Why I Eat Carnivore
September 10, 2026
I eat a lot of meat. This should surprise absolutely nobody who knows me.
Animal protein is easy for me. A piece of meat gives me a concentrated amount of protein without requiring a lot of thought or planning. That works for me.
It does not mean you have to eat like me to build muscle.
You can absolutely get stronger and build muscle on a vegetarian or plant-based diet. You just have to pay attention to where your protein is coming from instead of assuming it will take care of itself.
I’ve trained people with all kinds of diets. Some don’t eat red meat. Some don’t eat meat at all. Some avoid certain foods because of culture, religion, ethics or personal preference.
My job is not to talk you out of your life so I can make your diet look more like mine. My job is to figure out how to make your diet support what you’re trying to do in the gym.
If your family eats vegetarian, I’m not going to build your nutrition strategy around ribeyes. If you don’t eat beef for religious reasons, beef isn’t in the plan. If you eat dairy but not eggs, great. We work with that.
This is personal training. The key word being personal.
This is where the difference actually matters.
Plant proteins and animal proteins aren’t always identical in their protein density, digestibility or amino-acid profiles. Some plant foods give you a lot of protein pretty easily. With others, you may have to eat more food or combine different sources across your diet to get where you need to be.
That doesn’t make plant protein bad. It means you need to know what you’re eating.
Recent research comparing plant and animal proteins has found that animal protein may have a small advantage for muscle mass in some circumstances, particularly compared with non-soy plant proteins. But the same 2025 analysis found no significant difference in muscle strength or physical performance overall. Soy and milk protein also performed similarly for muscle mass.
So no, I’m not going to tell a vegetarian client that they’re doomed to tiny muscles because they won’t eat a steak.
We just have to plan.
Depending on what kind of vegetarian diet you follow, you have plenty of options: eggs, dairy, soy, tofu, tempeh, beans, lentils, peas, nuts, seeds and grains.
If you’re vegan, obviously the list changes. The principle doesn’t.
And yes, protein powder can be useful. That’s exactly the kind of problem a supplement is good at solving. If getting enough protein from food is inconvenient, a shake can make the target easier to hit.
It isn’t mandatory. It’s convenient.
There’s a difference.
This applies whether you’re vegetarian, vegan, carnivore or eating whatever happens to be in front of you.
Building noticeable muscle takes resistance training, enough food, enough protein and time. There isn’t a dietary identity that gets you around those things.
If somebody tells me they want to put on muscle but they’re barely eating enough to maintain their current weight and protein is an afterthought, that’s where we’re starting. I don’t care whether the missing protein was supposed to come from chicken or tofu.
The problem is still the problem.
This is probably the bigger point.
I can tell you exactly how I prefer to eat. I’ve got some pretty strong opinions about it. That still doesn’t mean my diet automatically becomes yours when you walk through the door at Klein Fitness.
You tell me what you eat, what you don’t eat, what you’re willing to change and what you’re absolutely not changing. Then we figure out how to get enough useful nutrition inside those boundaries.
That’s a much better approach than handing everybody the same meal plan and pretending human beings don’t have cultures, families, preferences and actual lives.
Yes.
You need to strength train consistently. You need enough total food. You need enough protein. And depending on what you eat, you may need to be a little more intentional about where that protein comes from.
That’s it.
You don’t need to eat like me. You need to eat in a way that supports what you’re asking your body to do.
That’s a much better rule.
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