John Joseph - Meat Is for Pussies: A How-To Guide for Dudes Who Want to Get Fit, Kick Ass, and Take Names

This book is dedicated to all of the warriors for truth, freedom, and health worldwide.

Contents

You may think that Meat Is for Pussies is a book about why we should remove animal products from our diet. Certainly it is that. But between the lines, I see so much more.

From a survivor who has gone to hell and back, this book is a manifesto on the ethos of masculinitywhat it truly means to be a man of strength and purpose in modern society. A finely tuned primer on course-correcting our upside-down cultural priorities. A road map for living a legacy-worthy life of meaning. And a call to action to once and for all seize control of our health and our lives so we can unlock and unleash the best part of who we are and what we leave behind in this short, precious life.

We live in a curious time when literally everything has become about facilitating comfort and ease. Our cultural mandate has become the elimination of obstacles and challenges, the brass-ring achievement defined by leisurea life free of stress, pain, hardship, and struggle. Meanwhile, our focus is keenly placed on the accumulation of stuff , most of which is specifically designed to make our lives easier, more comfortable. We are brainwashed into believing that flat-screen TVs, high-speed Internet, car seat warmers, 401(k)s, fast food, and designer pharmaceuticals for every conceivable ailment, imagined or otherwise, hold the key to our identity and ultimately our happiness.

The United States is the most prosperous nation in the world, and yet our citizenship has been comprehensively reduced to consumerism . A culture in which our primary directive is the quest to accumulate this stuff , or at least more than our friends and neighbors. Buy and ye shall be happy.

But what have we truly purchased? In the words of my favorite writer, Henry David Thoreau, The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Our lives prostrate at the altar of the false gods of our instant-gratification society. A culture of emasculated drones more depressed, obese, diseased, stressed, lethargic, medicated, generally unhappy, and overall unfulfilled than any other culture on the planet. An entrenched, self-perpetuating cycle then ensues that drives us to further escape, salving our pain and disillusionment with unhealthy food choices, television, video games, alcohol, illicit drugs and pharmaceuticals, shopping, gambling, or unhappy relationships; you name it. The hole never gets filled, of courseit just grows deeper. More hungry. A bottomless pit into which we willingly jump. A succumbing, in the ethos of Thoreau, to the delusion of need . A profound lunacy that is bankrupting our souls and decimating our planet.

Most of all, were sick . Sicker than weve ever been, on both an individual and a planetary level. And if we continue along this path, the prognosis is bleak.

In truth, were in the midst of an almost unspeakable, unsustainable health-care and environmental crisis. Despite our spending more than $22 billion a year on fad diet and weight loss products, 70 percent of all Americans are obese or overweight. Childhood obesity rates are through the roof. One out of every three deaths in America is attributable to heart disease, our number-one killer. And by 2030, 30 percent of Americans will be diabetic or pre-diabetic. In response, we have become indentured servants to the pharmaceutical industry, popping pills that effectively mask symptoms but more often than not do little or nothing to prevent or cure our underlying chronic ailments. Meanwhile, our factory farm system is irrevocably depleting our soil. And livestock harvesting is polluting our bodies with saturated fat, hormones, pesticides, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), all while destroying the environment at an unfathomable rate.

Our reaction? Grab a beer, pop a pill, order a pizza, and leave me alone on the Barcalounger because Duck Dynasty is on the TiVo. No wonder were so screwed.

True happiness is an inside job unlocked only by cracking through the protective crust of our social armor to delve deeply and honestly into what drives us. Happiness is forged through struggles, challenges, and failures to elucidate personal growth, self-knowledge, and ultimately fulfillment. It is achieved through selfless service to others, as well as to the authentic self within. This is hardly a new concept, and yet it is one that eludes most people. Intellectually we understand this to be the case but most of us simply shirk away, slinking back into our chimerical zone of comfort and denial like an addict to the opium den. A world of conforming to societal expectations, doing what were told. Buying stuff and keeping quiet. Indeed, The Matrix .

I know this because Ive been thereI had to discover all of this the hard way. I have decades under my belt of medicating myself in every conceivable way. Drugs, alcohol, fast food, you name itI was a black belt at checking outa path that took me to some very dark and desperate places. In 2006, I was a classic couch potato. Fifty pounds overweight, overworked, lethargic, depressed, and subsisting almost entirely on what I like to call the window diet if it could be handed to me through my car window at the drive-through, I ate it.

Then paid for it.

The good news is that there is a solution. A solution that begins and ends with what you put in your mouth. John Joseph gets it. And this, people, is what Meat Is for Pussies is really all about.

When I adopted a plant-based diet at the age of forty, it was out of sheer pain, utter desperation, and acute fear of the heart attack that almost certainly loomed in my not too distant future. At the time, my goals were modest. All I wanted was to live. Lose a little weight. Feel better. And be able to enjoy my children at their energy level. Personally, I didnt think it would work. And Im the last guy on earth who ever thought he would call himself that dreaded five-letter word: vegan .

Astoundingly, this simple change led me to a path I never could have predicted in a million years. A journey of not just athletic prowess but self-discovery that has given my life true meaning and purpose. A journey that has taught me how to be a man. A real man.

Not only did this shift in dietary preference repair my health; it provided vitality beyond anything I could imagine. I found myself so energized, I resumed a modest fitness protocol just to burn off all the extra energy. In short order, my weight dropped from 210 to 162, what I weighed in high school. Amazed, I began to look for an athletic challenge, fueled by a singular question: If I could suddenly feel so good after decades of abusing my body with drugs, alcohol, and fast food, just how resilient is the human body?

People would constantly tell me that I could never be an athlete without consuming animal protein. My body told me differently. And just two years later I found myself neck and neck with some of the best endurance athletes in the world.

Despite never previously having raced a bike or been a competitive runner, in 2009 I finished sixth at the Ultraman World Championshipsa three-day, 320-mile, double-Ironman distance triathlon that circumnavigates the entire Big Island of Hawaiiwidely considered one of the most daunting endurance challenges on the planet. The following year I continued to defy middle age and push the boundaries of human capability by becoming the first person (along with fellow vegan athlete Jason Lester) to complete EPIC5: an ber-endurance adventure in which I finished five Ironman-distance triathlons on five Hawaiian islands in less than a week. I was forty-four years old.

My question had been answered. The human body is far more resilient than you can possibly imagine, capable of truly astounding things when treated properly.