to hurt somebody you know I mean I'm like I'm naturally a strong dude I could physically hurt somebody and also know what men made weapons can do to people so I always had I always had that sense and and since I've seen my first murder at the age of five that had had an impact on me because I've seen so many murders after that I've seen a man getting his head shot off at the age of five so I've been around violence since a very young age and I just felt like that's not the best solution you know I mean that's just me personally I always felt like it wasn't the best solution anything I can do to resolve something without physically getting involved and I would do that that's uh quite a phenomenon because what what I see more often is that people become conditioned to violence that makes them you know more in that survival mode and using violence as a first option but for you it seemed like it steered you away yeah I again I just think it's the personality some people that like to use violence it's just it might be a mental disconnect you know in some sense but also maybe the way they've been conditioned and raised I I feel personally the one positive role model in my life had an impact for me not to be that and that's my mother wow you know my mother's from the civil rights era she was no nonsense type of black woman in that sense but and she always she told me I would stand up for myself don't get me wrong but again there's people that want to fly off the hinges and be aggressive and my approach is more assertive and in respect trying to get my point across in that sense so because again I know my capability yeah and at the end result no one's gonna you don't want to be either hurting somebody in that sense and getting rid of them permanently or you don't want to have to go to jail for something that's petty it's fighting with somebody what role do you think fear plays in people being violent because it seems like you're very sure of yourself you're a solid guy you can handle yourself you seem confident if someone is less confident and fearful and they're trying to survive do you think that would make them more violent if they're fearful and trying to survive uh I don't know because some people I grew up people that were fearful and they'll run away from the situation okay they'll try to avoid the situation you know again I think it really varies on every personality type because there's different people and you have a lot of bullying happening and stuff like that and and there was time so even in in the community that I lived in me being a fair skin people were always trying to try to challenge the people that are more fair skin and in my culture in my community from that timeline so I had to prove my point a lot I had to fight a lot where they thought uh that's just a pretty boy and nothing was sweet about that you know so I had to do a lot of fighting growing up in that sense but that's more defending myself but being the aggressor it just never wasn't me to be an aggressor in that sense wow and like just curious because um back in the day when I was involved with similar sort of lifestyle someone showed me animal cruelty once and they were laughing about it and I nearly punched on with them over and would you have been the same if you I was the same uh growing up we uh I had homies that would throw rocks at stray cats or do all types of ignorant things to stray animals squirrels and whatnot and anytime I was involved in that situation even the dog fighting there's a lot of dog fighting uh that was happening between the pit bulls um and in my city and in my neighborhood and anytime I came across that even at a young age of being 11 I think the most youngest memory I can remember was a 10 or 11 where I would break up those dog fights or slap my homies across the back of their head without them knowing like what you doing like yeah it shouldn't be harming animals like that I just felt like they're vulnerable yeah um and I felt like that about other human beings like if you aren't in position where you're smaller and if you're not smaller you have some people that are I grew up with big big some homies that was huge but yeah they just wasn't there all the way mentally and and people would try to take advantage of them like that I just one thing I can't tolerate that I can't stand it's a bully yeah somebody that tries to take advantage of any human animal or non-human animal and that just ain't cool for me and that's what I'm gonna step in and I've always stepped in even as a little boy do you think your mom instilled those principles in you young no because if I'm being real my mom was never a big animal lover she she cared about humans first human rights first because I mean think about it she's from that timeline civil rights and went through her and my grandmother and others you know that's a very close generation not too far slavery isn't really not that old if you think about it civil rights is not really that old so for them to be in growing up in that timeline especially my grandmother where they was treated as animals the last thing on their mind was animals because they was conditioned to believe that animals are food and they're here for us in that sense so she not that part of her with respect to the animal connection wasn't there I just think it has always been in me naturally wow really really ascended when I went through incarceration because everything that happened to me with respect to being incarcerated and in those close conditions and even going in the hole and being in a humane situation when I was in a hole for 40 nights animals go through but animals go through worse the only thing different between me and that situation of being in a hole in an animal they don't come out alive and they're also and they're in worse conditions but just to be in that box condition where you don't know what meals getting ready to come through that that door slot or and you don't have any sunlight or any air circulating and all that you use everything reeks of urine and stuff like that been in that situation so that's why I'm really passionate about some of the same things they go through wow that is a very important connection that not many people's life has given them the opportunity to make not many people have lost all of their freedoms that we have in western countries so let's talk about prison um you you the feds got you for drug dealing they might have been doing an investigation or something they pinned you yeah I got set up they they uh was doing an investigation and without again going into details of the case they in the catching up my old lifestyle while I was getting ready to finish college caught up with me yeah um and you know like my lawyer said that's I didn't even know what the term karma met at the time but we had an opportunity to go to trial because it was consider some legal experts can consider it in the trapping case because they had informants involved that did not know me that was using my name recklessly yep as if I had a former history with them but as my attorney said um you know this is what's called karma some of the things you did in the past this is just the universe showing you that you had to pay the consequences and I I knew there was a I'm not a religious guy I'm a spiritual guy and I felt like there was a bigger reasoning why my here I am get ready to finish college and and get into a career in corporate America and far as being going down that pathway I felt like something was just not right and this was the universe bringing me in to really do a lot of evaluating really to learn myself okay everybody people in the world think they know themselves they think they know no cells very very much but I feel like some of the humans that truly know themselves are those that are in isolation yeah that are either incarcerated or soldiers at war that are in those barracks and shooting across enemy lines and they don't know if they're getting ready to get killed and or other people that are just in a situation where they don't have human content you really get a chance to learn yourself yeah on a personal level and that was a really if I had to do it again I would tell people that all the time because it made me a better man it helped me do a lot of personal help self-development a lot of a lot of I found myself while I was in there in a lot of ways from my physical to my mental and spiritual I grew I really grew in there same with me I served six months for firearm possession at my when I was at my worst and it got me clear and sober and I learned what it felt like to have nothing to have be stripped down squatting over a mirror to have no no no no fundamental rights in there you are owned basically in there property yep definitely and you sir I'll serve six months it was long enough for me to wait some people serve six days and they could wake up I like failure yeah yeah yeah but more often than not you would know from being in the system yourself is that what can happen is people become institutionalized and they go back and then prison becomes home they know they know themselves and they're comfortable in prison they don't want to leave and so but you really got something from it yeah that was my first time ever being in car so I never had a speeding ticket up into that point and nothing like that and you know it was enough honestly you could have gave me a week and I I definitely know maybe I wouldn't have grown in a sense that the man that people know me today yeah but I definitely wouldn't have went down the same path because again I was ascending in general I was not one of those guys just doing some criminal activity to do it or to be cool or just go with the flow I knew there was a better life out there that I needed to take a path towards and all the things I did up until that point was for survival I had to do what I had to do and I was done and just so happened it finally came back up to me I mean obviously I was in college so I had ambitions to be legit and do other things and yeah I mean they this is it's sad because a lot of the drug laws in America are set up to target specific groups of people you know first time offender nonviolent offender and here I am had to serve a time I didn't I didn't and I'm not saying look I'm not making the excuse I'm not crying about the situation but there are people our system is so fucked up right now there are people walking away or doing 18 days in prison for college scandal or people that are doing a lot worse crimes assault and violent crimes walking away with one year versus those that you find in specific communities with certain amount of drugs what's called a Rockefeller laws and the crack laws that really target African Americans I agree there's some people who are just psychologically dangerous to the community and they might do something that's violent but they're just inherently violent people they're not analyzed correctly they get let back out with a suspended sentence and not inside and they're they're back out in the streets you get some people who continuously might you know do drive because driving offences and they're in there for two years serving more time than this violent person who's back out in the streets it's yeah it's really doesn't make any sense but for you the the biggest lesson you learned in prison was the isolation or was it the did you have a pretty were you still in gangs at that time were you protected in there were you on your own feet it was a lot going on in there not just isolation I think the first two months was more isolation and really like still in shock like yeah what the fuck am I and that's not because I felt like I was better than other inmates you just get a sense of like wow how did I get here you know like I'm here I was in college I had a job I was I was legit I was you know working walking a straight path and it's just it's still like a shock because like you said some people go in and out of jail from as a youth going in and out I never went through that that that experience you know I sure I had homies that did and loved ones that did but sometimes you just I don't want to say you feel untouchable but you feel like why is this happening to me and I think I think any decent human would feel that way at times just trying to say like why is this happening to me and stuff like that and so that was like it was shocking first and then you just settled into it you know settle into this whole different lifestyle this whole different culture this is survival yeah I was so when you're in the fairs the fairs are a lot different in the state state is more you deal with a lot of that's what they call gladiator school yeah in the U.S. especially in the Illinois state prison system where there's fighting and killings every day had a vice lord versus the disciples and more versus the latin kings and all of that but in the feds typically in the U.S. system those are criminals 80% of them are was at their at the top of their organization or at the top whatever crime they was doing it's pretty serious enough where you have not the people of Illinois or people are London versus you it's like the people of the whole country races the people of the United States of America versus you that's a pretty scary document yeah and some of pretty pretty scary thing to see the U.S. government come at you as if you are a terrorist if you are they don't want you in your own country like you they really they really come at you hard in that sense and so when you in there you in there with king pins you in there with people executive former executives that did a lot of embezzlement and more you're in there with a bunch of different people so that experience too also helps shape you in a way can you see jane john doe is in here in here for tax fraud and vaging and stuff like this versus this other John does in here for getting caught with a hundred kilos or this other John doe was part of the cartel yeah getting he was actually the plant grower in South America and and he got extracted to the U.S. they you know the different different reasons and stuff down that you then it would never in a bunch of colorful different people and you all become like family you know you all you all kind of like because this is it's the fact that one thing I say about the feds again state you can get out easy and state is more petty crimes but feds is you're sitting down for a long time I was coming in there with those guys 18 the one in there when it was 18 on the conspiracy charts coming home and it was like 30 years old because conspiracy charges in the U.S. is the worst because they don't need evidence suspicion no yeah yeah they don't they don't they just need a little bit of evidence but once they once you're a part of that org chart the organization chart that's it yeah that's it yeah it's a trickle of fat they got all you guys whooping all you guys that was to get them off you originally wasn't it part of the reco is it reco yeah a lot of those yeah yeah it's a combination of both yeah but also to target also gang members and organizations yeah black parents is all that yeah yeah yeah very very clever of them just to bring in a new specific law it was very strategic yeah a lot of sense to do that and they use it to their advantage till this day to still tear down they can use it to their their discretion absolutely yeah absolutely and they they can take down someone's baby mother or girlfriend where she didn't know anything about it but you living with that person and guilty by association yeah they can bring in people for that yeah they did the same thing in Australia with the outlawed motorcycle gangs okay made it made it a crime for them to affiliate with each other or any so they couldn't even affiliate with friends or otherwise they would get in trouble so it was a way to break up the the gangs it worked but what it did is just made them a underground and smarter so it didn't I don't think it solved the problem but it did work on dispersing a lot of the the gangs and made it a little bit less sort of alluring to people to join yeah I've got this quote from you I think this is a very interesting quote you said if I can go plant-based in prison anyone kind of can is that yeah so when I said that that's a actually that's an older quote it's an older quote yeah there's a little bit of an older quote but when I said that that was me explaining to those that are in a position of privilege okay you know what I mean yeah that if you can if I can do it in prison which I did we didn't it's not like I went in there like oh you're being you have this option no that's not that no it's not it's not like that as the system is not set up to serve you in your dietary they make it hard for you no they make it very hard for you yeah but I I ate a lot of carbs complex and simple carbs and I would trade my meat protein with my cellies in exchange for more carbs and I will also buy more carbs off a conversation so my point was if I can sustain and go plant-based in prison someone in the world and the free world yeah that are there are in the position of privilege I'm not talking about people that in tribes or like in you know they or homeless or don't well yeah exactly when you're talking about the homeless community that's a whole delicate situation in a different situation and you're also talking about people that are just it's an educational component missing where they just don't know like you can certainly because you see so many beings like with a beans and rice is very inexpensive and all that but you missing the point of that person being educated about beans and rice you know of course knowing that uh yeah sure beans and rice is a lot cheaper than a pork chop at stake you know but they're conditionably they need that meat in that in that protein it's another element it's a lot of different complex complexities there that people don't stop to consider so you but convenience is a is just a justification a lot of people use and what you were saying was it was more inconvenient for you in prison in America so you have less excuses out there you hit on a no it was inconvenient for me in prison for those of you that have the convenience to go plant-based with your excuse especially in this day and age now where you're receiving the information the science is there when I when I went plant-based when I stopped eating meat 19 years ago we we didn't have social media we didn't have documentaries we didn't have influencers and nothing like that so what did you have how did you make this connection did you make this connection in prison I made the connection in prison yeah my first week there I I was trying to figure out again as earlier on when I said that what am I doing here you know this is part of my my journey my search trying to find understanding why I was incarcerated and I was in my cell I remember like it was yesterday my first weekend in my cell by myself I shared a cell with another guy but he was outside the cell at the time and I got down on my knees and I opened up my heart to the universe in a sense of prayer in a sense of communicating to a higher energy a higher source trying to understand why did I get placed in this scenario and everything pointed to this childhood memory right then and there it's just like this information came into my head when I was eight years old my mother used to feed us chicken wings um and because that's all she could afford she couldn't afford chicken wings and pork chops and it was this once and up until that point I was a very picky eater and I would always analyze and look at any meat I was being served as like where does it come from and it and I never questioned it up until that day so when she put the chicken wings in front of me because every time I would eat chicken wings I would always go through the cartilage and just get to the little meat part and remove it from the from the tendons and all of that I was not one of those like you know you see people eat chicken wings suck the whole suck the whole thing savage that was never like that that was never me I was just like this like a true carnival yeah right I was just like let me just carefully uh just carve out this part you know uh but up in that point I was looking at the wings then I looked at my mother then I looked at the wings and I looked at my arms then I looked back at the wings and I pushed back I said I don't want this and she looked at the wings what they mean she's like what do you mean I was like I can't eat that she's like why I was like they look like little beady arms well and that kind of shocked her you know I mean she was like huh and my mom is very outspoken and she's no nonsense in that sense and you can't waste food in our household it's like well then you're not gonna eat but she raised me to be like her and I voiced my opinion like well then I'm not gonna eat yeah so she's seen I wasn't gonna eat eventually you know we bumped heads and she eventually compromised and went out to the store to buy me fish sticks so I grew up eating a lot of fish sticks or even so it's kind of disguised yeah yeah it was a visual aid thing it was like a visual disconnect where you put it in you you wrap it up uh aesthetically to look appealing I was okay with it yeah but if it's attached to a bone I'm questioning it so that memory like instantly came into my head and I thought to myself okay I get it I get it like because I didn't push the the issue when I was eight and I was all of this was going in my head even when my lawyer said this is karma you gotta make these connections and stuff like that and I felt like I'm a firm believer of karma in the sense of this I don't care if you're an eight-year-old dominant or you're an eighty-year-old dominant when the universe shows you something in the sense of you know you know it we all been in those scenarios whether it be a food thing or a violent situation or a bad relationship or a job decision where you're gonna have an impact on customers whatever we all been in those scenarios when we know that's not right yeah you should not be doing that and if the universe shows you that and you don't fall through with it and make the right decision I feel like it's gonna pay you back in some sense it may pay you back in a form of disease incarceration financial issues who knows whatever you're gonna it's gonna eventually come back to you and I felt this was the universe showing me that yeah you that eight-year-old dominant you should have continued to follow through with that journey and now you're here and this is what I want you what I needed to understand this was part of my growth sounds like you had an epiphany in there I did I did I had a spiritual reset in there and that's when I right then and there I created this mantra for myself that if it requires harm then not I don't want to have anything to do with it meaning I didn't want to have anything to do with the industry that was destroying over 50 billion animals per year and also I want to have it be a part of a another billion dollar industry that was also destroying people in a sense of narcotics and drugs and plants I didn't want to go into none of that I didn't want to hurt nobody anymore so I did a heart reset I never looked back so that's when I decided to stop to meet amazing that is an absolutely amazing story that you made this connection without a video or seeing it you just and you had this epiphany that's absolutely like there was no preacher to you preaching veganism to you like to help this is this is like and dude this is like close to 20 years ago eight like I said 18 20 years ago where we didn't have this information like and even even still I was unsure like what the hell was gonna happen to my body you know like I was and at the time I dope boys what what they call dope boys these days but I was I wasn't fat and obese but I was definitely overweight I was like 200 and over 250 pounds wow and when I removed that meat out of my diet within the first two months I dropped all the way down to like 200 you know like instantly like after two months like and I wasn't sure like oh shit again I was ignorant to the food and nutrition side because again we didn't have information like that we've been programmed to believe protein only comes from one source and that's animals and here I am shriveling up a little bit like you know just shrinking but not realizing I'm actually my body is transforming into what it should look like without the inflammation and more this is what it should be you know but also in the same sense I became stronger you know in the sense because I started working out doing push-ups got to keep your mind busy started I jumped in a car with the guy with a couple of my cellmates and others we call it the cars four of us in the car every every workout group in the prison system on a cop on a pound on a yard had a car it was either three minutes of car or up to five minutes of car usually the sweet spot is four men and you all work like clockwork yeah you get down for example on the bench while you bench in one person to spot another person to superset in that second routine and you all switch and it's just like a circuit going all the way around and that was my car that was my my my brotherhood right there in that sense and I just started excelling like like just getting stronger and stronger where Dave was just looking at me like oh what are you doing differently to yeah yeah well I mean they knew I didn't eat meat and it's like that's that crazy that's that weirdo you know like that's crazy that he's able to and could we will have what's called liftoffs and in that scenario specifically out over a thousand inmates in the system I was in the top 10 well because I was benching four or five like it was nothing I was dead lifting over 500 pounds like it was nothing well I was squatting up to 500 pounds like it was nothing just like clockwork you know and I I gotta believe it's really because I personally believe it was because of not only my spiritual awakening but the diet too you know what I mean it really had a different because I didn't have inflammation and my recovery was a lot more better yeah it was just it was it was interesting to see me transform and see my body just rip this fuck like abbed up everywhere I had probably less than five percent fat it was just crazy so you're like a vegan advocate in prison kind of thing well you're like well you're still eating dairy and eggs and well yeah so I was vegetarian yeah and not by definition meaning like you know it's not like I can see the box of cereal that they serve in the morning and it has way in it I didn't know it had or dairy and stuff like that it's not like they give you like hey Dominic you want to read the ingredients right here before we serve it on the line you know so it's not like I could see that so even the pasta the pasta that they would serve on the line if it had cheese or dairy in it I had no control of that no but also didn't know about the dairy industry right again my ignorance a lot of people you can ask vegetarians at the time um vegetarianism was kind of closely associated with veganism a lot of vegetarians vegetarians with strong advocates for animals because they felt like well dairy is dairy you're not nothing's happening to that animal right yeah back then of course you can't get away with that now but back then we didn't have the information about what was happening to the dairy with those cows with respect to the artificial insemination basically the raping and then torturing and destroying of the animals and more we didn't have access to that information so whatever they serve on the line that had maybe eggs in it from the bread to the dairy I would eat and stuff like that but if it was like a beef product specifically I can do it you know yeah and the mate they serve in prisons it's very questionable it's not very questionable especially in the feds they were serving buffalo meat from desert storm when the storm was over a lot of leftover food was boxed and placed in cans and preserved and filled with chemicals and more and shipped off to a lot of the prison system and there was so much of it and they put it in the freezers that inmates was eating that shit five ten years later frozen and just defrosted when I went from high security to medium security I could buy fruits and vegetables from the commissary and that was so I had someone from the outside putting some money in my account and I was just getting eating mainly raw fruits and vegetables I have chicken breast and skim milk powder because I thought protein protein protein but I had a different different influence I was influenced by raw foodist so I was like 90 raw okay and then these other things I was like I need protein I don't want to be skinny like him and so I had so you made a connection there too yeah the the the connection to the animals was kind of there I wasn't firm on it until I was released and I had a reflection upon my release but but I the thing that prison did for me was sobriety because I was a I was a drug dealer I was also a drug user and I was predisposed to addiction and prison got me sober like that and so I was focusing on raw plant foods and people used to laugh at me I'd be eating carrots and all this in the unit but I feel like incorporating more plant food did something to my consciousness that made me more aware of what was going on and the gangs in there and I just had it was like a progressive sort of awakening and I think like being healthier gave me more clarity and sobriety to sort of see these mistakes and I think a lot of people don't we in this community a lot of times do advocate for how amazing the diet makes us feel but I think a lot of people don't make make that connection to advocate for how much it does appear to yeah mentally like it really changed the state of mind yeah you know you're less you're less prone to be violent for those that are violent not that say I was a violent guy I mean again I had I had a temporary time but I was able to control it in a lot of senses but you just respond differently to every different scenario that you come across you know you really at least for me personally I just respond a lot differently than I was when I was eating meat base for sure yeah even far as problem solving and stuff me myself like I was a violent person okay generally I was a violent drug dealer as a violent gang member I like snap and do something really violent yeah I was also eating a lot of animal products I kind of make that correlation I know it's not scientific but since I've been vegan I haven't assaulted anyone I haven't you know I might have like a feeling of being pissed off which is normal yeah but I don't act on that anger yeah I mean I also got sober so that was another thing stopped eating animal products and left gangs and left those influences I wasn't in a survival situation anymore in a sense so I think all of those factors coming in together um yeah sorry and how if I how long you've been vegan yeah I've been vegan for six years six years okay and so you still find a little bit of that anger um it's really um it's there every now and then yeah but it's nowhere near what it was when it hurt when you first I could smash a bottle on someone's face or stick a knife in someone's leg or like I was really violent and that was how I dealt with my emotion and yeah try to survive and I've it's never come to that point where I'm like I would do what I had to do if someone tried to attack me or my family for sure yeah anyone but you gotta be reactive I've never thought I'm gonna actually act out yeah that anger on someone yeah yeah like conspire to do it yeah like premeditated premeditated yeah yeah so yeah of course there's situations where there's been someone yelling in my face I've got adrenaline and like dude but like never like I used to plot it out yeah I used to be like yeah I'm gonna get this like for weeks and months and a year like you could have done something to me two years before that and I would have thought about it you know still be still be gunning for someone so yeah that that side of me is definitely I think what for me was you know it's like a muscle this compassion muscle like where you're like showing compassion to different types of animals and different species of animals and chickens you know and fish and you're like I would never want to hurt a fish you know I would never I used to drag fish out the ocean and kick them around and stuff I never thought of that um so I think that for me showing compassion to animals it started to like flow out into human beings more that's good I mean because I feel like a lot of you know I've been in this community a long time I mean I've been advocating for animals even in prison yeah I was advocating telling people they're like why you don't do that I'm like it makes no sense like if you look at our hands this is engineered for picking yeah not for clawing and so that's another reason why it was very easy for me just to go into this lifestyle but I see a lot of vegans a lot of people in our community especially those that are like in the very new stage the newbies are very aggressive and very can turn a little bit more violent that was me yeah I was an aggressive think about it's like you've been in the matrix and you got uplifted and all of a sudden you realize oh shit I've been lied to you feel betrayed by society you know get your hands off that animal yeah but you feel betrayed in general like you know because you you felt like this whole time you thought she was a decent person or if you would know you was a shitty person it doesn't matter but you just felt like and nobody likes to be deceived in no sense so you just see a lot of people aggressively acting out and there's nothing wrong with being an advocate and being involved in activism but my problem and one thing I would hope the community starts to realize we should be more assertive not aggressive because 90 over 90 percent of us used to eat meat we wasn't born in our belly of our moms that came out with this Jedi vegan sword and say hey leave animals alone like you're the second coming or something you know I mean like and and so when we make that connection and have that empathy I think we can connect more with people and I'm not saying being apologetic about their poor habits and lifestyles but educate them assertively not shamefully because you see a lot of people that call their call some stranger or some woman on the street everything in a book from a fur whore to a fur hat and slap them with a sticker but they wouldn't do the same to their own mother who's not vegan or to their own sister you realize that woman is someone's mother or someone's sister or someone's lover or partner so I think we just need to make that connection a little bit more I would like to see that connection yeah I agree with you I agree I never well what I used to do was when I was talking to a camera I was a lot more full on than if I was actually talking to someone on the street and then I started to make that I was like wait a second so there's just a bunch of people that are like technically on a street just watching me on the screen and I'm acting like this yeah but if I'm face to face with someone I talk to them more respectfully yeah so then I started to incorporate the respectful part to my advocacy online and I completely I deleted about a hundred of my videos yeah it's good you're growing and you're evolving and that's why I think none of us is none of us perfect right and there's no handbook and none of us perfect there's a lot of great ways to do activism from street activism to online activism to going into institutions and educating them on an academic level I always say this community is like it's like the Justice League's crash with the Avengers you have different capes and different uniforms I might not like that blue cape or that yellow cape or that superhero I might like the red cape better or whatever but we all doing something and we're not remaining silent but I just think it's more effective to be compassionate towards humans can humans are animals too and we make mistakes too that's a big one there humans are animals too yeah when I realized that people don't make that connection yeah no no I do think aggression is somewhat subjective because being assertive you could be assertive to someone on the street and then there will be a percentage of people would say you're too aggressive yeah and then they could push you into a corner where you're not even saying anything like yeah but even on the street so if you meet a Jane Doe or John Doe on the street they may not just identify with you you know like for example you being a male of non-color if you go into the hood especially in the states um and try to communicate that to somebody a corner bore they might they might get violent with you they might who the fuck are you like you know me like so it's really the communicator you know so we have to use that to our advantage we have some people in the community that can go into a different community to educate while others can some people can go into an Ivy League school because they have multiple degrees and those students will have more respect for them and maybe somebody like you and I that came off the street yeah like you could go into a prison and be like I've done three years and yeah this is what I think and then people are going to be like straight away oh he knows what it's like to be in here right yeah correct exactly so we had to we had to strategically use those voices to commit connect to those communities and then we can have a big change you can never panda to everyone you can't you can only have your demographic and and there's always going to be people that don't appreciate you there's going to be a lot of that do and yeah yeah and don't feel defeated about it I think that some people think just because they haven't connected with somebody and that's when they start calling them a name you're not going to win every bottle you're not going to convince everybody because human beings are visual creatures and some people aspire to look like others that look like them or they want to listen to someone that looks like them that's the problem with like white supremacy and stuff like that they don't want to listen to nobody of color they they rather listen to a male that looks like them that understands them it's just so many problems in that sense yeah yeah it's all about perception and there can be so many different sort of people advocating and still people think there's just there's just one way and I think that's a big mistake because there's some people that don't talk about animals at all right and they might just be doing this bodybuilding thing and plant-based eating and people might have a go at them are you not talking about animals and then I like try to remind them that the person who inspired me rarely talked about animals he wasn't even a vegan he was a raw food advocate and he was talking about the power of plants and I did a juice fast and lost all this weight and I start and he's just talked about karma a bit oh you're eating the suffered animal once and so I was inspired by someone who wasn't even now my full-blown animal rights that sure you know sure and that's that's interesting of a transition you made a connection other other ways I meet a lot of people in our community that probably went for health reasons or environmental reasons and a lot of those people are even going back to the health reason the bodybuilding some people consider no vein but then they made the connections from the ethical standpoint yeah and you know I think no matter why like I admit secretly years and years ago I mean I'm I consider myself ethical vegan I went I stopped eating meat for the animals yeah I didn't do it to look a certain way we didn't have environmental issues going on the last thing a young guy for me a kid from Chicago was thinking about was a fucking environment no but as I grown into my advocacy and I grown into activism in general it's a beautiful thing even if they stopped doing it to look a certain way because at the end of the day they stopping animals would be destroyed so let them have at it if that's their reason for doing it who are we to shame them or talk shit about them for going for that reason the more reasons the better yeah and the more inclusive this community can't become specifically yeah sure there are different terminologies we can use vegan versus plant based but we're still a very young community yeah and criticizing and being aggressive in that sense it's only going to turn people off in the community we need all the wins we can get and this could just be a ticket in for them to you know they could become an animal advocate yeah they could it's just all the tickets in to this you know all the tickets in yeah exactly and some people just don't make that connection yeah you talk about something compassionate masculinity I'm really curious about this do you want to speak about that yeah it's it's a beautiful thing now here in 2019 historically what you consider masculine was eating hamburgers or driving the most updated car again we can talk about different cultures in that sense but the way they target men back in the day compared to they still do target them today you see it on all types of commercials and billboards you know you're hungry to steak or look at the movies where the superheroes are doing all types of things and then that actor sometimes we don't remove that actor from that person that they're playing and we look at the oh that's the rock or that's Batman eating a burger outside of that role of the movie and stuff like that a lot of that has influences on young kids and stuff like that but now we have social media where we don't have to rely on the media influence of outsiders or movies and more because kids are opening up their phones instead of opening up a tv kids are opening up their phones instead of running to the next movie and they see people like me you and other men in this community that are redefining what it means to be masculine and show compassion you can show compassion to animals and human animals you can protect and speak out about these things without being viewed as a feminine person and there's nothing wrong with being a feminist too I think it's incredibly inspiring to see this new age of men truly become what they are meant to be protectors educators and even greater than what men of yesterday was wow do you think there's more stigma on men uh with in terms of showing compassion and showing emotion uh yeah I think that's still there in a sense like don't show compassion or don't show emotion because you consider weak even some women still are disconnecting they will consider they don't want to oh I don't want to weak guy and stuff like that yeah yeah but I don't think there's nothing wrong with wearing your emotions outside on your sleeve per se meaning like communicating your thoughts because that's the only way we're going to get from point A to point B to point C to point D if you communicate if you keep that bottled up you know there's no telling what can happen if that person is triggered in the wrong way they may explode and it may explode in a very violent way you know so I think it's incredibly important for us to communicate our thoughts as men and women as well as human beings yeah about what we feel is right and what we feel is wrong so what do you think about uh some of the negative consequences of bottling things up in terms of what it can do not bottling emotions up but men but that don't aren't open yeah I I think it can definitely have an impact on you mentally um I am from that timeline where you don't communicate your feelings yeah I even grew up in a household where I didn't you don't get hugs and stuff like that you get out there and do what you gotta do like yeah my mother was an OG you know I mean just because she was a woman she still was a gangster you know I mean a lot of ways yeah and you just deal with your own problems and solve it on your own and stuff like that um but it's not good it's not good for your mental health it's good to talk about your problems um because you have communities and sub communities out there that are going through similar stuff especially if you got a large platform yeah show that you in human it humanizes you make you likeable makes you relatable yeah you say yeah I had a fucking shitty day yeah I had a fucking shitty year like and I'm going on record if we ever see this this has been a challenging year for me personally in a lot of different ways and stuff like that I'm not perfect what you see online uh and I talk about that a lot I tell people and I think that helps and that's what that's the that's the positive of social media when you can be social about those issues and talk about that uh to communities because you never know who you may inspire to do something better or stop somebody from doing something maybe suicidal you know yeah that's so powerful um I've recently uh been in PTSD therapy for a lot of things I saw in my past and a lot of things I did and you know a lot of things I feel guilty about and you've seen a lot of uh crazy things as a youth that you said you've seen your first murder at five yeah how did you spiritually overcome those traumas did you have trauma I I was the first murder like I said we'd sit in the car this this guy he ran a red light and hit this little girl that was crossing the street and the gang it was the vice lords right there specifically the tvls um um they seen uh her she went up about 10 feet in the air 10 15 feet in the air landed she was in shock she got up and ran across the street but it was a drunk driver he kept driving and they ran out and at that time they had oozies automatic like semi oozies uh classic oozies and sprayed them like you know because he kept going and you know they called himself protecting the hood protecting the community they knew that little girl you know what I mean like and this and this wasn't a gang of older guys this is probably a gang of like 17 18 young men you know running spraying up that car and you can see his brains blah blah blah you know um so I think and then my mom I was in the car my mom she's like get out get out like you just hit a pop pop pop pop all of that uh it was shocking at first but then it just started becoming a way of life you know you'll walk home and see somebody getting off on a corner for being shortchanged or anything like that you walk in the alleyway see dump bodies and shit like it just became the norm and for some scenarios like that you know or you hear about it and we moved into a better neighborhood but still you'll see other things too you know and and it just never it just became the norm for me just a better neighborhood didn't mean a good neighborhood it means right well it just means a better living conditions and less violent that's yeah yeah less violent yeah so did you deal with any of those traumas growing up or you just dealt with them yourself or did you get any therapy for that or I didn't get any therapy into so I end up going into playing football you know uh my mother felt like I should you know I gravitated naturally playing football too I just wanted to play something and I at times not not when we lived at that one because I never had my own bedroom and then we when we moved into a different area I finally had my own bedroom we still stay in an apartment so I I grew up without a house and yard and all that shit I still grew up in an apartment unit type of thing and up until that one point I finally had my own private area I had to get through that area get to my sister's room to get to that area but it was a storage unit my mom did but she can she converted the storage unit into a bedroom for me and I would take my anger out and I don't think it was from seeing the violence I just think it was a lot of just me coming to age trying to figure out my belonging in society and I didn't have a male really to sit down one-on-one to talk to me on those in that in that development area I had males that were showing me about fast money or doing that type of thing when I described my cousins and all of that but not to really sit down to talk to me about a lot of critical things so at times especially when my father tried to come back into my life you know he'll say I come pick you up and and stuff like that and never showed up you know and I would get mad that that triggered me and I would just like drill holes in my mother's walls and that's when I decided to get into football my mother bought me my first um um weight bench when I was in fifth grade um it was a joe weeder bench and I would hit the weights in fifth grade it's a little 10 11 year old hitting weights and playing junior football and I and I destroyed on that field I took all my anger out on that field you know in that sense like you know just took it out on the other kids on the field and it really excelled in football um so that's I I kind of dealt with I guess if you want to say trauma on the field yeah and then I started drinking when I was 13 um and this one scenario where my mother asked me to go see a therapist you know because she couldn't get through to me in a lot of differences and stuff because again I'm still a teenager I'm like 12 13 at the time and her colleague my mother was a nurse so this was a free service like her colleague was like my mother felt like I was she was afraid of my future you know because think of all the shit she's seen growing up and me being where I'm from us kids we didn't know we was gonna make it to the age of 18 and and we'll be happy if we made it to the age of 21 25 that's the state of mind that all of us was in you lose a lot of friends yeah I lost a lot of friends I lost a lot of homies from murder to prison and more so that state of mind was always there yeah so I went to go see this therapist one time my mother begged me to go see her and I seen her that one time and she asked me about my problems what was going up and it was a white woman and at the end of the session she didn't give me no solutions like okay we'll talk next week and I was like that's it like yeah you just want me to talk to you about my problems and and she couldn't identify with me she's a white woman she can know nothing about me and my my culture and what I was going through and I went home and told my mother about it and I was like you know I'm not never going back to that because she asked my mother asked me just to try one time if I don't like it I don't have to go back and I and I never look back that was the only experience I had with a therapist and it so happened that that little experience was able to get my lawyer to put me in the drug program in prison to say I had a a drinking problem that gave me more time off my sentence because I was being there for five years I had a hard year five year and pretty much a five-year release supervised house arrest sentence so that reduced my sentence when I was getting involved in drug programs so that helped something good came out of it something good came out of that that medical record shot that that's just something good came out of that but yeah in terms of we dealt with trauma differently yeah a lot of us growing up we did it seems like uh some people are affected by trauma differently too you've always been had a strong mindset you seem very you know cool calm and collected for me I exercise didn't do it exercise didn't do it it started to manifest in different forms of my behavior and I'd get triggers and reminders and so I did need a good solid year of therapy and it was hard to trust someone with all the deepest darkest parts of yourself and yeah it was a big step forward in my evolution for sure did it help it one like I'd say I'm 70% better yeah than where like there's some things that will never leave you yeah but I do think it helped just revisiting them and just processing them yeah because when you sometimes when something full on happens you don't have time to process it oh no your friends are just like whatever dude yeah it's life is fast you run it yeah just put it down there yeah and you forget about it keep it moving and then it comes back up like something might trigger you might hear a noise you might be in a crowded place and you might be like well what's going to happen here yeah so uh it was a real big uh like I do recommend it for those who find the right person exactly and who need it and there's different modalities for therapy especially trauma therapy so for sure for sure I agree with you those that are listening to this like it's good it's nothing wrong with seeking out help yeah you're not viewed as weak no you know I mean you seek out help or talk about your problems you definitely should yeah I think it's a strength yeah it's a strength yeah to be able to do that yeah yeah for sure I think the only the I so we're talking about trauma it's funny the only thing that I I I can't get rid of uh and I don't care and I talked to I publicly talk about this a lot is I have so in my apartment I have a trap what's it they call a door trap where you put the uh right under the door now so nobody can't push it in yeah because I still prison has such an impact being incarcerated and in those conditions that to this day it used to be very vivid I used to dream all the time that I was still locked up now it's probably once every three or four months but I I don't want to be caught off guard by the the feds coming in my door like no you gotta give us some more time so I still put that trap you know kicking this one in yeah well I want to hear it coming you just want I want to be prepared I don't want to be caught off guard and I'm in the bed and boom lights on me and stuff like that but not to say that the feds are coming at me but my point is it's a sense of security and also I mean Atlanta and Georgia is known for a lot of home evasion it's no matter the neighborhood you can live in a good neighborhood bad neighborhood it's just known for home evasion they come from the bad neighborhood to get to the good neighborhood they do both yeah they do both so that's still there yeah just the fact just so you guys know I still deal with that's a trauma I deal with to this day yeah thinking sometimes I have a dream that I'm still incarcerated for sure it did have an impact on me yeah um and it depends on how much it affects your life with a how much treatment you would need for that but it seems like you got things locked down yeah yeah yeah when you wake I mean I wake up I'm like okay that was a dream you know I mean and I talk about it openly yeah but some things don't leave you you know some things just don't leave you yeah I agree so look uh you're a big guy you have a is it a nutrition program called eat what elephant yeah yeah eat what elephants eat for sure you are definitely a big dude now do you want to talk about a little bit about that program and then go into a little bit about what you eat yeah so over the last I've been on a speaking tour um like hardcore for the last five six years specifically advocating and educating in universities to vegan events to conferences you name it far as like publicly not what I was doing internally but I was causing all this disruption and people when they meet me and they see me uh they buy holy shit you really are big you know like versus like you know people have ways to make themselves look bigger online and stuff like that but then people meet me a person like you're a big dude uh and they inspire them uh men or women to want to eat plant based those omnivores and it's like okay I'm ready to go I'm ready to go they'll listen they're like I'm ready to go so I was causing all this disruption even the disruption I was causing online because at that point too um like I don't know how long you've been in that space of social media yourself but there was one point when Instagram first came out because I was on it very early I had the largest VML account at the time wow and it had a lot and it was organically it wasn't through none any of these other ways these kids do with buying followers or re-sharing each other just organically growing and that's a whole different story we can get into but my point is I was causing this disruption um but with no solution you know I can tell them like hey go here go there or go to this program here or go to this website here but a lot of those websites I didn't vet I didn't have a chance to vet and they'll come back like dude it's just who was this guy this girl or this person telling me how to eat and they don't look like you you know I mean they don't look like you uh or the program wasn't really uh legit in this sense so there was only so much delegation I can do causing all this disruption I needed a solution so I spent a year uh with my team developing this program that has everything covered from A to B where you have RD on on the staff you have nutritionist on the staff where we developed these meal this meal planning program where you get your macro and your micro information based on your personal preference we have over 3 000 plant based recipes in there and you can remove up to 700 ingredients either because you have an allergy or you have a preference if you don't like soy even if you don't like avocado gluten tomatoes you can remove that and we'll produce a recipe a meal plan specifically for you and what was more important for me too because a lot of those programs out there people will go to meal planning programs in the market space now costs anywhere between 200 to 300 dollars per month wow I wanted to make it accessible and more importantly affordable yeah because my background I come from if we want people to eat plant based we had to give them some education in the sense of being free in a lot of different ways and it's very affordable less than $2 a week you're getting access to all these programs you can access to these health coaches that's going to get you there Monday through Friday you can call into them you can email them you can chat them and we walk you step by step by either you want to get shredded you want to get big or you just want to eat to save animals we help you out from point A to point B it's a very beautiful program very inexpensive too so good that you remove things as well because people I'd love to go vegan but I'm allergic to nuts yeah got you covered you're urgent enough I love to go vegan but I only got five minutes for the kitchen yeah we got you boom you can set it for five minutes in the kitchen 10 minutes in the kitchen or you can set it for 50 minutes you're giving such an advanced levels and you tell us what you have in your kitchen well I have a Vitamix but I don't have a stove but I don't have a microwave tell us exactly what you had it takes five minutes to fill out that question there and we'll we'll formulate that meal plan for you and your lifestyle wow it's really it's really top it all up you're taking people's excuses away yeah more excuses less excuses the better yeah again those that are in those situations where they can definitely go plant-based and and make that connection yeah the excuses are gone whether you're a working professional a college student on a budget a soccer mom or somebody that's just not sure we got a program for you that's and we're not non-judgmental we'll send you emails we'll we'll help you we truly do get involved with you day to day wow so a lot of the time before you're just talking about the problem this is the problem the animals are being hurt and you gotta stop eating but you weren't giving them this sort of tailored solution to people exactly a lot of us do a lot of us that are speaking out about animals I'll say well go vegan go vegan it's like okay how do I go vegan or they'll direct them to a website they have any of vetted themselves and then they'll go to that website and they're like and they'll end up falling people want to be associated with websites based on the way you eat you specifically Joey Carson or you John Doe or you Dominic Thompson and I use my own meal plan program too you know so it's based on the way I produce as an athlete so what do you use your email program what are your requirements for protein how do you get that how do you design your diet what do you eat predominantly yeah so it really depends on what I'm training for for you listeners out there may I mean I know I'm a multi-sport athlete so I done did Ironman triathlons I done did marathons more my background includes power lifting the more I have a very colorful background in sense of athletic and fitness achievement so if I'm training like I took three years off from the triathlon circuit but I'm getting back into it next year so if I'm training for like an endurance sport it's a different type of meal plan it's a different type of program I'm going more raw based with respect to smoothies and juicing and stuff like that because not only is it convenient but I'll get more calories in yeah and the body just my body and I want to be very clear with this because I think a lot of people don't stop to think about this my body responds differently to certain plants in the plant-based world I mean you got thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of plants out there I think there's over I don't want to give that number without saying I think it's over 30,000 different types of plants that we can eat edibly now that's on record I think could be wrong with that number but people body responds differently to plants like my body might respond amazing to juice watermelons with beets in terms of a pre-workout yours may not you may respond better to just juice beets and your muscles might even take better to like a smoothie filled with mangoes and bananas and mines might take better to a smoothie filled with hemp seeds and bananas or whatever the case may be I think that's what's beautiful about this lifestyle because you get to tweak it as you go you get to just enjoy the journey you know I mean like don't just rely on this don't follow Dominic's specific his personal meal plan you get you create your own meal plan through us but also tweak it as you go because you may find yourself doing amazing things on a kale-based smoothie or a vegan bowl and you're feeling very fulfilled versus someone that say hey I just want to keep it empty and keep it light and go with a smoothie so it varies and biologically speaking there's protein in everything yeah and I'm pretty sure everybody on your platform already knows that yeah there might be some that don't and they might be you know wondering how much do you weigh I weigh about 200 pounds wow yeah big boy so you got to eat a lot of calories no not at all yeah and I again people think I'm bigger than that when you look uh look at me in person uh you feel people think I'm like 220 210 and like that but I get all the way down to like when I'm doing triathlons I get down to like 185 solid just solid but I'm still the muscles are not going anywhere I mean they they don't get more shredded in the sense you know what I mean but for the most part it's still there uh because I'm naturally a big guy in that sense uh but protein wise uh I get anywhere between 50 to 100 grams of protein per day um and it's and that and that's not that much that's not that much that's not that much at all yeah 50 to 100 grams of protein protein is overrated yeah um what people fail to realize is with respect to protein it's only so much the body can process in one sitting yeah the rest of it's going out your ass yeah it's just waste your body depends on your body type your size the only process sometimes up to 15 grams or it varies it varies on you even genetics varies but for the most part your body's not in a process 100 grams of protein in one sitting you're gonna be you're gonna be shitting and passing gas like it's no tomorrow you know it needs time to recover from that that protein specifically well and it's a big focus for bodybuilders eating like a whole chicken a day just to get their protein well that's because of the marketers it's an unregulated industry the supplement industry wants you to buy tubs and tubs of protein and other supplements it's unregulated by governments in the US and the governments over here no one regulates the supplement industry so they can say all they want to buy yeah you need a gram per pound or point 1.5 per pound and stuff like that and it's just you have to be very critical about where you're getting that information from there's no real science to back that up like I said I get 5100 grams for protein and I'm still able to out lift some of the biggest boys out there this guy's that way more than me they can't even bang with me on the way down and stuff like that and you also have to be critical too to realize some people are taking shortcuts you know I mean like so don't get caught up in the hype of bodybuilding and aesthetic thinking like oh I can look like that if I eat plant-based or I can achieve that goal because some of those guys and girls are taking peas and stuff like that so you got to be very conscious about that too as well would you say carbohydrates are more important for athletic performance absolutely you need energy carbohydrate good with whole plant-based carbohydrates not the box processed foods those are I mean ironically everything you consume even the most reprocessed foods have some former protein in it but you don't want that type of protein because it has a lot of other additives in it even harmful metals in some scenarios with the powder form so you got to be careful with that where you're sourcing your protein from specifically very interesting and I'm very surprised that you're only getting between 50 to 100 grams of protein and a lot of people are yeah very very surprised at that I thought you're gonna say something like 200 grams nope not at all 5100 is all I need so um where to from here what what's your aspirations from here on out uh yeah so right now we're we're moving into phase two of eat well elephants eat we phase one has been a success we have a great community of subscribers and people that are now uh either if you want to call them plant-based or vegan or reducetarian whatever you want to define them and we have a very colorful demographic in that sense and we're moving into phase two which is introducing our superfood lines for smoothies whether you're talking about rock a cow hemp seeds and some athletes do want a quick way to get a smoothing in on through the sense of uh something ethically sourcing in a form of powder protein so we're developing like a new type of product in that sense so superfood line is coming out phase three uh it's our juice and smoothie bars that will be out and and then phase four is the restaurants I told you about where people can eat plant-based based on a lot of the recipes we provide on the meal plan program it's a really dope um ecosystem that I'm developing in that sense eat well if it's going to be something amazing so will that be able to meet the same requirements so will that be that's okay we'll go into your restaurant uh no the restaurant is about experience yeah you have you got a chance to uh honestly if we was in my place right now I'll show you some of our most desired bowls and you guys can look on my ground yeah or eat well if it's eat to see those bowls but people that had an opportunity to make the vegan bowl or even experience me making the vegan bowl um it's pretty much an amazing recipe I'm really happy about those bowls that we're going to put out there in the sense of a restaurant experience so yeah yeah that's just where we're that's where we're going right now just trying to I'm just trying to really at the end of the day feed the world because also another part of the phase of eat well efficiency we're going to be acquiring a lot of urban lands for urban farming um in that sense where we're going to have small lands to um employ local natives and people in that in our community that need a second chance a third chance and teach them a whole different skill set and also to serve an underserved community people living in food deserts and stuff that's what we're going to be doing and our number one customer and our customers are going to be in our community and also our storefront in our Jesus Moody bar so truly farm to table is a philosophy in the next three to five years that we're going to do with eat well efficiency amazing seems like you've got it all mapped out and that's such a good idea to bring it into the communities and educate them and have their own little food farm there it's really good yeah educate and feed and most importantly too like I said get people second chances and even people that deserve third chance that need employment and just truly educate them about the beautiful thing about plants and stuff like that um I don't see enough of that going on and I we we want to really uh be a trailblazer in that sense to create this amazing uh equal farm system and urban guarding and more to really have people be inspired and learn a whole new skill sets that they can thrive off of and even hopefully have a career as we grow they will grow specifically and then we'll have a main farm too as well that'd be off away from there where we have more crop and stuff like that and also have an area for rescuing animals as well so good my passion is always animals but also my passion is human animals too so I'm just trying to this helps both yeah it helps both too really good any last words any last inspiring words for those listening there might be vegans listening might be some non-vegans listening activists listening what would you say to everyone I think everybody needs to allow our life for everyone to understand that life is complex you know it's a it's a challenge and not everyone um really understands that what other people may be going through is having an impact on a way they produce and and and the things they do in society saying all that to say is that just be assertive in your activism so the activists out there be assertive in your activist activism um and don't feel ashamed that you may not be doing a street activism or or doing another form of activism don't feel like you're being not included because there's many forms of activism you have food activism you have those that are active with showing their bodies you have people that are active with showing their intellect you have people activists through podcasting and you have street activism I think it's a beautiful thing where you have different forms of active activism get involved in one of them that you feel comfortable with but go at your pace and be assertive and not aggressive so that's really what I want to really say to people about that brother thank you so much for coming on appreciate it a lot and keep up the amazing work and I hope everyone goes and follows you and if they need a meal plan eat whatever elephants eat yeah they need anything you just want to connect with me um yeah yeah just reach out to me open book yeah thanks so much bro thanks for having me cheers bro we've just done a lot of podcasts we did man we did we did that's cool man it's good to speak to something like we're headed about all that as well like