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Summary
On episode 63 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Adam and Shoshana Chaim, the husband-and-wife personal trainers behind The Plant Trainers, who help clients move toward a plant-based diet.
Adam explains how a scary health episode, a suspected kidney tumor and a possible genetic disorder, pushed him to research nutrition and switch to a plant-based diet overnight, while Shoshana describes needing to see the science before she came around months later.
They talk through what changed in Adam's follow-up scans, how plant-based eating affected his recovery from serious endurance training, and how taste buds shift once processed food and animal products are scaled back.
Links
- https://planttrainers.com
Key Takeaways
- Adam's health scare started with chest pain and a hospital visit that found a kidney tumor. Doctors initially wanted to remove the kidney immediately, but Adam sought second and third opinions and insisted on a biopsy first rather than losing a body part on a rushed diagnosis.
- The tumor turned out to be benign, but doctors flagged a possible life-threatening genetic disorder called VHL. That scare is what sent Adam looking into nutrition research in the first place.
- Adam switched to a plant-based diet overnight after reading triathlete Brendan Brazier's work. He's clear that this “flick of the switch” approach is not what The Plant Trainers recommend to clients, since abrupt changes tend to cause people to regress quickly.
- Follow-up scans showed Adam's tumor shrinking and his eye artery blood flow visibly improving. Ultrasound intervals stretched from every three months to every two years as the tumor got smaller, and a retinal exam a year apart showed his eye arteries go from narrow and faded to bright red and thick, changes his ophthalmologist couldn't explain any other way.
- Plant-based eating dramatically cut Adam's exercise recovery time and inflammation. That let him train for and complete an Ironman, several half Ironmans, marathons, and a 50-mile ultra trail run, often with two workouts in a single day.
- Shoshana needed evidence, not just Adam's conviction, before she'd change. It took six to eight months for her to fully drop eggs and cheese, but she saw her energy, skin, and weight improve as she went, and her parents lost weight quickly once they followed her lead.
- Taste buds actually change once processed food, excess sodium, and char from animal products are removed. Foods like tofu, quinoa, and brown rice that people say they don't like often become appealing once they're eaten regularly and learn how to season them.
- The Plant Trainers don't push clients to go fully vegan overnight. They meet clients wherever they are and coach them toward simply adding more plants, whatever level that means for that person.
“The body just recovers and reduces so much inflammation so quickly that you're able to bounce back from an intense workout the following day.”
Adam Chaim