What are your favorite books about vegan fitness, vegan nutrition, or animal rights?

Happy Monday, everyone! We've had so many new members join the Vegan Squad Community over the last few months - huge welcome everyone! 💚💚 We're thinking about hosting a Community Re-Introduction & Live Q&A call on Saturday, August 15th, for about an hour! It's a chance to: • Meet the Vegan Squad Coaches • Get to know other members of the community • Ask us any vegan health, nutrition, fitness, or lifestyle questions Please vote for all the times that work for you so we can choose the best option for everyone. We can't wait to reconnect with you! ☺️💚

We are getting triple digits here regularly- so HOT 🔥. If anyone has rain send it to New Mexico. The Rio Grande is dirt dry, not even a mud puddle.

hey all. my name is meg (they/them), i live in pittsburgh, pa. i joined because i don’t have a vegan community & only one local vegan friend (that i know of). i’ve been in 12 step recovery in NA for almost 4 years now. it feels relevant because part of my core commitment to myself is to not cause harm to myself & to others. i have felt guilty & like a hypocrite for a long time for eating animals, but my relationship with food was so damaged that i did not trust myself or feel confident enough in my ability to know how to eat vegan in a way that was sustainable. and these days i am not interested in making commitments i can’t keep because it is too damaging to my self-esteem. i have been consistently training with progressive overload as the core principle for around 3 years. my body composition has changed in a meaningful way though i still feel like i have a long way to go to achieve the physique i desire. the area i have struggled most with is nutrition. i have consistently tracked food for probably close to 2 years now, but got more honest & diligent with it since the beginning of this year. i did not grow up cooking but have been practicing getting better with it for a few years & have come to really enjoy it. something switched in the past month for me, i think with following a few vegan bodybuilders including John on IG, & i realized there are multiple sources of high vegan protein that i can prepare & rely on consistently (that taste fucking good too), where i just had an awakening that i at least know enough about nutrition & food preparation that i feel i can commit to a vegan lifestyle. it makes me feel grounded to know i am doing this because of my values, not because of health, but that i can also confidently continue to work on my physique & performance while making this major change. i know this post is pretty long but i figured this is the one place that made the most sense to write about this, & i don’t really have people in my life i can talk to about it. my mom & my partner know, she has decided she wants to try it too. my partner still eats animals & animal products but does enjoy eating “plant-based.” when we visited Boston together recently it was his idea to eat at Veggie Galaxy.

Does veganism imply perfection and therefore breed guilt/shame/identity collapse over slip-ups? Does it allow room for real-life variation and human foibles, especially during transition? Does it add unnecessary pressure to perform that keeps people from trying or succeeding? How perfect do you have to be and for how long until you can call yourself a vegan? Is plant-based a better descriptor? Do labels even matter? What are your thoughts?