A pair of vegan bodybuilding champs have insisted 'you don't need meat to build muscle'.
Clare, 47, and Mark Bennett, 51, from Hull, believe they are proof that a plant-based diet can still achieve amazing results.
The pair, who run their own gym, ditched meat many years ago and have not looked back, reports Hull Live.
And they were recently crowned winners of the couples category at Hull FMU Bodybuilding and Fitness show.
They are now on a mission to break down misconceptions that you need meat to bulk up and that 'eating flesh builds flesh'.
Mum-of-two Clare, who has been eating a fully plant-based diet since 2015, said: "Being plant-based certainly did not hinder us which is the perception in bodybuilding.
"Mark and I have always wanted to get on stage as bodybuilders. It was the best feeling ever to get that first place trophy, like a dream come true.
"Also it is a beautiful legacy for our children, Amy and Dax. Hopefully they will get over the embarrassment of Mum and Dad on stage in very little clothing and they will be inspired by the fact that at 47 and 51 Dad could still lift Mum above his head!
"How many couples can say this?"
Clare, who was a vegetarian for 18 years before going vegan, said her and husband Mark want to show a plant-based diet is a good way of life, and inspire others to follow in their footsteps.
She went plant- based after reading 'The China Study’ and was introduced to a whole new world of nutritional thinking.
She said: "I decided that I was going to go plant-based and tried my best to persuade everyone to do the same – usually by spouting facts and figures and wondering why people were not listening.
"I have two aims when I meet people and that is to persuade them to resistance train – either in a gym, on a pole or in the aerial studio, and to stop eating animals and their excretions – for your health and longevity, for the animals and the environment."
Clare said it can be hard for people to transition to a plant-based diet, but that many people like her never look back once converted.
She said: "Experience has now taught me that transitioning to a whole foods plant-based diet is different for everyone and people need space and guidance to transition into this way of eating.
"In the early days we came across lots of prejudice. People are always shocked. The first thing everyone says is 'where do you get your protein?' To which I always reply ‘plants'."
Bodybuilding diets are notoriously restrictive, but Clare says being vegan allows her to eat a range of foods like oats, berries, scrambled tofu, avocado, brown rice and quinoa.
"I absolutely love cooking and my Instagram account is full of everything we eat," she said. "We have lots and lots of colourful food and full of variety.
"We eat rice and beans, chilli, pizza bean burgers, in fact anything a meat eater eats, I can create a meat and animal product free version.
"During competition preparation food is less varied and more mono foods based as this is easer to track calories and how much fat, protein and carbs we are eating.
"We eat like a typical bodybuilder by maintaining a high protein low calorie diet coming up to competition so that we can preserve muscle whist losing fat.
"I tend to use foods that are slightly more processed such as fake meats as these are easy to calculate because they have a food label and its easier to find foods with lower carbohydrates compared to whole foods.
"Once the season is over we are right back on the whole foods plant based diet."
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