In the latest episode of the Plant Based On Fire podcast, Bryan sits down with Amanda Jacobson and Zachary Belknap, co-founders of Bold Body Fitness—an online fitness, nutrition, and lifestyle coaching business committed to helping vegans (and those curious about going vegan) look and feel their best. With a unique approach to both fitness and veganism, Amanda and Zachary are on a mission to shatter stereotypes about plant-based lifestyles. Today, we dive into their inspiring story, how they’re growing their business, and the insights they shared with Bryan.
Building Bold Body Fitness: Amanda and Zachary's Journey
Amanda and Zachary’s paths converged over a shared passion for fitness and veganism. Zachary founded Bold Body Fitness in 2015 as an in-person training business, but after going vegan in 2016, his goals evolved.
“I was passionate about fitness but felt conflicted promoting animal-based diets,”
Zachary explained. Amanda, a professional trainer and bodybuilder, joined the business in 2021, bringing her experience to the newly-launched online platform. Together, they pivoted the brand toward plant-based fitness, determined to prove that vegans can excel athletically.
The duo now use their own athletic success as living proof to challenge misconceptions about veganism.
“People told us, ‘You’re bodybuilders? But you’re vegan!’” Amanda recalls. “We want to show the world that vegans can be strong, healthy, and muscular.”
Insights You'll Gain from this Episode:
Debunking Vegan Myths: Amanda and Zachary address common misconceptions, showing how plant-based protein sources like tofu, tempeh, and seitan can fuel athletes just as effectively as animal-based proteins.
The Role of Accountability in Coaching: Their online clients benefit from daily check-ins, goal tracking, and real-time feedback—helping them stay on track toward their fitness goals.
Sustainability and Long-Term Success: They explain how setting realistic, small goals leads to long-term achievements.
Tips for Vegan Fitness Entrepreneurs: Patience, community, and consistency are essential for building a successful business in the plant-based space.
Transforming Lives with Plant-Based Fitness
Bold Body Fitness has helped clients like Courtney, a mom who lost over 25 pounds postpartum.
“She struggled with binge eating and restrictive dieting,” Zachary explains. “We provided her with a flexible nutrition plan and consistent coaching. Now, she has a healthier relationship with food.” Amanda adds, “It’s amazing what can be achieved with the right support—and some resistance bands.”
The Business Side of Bold Body Fitness
Running a plant-based fitness business comes with challenges. Zachary admits,
“We’re still figuring out which social media strategies work best, but one thing is clear—when people share our content, it makes all the difference.”
Amanda echoes that sentiment, emphasizing the power of community:
“When people tag us or share our posts, it builds trust and opens doors.”
Their approach to online coaching offers a comprehensive experience. Clients receive customized workout plans, nutrition coaching, and continuous feedback through an app.
“Our clients have us in their pocket every day,” Amanda says. “We’re not just trainers—they become part of our journey, too.”
Why Plant-Based Fitness Matters
“We want to show the world that veganism isn’t a limitation,” Amanda explains. “It’s a lifestyle that empowers you.”
The duo points to the increasing number of vegan athletes excelling at global competitions as proof. Zachary adds,
“Athletes on plant-based diets are thriving—it’s no longer a fringe thing.”
Key Takeaways for Fitness Entrepreneurs
Amanda and Zachary shared some essential advice for aspiring plant-based fitness coaches:
Patience is Key: “You won’t be a millionaire overnight. It takes time to build momentum.”
Leverage Community: Engage with existing vegan communities and offer free advice to build trust.
Offer Value First: “Even if your business struggles, helping people transform their lives is a win.”
Bold Body Fitness embodies the fusion of fitness and veganism, using education, accountability, and dedication to empowering people on their wellness journeys. As Amanda puts it,
“Motivation comes and goes, but commitment is what gets you results.”
Fun Fact:
Amanda and Zachary make homemade seitan to meet their protein needs while prepping for bodybuilding competitions—a delicious vegan alternative to chicken and fish.
Business Lesson:
Consistency and Community Are Key. Bold Body Fitness reminds us that building a business takes time, patience, and the support of a community. Keep showing up—even when motivation fades—and trust that your hard work will pay off.
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Ready to dive deeper? Tune into this episode of Plant Based On Fire and get inspired by Amanda and Zachary’s journey. Whether you’re a vegan athlete or a fitness entrepreneur looking to make an impact, their story will spark new ideas and fresh motivation.
Subscribe to the Plant-Based On Fire podcast on YouTube or your favorite streaming platform today and stay connected with our ongoing exploration of the complex plant-based business world.
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Episode’s Transcript
Please understand that a transcription service provided the transcript below. It undoubtedly contains errors that invariably take place in voice transcriptions.
Bryan (00:00)
Hello everybody and welcome to Plant Based On Fire, where we talk about plant based businesses and their inspiring stories to thrive in our industry. I'm your host Bryan and joining us today is both Amanda and Zachary from Bold Body Fitness. They are an online fitness, nutrition and lifestyle coaching business that helps vegans and those who want to go vegan look and feel their best. So welcome to the show Amanda and Zachary. Thanks for being here.
Zachary And Amanda (00:29)
Yeah, thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you. We're excited to be here.
Bryan (00:31)
I'm also so excited to hang out with some more bold vegans out there. I'm curious, like, how did you get started in this? Why the bold body fitness name? It's kind of that tricky one, right? Because you don't really call out the vegan thing a whole bunch in the name of it. So just tell us how you got started and what brought you to this point.
Zachary And Amanda (00:55)
Well, I started this business in 2015. It was right after I moved to Eugene, Oregon. And for the last, like seven years or something, it's been a, an in -person personal training business. I had actually, let's see here. I went vegan in 2016. So I had started the business right before going vegan. And, the name was just, I was like toying with using my last name doing like Belknap bodies and just to
It just didn't feel right. So I just landed on bold body fitness, which I think it's catchy and I like it. But yeah, I was doing the in -person thing and I was growing more and more passionate about veganism, having my own journey like many do, where I kind of started off as this environmental concern and then quickly like changed to be much more of an ethical, you know, a stance against cruelty. And I found myself
You know, in the fitness world is basically like the deepest, most entrenched in like bro science and animal products, you know? And so I'm having to give people these recommendations on nutrition and just using like vague terms, you know, I'm talking about macros and I'm like, you know, get protein and you want to use lean proteins. And there's a lot of protein from plants and people are like, okay, chicken and fish. And it was like, it just starts to like really.
Bryan (02:00)
Yes.
Zachary And Amanda (02:23)
me, know, and so I always wanted to make it like gear it more towards my people, know, the vegan community. And in 2019, no, 2021, when did we meet? It was 21. Yeah, okay.
Then we got together and we decided last year to like make this an online business and try and like expand our reach and like really lean into the vegan side of things. so you can kind of pick up the story from there. yeah. Well, I mean, the two of us met and both of us were already vegan and he had this in -person training business and I moved from Washington to Oregon so that we could live together.
And I was planning on doing some in -person training as well, because that's what my profession is too. And we were like, really want to dive into helping vegans get fit. We want to show the world that vegans can be strong, that they can gain muscle. And it was really important to us that we bust myths.
Bryan (03:36)
That's right.
Zachary And Amanda (03:36)
around veganisms being like skinny fat or just skinny or weak or sick all the time. And both of us had this experience where we're natural bodybuilders and people would say, how are you guys bodybuilders? Like you're muscular and you look really good. You don't look sickly. And we're like, we want to make this like the platform of our business.
Bryan (03:44)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Zachary And Amanda (03:59)
use ourselves as an advertisement, kind of, to see how many people we can reach and change minds and change hearts towards veganism in that way.
Bryan (04:06)
Mm
I love it. Well, congrats on that. That's such a, such an amazing journey on that front. And it is, it is those things like we want to be polite about this, but we do want to shove it in your face that like you can get all your protein from plants guys. Like what is this craziness we're talking about? I'm curious, like, you know, every, everybody should be having a good diet and focusing on the exercise. Those like the two tenants in my mind to living a long, healthy life and reducing.
especially having longevity and making sure even in the end of days, time for you that you can be as, as mobile as you can be, et cetera. but what, what do you, how do you focus in on like the nutrition program side of it? And, and then like, talk to us maybe a little bit about, you know, vegan athletes in general, how do you think that separates it from like your average Joe like me vegan, on a nutrition program? You want to unpack that a little bit for us?
Zachary And Amanda (05:05)
You take the first half. Okay, first half was like how we implement nutritional training.
I believe that's what you're asking. Yeah. do do for our people? Yeah. Like, we try to make it as simple as possible. So we found that the best way to teach people how to feed themselves well is to learn how to track macros, macronutrients, so protein, carbs, and fat. And there seems to be this disconnect, like, OK, I know macros over here for animal base.
Bryan (05:14)
Yeah.
Zachary And Amanda (05:35)
animal foods, right? But it must be totally different for vegan stuff. And we're really trying to break that barrier. Like, it's the same with a few minor tweaks. But people have this idea that vegan protein all comes from beans and like nuts. And for some reason, people freaking love quinoa. Not to say that quinoa is bad, but they're obsessed with it. And so we're really trying to bust a lot of that misinformation.
Bryan (05:51)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Zachary And Amanda (06:03)
and teach people that it's really easy to get protein on a vegan diet. You just got to eat tofu and tempeh. It's really not that hard. And you can still use the macros that you learned from your omnivore diet and just translate that over to plant -based proteins. Yeah.
Bryan (06:09)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Absolutely.
Zachary And Amanda (06:20)
in the recording of those things, that's when people start to realize like, beans are a carb source that have a little bit of protein. Quinoa is a carb source that has a little bit of protein. Like nuts are a fat, we call it bonus protein. They're not protein sources with other things. those are the things that you add in with a happy cider.
Bryan (06:29)
Mm
It's almost like you say like all three of those things, every food that you eat has all three of those in it. It's just, it have 1 % or 90 %? like, so it, but it is, right. Cause I know when I first went vegan, it was like, okay, it just feels weird. Cause I'm missing that piece of meat on my plate. Like, you know, you have to get through this mindset that a salad with the push, the potatoes or whatever those things are just missed minus the meat is still a really good, healthy, fulfilling meal.
Zachary And Amanda (06:46)
Yeah, exactly. It's a ratio.
Bryan (07:08)
until you figure out certain things. So yeah, and I'm a big fan. I was gonna say Tempeh, I got past my keema phase. yeah.
Zachary And Amanda (07:14)
Good for you. Yeah. We're both really big on homemade seitan. That's my move for sure. Especially right now we're dieting for bodybuilding shows. And so that's crucial because it's pure protein. So to address the second half of your question, believe, was what's the difference between an athlete and an average Joe?
Bryan (07:20)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Very cool.
Mm -hmm.
Zachary And Amanda (07:42)
That essentially just kind of comes down to protein, of course, because that's what everything is about all the time, always. Most talked about thing in the whole world.
Bryan (07:48)
Mm
Zachary And Amanda (07:52)
But just the protein requirements for an athlete are just going to be a little bit higher than for someone who's like maybe a little less active, just because there's a lot of like tissue turnover for someone who is like training really intensely for a sport. You're causing a lot of damage and a lot of breakdown and you just require a higher amount of protein to
Bryan (08:11)
Mm
Zachary And Amanda (08:13)
to create the recovery that you're looking for. But otherwise, like everything that we do, we figure out what the person's like resting metabolic rate is gonna be. So how many calories do you need to neither lose weight nor gain weight and just base everything off of that. So if your goal is to drop a few pounds, we're gonna set your caloric intake under whatever your resting metabolic rate is. And if you're trying to build muscle, we're gonna put it a little bit above, but.
Yeah, whether you're the average Joe or like an elite athlete, those are the governing factors, like the rules that apply. And then we're just going to maybe change the ratios of your macros a little bit, but probably going to be telling people to eat the same types of foods and still drinking their water, maybe taking a multivitamin. It's going to be pretty much the same.
Bryan (08:54)
Yeah.
Yeah. And it's, it's that thing like where I think your standard American is looking for some magic pill that's going to help cure them. But honestly, every time you eat, you're putting the pill in your mouth basically. So it's how do we get people to wake up to like, you know, those seven cookies that you snuck today are impacting you in a certain way or stuff like that. Yeah. Yes, exactly. is. That's right. Right. But I
Zachary And Amanda (09:17)
Yeah.
Yeah. Man, yeah. It is a slow acting pill, but it is. And it can be magic if you...
Bryan (09:32)
It can be cause like, don't know. I, I went, I did this like 14 years ago and I know I just went, you know, stop next day started vegan and I just saw the weight melt off those first 60 days. mean, I lost 40, 50 pounds myself. So it was, it was eye shattering to me to see that. And it, yeah, I don't know. I can go on and on and on about that, but I want to learn more about the business side of it. what strategies have you sort of found?
Zachary And Amanda (09:46)
Wow. Wow. That's great.
Bryan (10:00)
are the best to help you grow your online portion of this or just your business in general? Because there's so many other plant -based businesses out there, servicing patients, clients, whatever you want to call it, that are just trying to help change the world one person at a time or a group of people at a time. What do you think are some of your secret sauce?
Zachary And Amanda (10:19)
Yeah, we're still kind of learning that to be honest, because we just launched the online side of things a year ago. And
We're still just like learning all the tools and you know, what is going to perform best on social media? What's going to get us the most engagement? What do people want to see? What gets them to click on it and respond? What kind of ads work best? And we're kind of fine tuning our ads and our messaging. Mostly that's my job is Instagram and Facebook. And yeah, to be completely honest, we're still just learning what works best.
Bryan (10:43)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's it's.
Zachary And Amanda (11:00)
But a little shameless kind of like plug for ourselves, what has worked the best so far is when people share our content. So if anybody's watching right now, please follow us at Bullbody Fitness LLC on Instagram. And if you see anything that you agree with, just share it, maybe tag us. That is the best.
Bryan (11:10)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Zachary And Amanda (11:23)
the best possible thing for our business is just having people share things because they relate to it or they agree with it or they just want to support us. Yeah, we always gain followers after people share something. But also when you see someone that you know that likes and trusts another page, you're more likely to like and trust that page. Like Zachary said, that's a huge help.
Bryan (11:30)
That's right.
That's right.
I like it. And it's, it's the thing, especially on social media side of it is that repetition. Like you have to establish that and showcase yourself as experts. And it just takes time to build that trust and, and thing out there, but the algorithms are getting better and better for, for sure. It is, it is interesting. Like, you know, I'd say LinkedIn is a, is an untapped market, I think, just because I know
Zachary And Amanda (12:03)
Yes.
Bryan (12:13)
I as an executive on LinkedIn myself to a certain degree, I get a lot of fitness people reaching out. They want me to talk to them about their executive coaching platform. But I don't know how many of them, you know, realize that I'm vegan and that kind of stuff. So it is interesting all the different marketing techniques. What your your
Tell us more about what it is that you do in person versus what it is online just so people get a better understanding of what they could expect when they check out the social medias.
Zachary And Amanda (12:47)
Yeah, you wanna talk about your in -person training and then we'll talk about online? Yeah, for sure. I'll preface it by saying that I actually think that what we offer online is better because it's more...
There's more, it's more holistic, I suppose. So in person, I start with a consultation with people and get to know them, know what their goals are. We talk about everything I mentioned earlier with nutrition and I do my best to help them kind of create their own meal plan. It's like the Socratic method type thing where I'm trying to, I want them to learn the method. I don't want to just do it for them.
And then they come in for workouts and every couple of weeks we do what I call an update where we like take measurements and everything and make sure that they're progressing in the right direction. And if not, we make the changes that are necessary to create like progress once again. And I mean, that's...
That's it in a nutshell. can be as I train people as often or as infrequently as they like, but most people it's going to be between one and three times a week. And they may or may not work out on their own. definitely like I create programming for them to follow for however many days a week they decided they wanted to work out. then, yeah, that that pretty much.
Bryan (14:10)
Yeah.
Zachary And Amanda (14:14)
encapsulates everything that happens with the in -person thing. yeah, what we offer online is way cooler. Yeah. So like Zachary said, our online coaching is so much more, you just get so much more. The offer is so much bigger. So comprehensive. Thank you. There's nutrition and fitness and accountability, obviously, but the nutrition...
It's whatever somebody needs. Like if somebody already understands their macros, then I'm going to give them their macros. And we're going to see what their other body responds for a few weeks. And then we tweak it as often as necessary. But I have a lot of clients that want a meal plan. And so I go in and I create custom recipes for them with their macros. And pretty much as frequently as they need it, essentially.
Bryan (14:56)
Yeah.
Zachary And Amanda (15:06)
and teach them how to log their food, teach them what macros are. You know, we talk about hydration and we use an app.
platform for our workouts and the workouts are so cool. They're just scheduled on a calendar and they click on the day and the workout populates with form videos and I write in progressions for the workout. So it's like how many reps at how much weight and how much rest even and you know, every six or seven weeks they get a new program. They upload progress pictures of themselves every week. Every week they complete an online
Bryan (15:24)
Very cool.
Zachary And Amanda (15:44)
check -in form and I respond to that in video form and if they need to we get on the phone or we get on a zoom call and hash things out. There's like habit tracking and like mindset stuff. It's so much more comprehensive and it's really like a program created to help people gain the tools that they need to set themselves up for future success and longevity so that they're learning along the way. We're not just spoon feeding it to them necessarily but it's a partnership between client and coach.
Yeah, the major differences that I think is the coolest anyway, is like for my in -person clients, we see each other between one and three times a week. Well, with our online clients, they essentially have us in their pocket every single day. It's not just at the gym. It's like they wake up and check their app and check what their food and water and goals like daily habits are for that day. So we're with them.
Bryan (16:28)
That's right.
Zachary And Amanda (16:40)
100 % of the time and we message each other through the app too. So they have like complete access to us. It's pretty cool.
Bryan (16:48)
Yeah, I wish more people would would take that into consideration. For sure. I'm curious, like to hear like one example of maybe one of your clients, you've had a really awesome like example case study kind of thing with and I'm also curious your thoughts on the amazing Olympic season that just sort of wrapped up. It was so exciting to see so many vegans like boom, crushing it out there and just talk to us a little bit how like
Zachary And Amanda (17:13)
You
Bryan (17:18)
what you've seen from the vegan diet impacting athletic performance.
Zachary And Amanda (17:25)
Yeah. We've had so many online clients that have achieved awesome success, but probably my favorite one is Courtney. I knew you were going to say Courtney. She was actually one of Zachary's in -person clients years ago. Yeah. Totally. And then she's been following us on Instagram and she saw that we launched this online thing. She reached out to me. She was pregnant when she came to me. Yeah. And I was like, that's okay. We can start now. Right. And,
Bryan (17:36)
You stole him. You stole her away.
Okay.
Yeah.
Zachary And Amanda (17:52)
Her goal was just to get back down to like pre -pregnancy weight. But within like three months of having her baby, she had dropped an additional 10 or 15 pounds. But I think her biggest success, the thing that I was able to help her with most was her relationship and her mindset around food. She had this really unhealthy cycle where she would be like, I'm gonna laser focus on my diet. And she would just under eat and restrict really bad. And of course you can only do that for so long.
Bryan (17:55)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm. Mm.
Zachary And Amanda (18:22)
And then she would throw it out the window and eat a whole pizza. And her weight was just up and down constantly. And it was just this really unhealthy, not even yo -yo dieting, just like binging, restricting cycle. And I just was able to create a very flexible nutrition plan for her and help her prioritize protein. And...
Bryan (18:25)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Zachary And Amanda (18:43)
gave her lot of great recipes that she could make that were healthy for her and her family. And she did all of this with home workouts. So she had like a TRX strap and resistance bands. And she lost over 25 pounds in four months.
Bryan (18:54)
Yeah, that's awesome.
It's so amazing what you can do with rubber band, isn't it?
Zachary And Amanda (19:01)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Bryan (19:05)
That's cool. And what's your thoughts on the Olympics?
Zachary And Amanda (19:09)
I honestly couldn't tell you. We only watched the combo, the combined finals for climbing. So boulder and lead. That's like something that we're both passionate about. But I never actually got like a tally on how many vegans meddled in the Olympics.
Bryan (19:09)
Did you guys get to watch some of it?
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
I have got to dig up that article as well. So we should do a whole episode on that sometime and we'll unpack that. there was more than one for sure. Like, I don't know, the first vegan snuck into the Olympics a long time ago and won a bunch of stuff. I want to say it was at least 25 or 30. Really amazing. And it wasn't just the United States. You know, they're all over from the globe just crushing it. Yeah.
Zachary And Amanda (19:31)
Yeah!
That's amazing.
I can say I'm not surprised. That's pretty fantastic.
Bryan (19:54)
That's right. Exactly. What, like the thing for me, and I think you, I think you hit on it, Amanda was really around that anybody can carve out the time and do the workouts kind of a thing. Like I know the thing I've struggled with as I try to train for triathlons and stuff is just motivation. Like, so I was just curious, how do you, what's, do you have a secret there or some tips and tricks for people?
on the motivation side of things, like how do you drag your butt out of bed for that early morning workout or stay up late and do it after dinner, whatever you need to do to make sure you're hitting the goals that you're so clearly setting for your clients.
Zachary And Amanda (20:31)
Yeah, motivation is fleeting. Motivation only lasts so long.
And even though we're both very dedicated to our sport, we're not motivated all of the time, but we're dedicated and committed to it, right? And there's lots of things that you're not motivated to do, but you do anyways. You're not always motivated to go to work. You're not always motivated to brush your teeth. People aren't always motivated to be good partners, but we're dedicated and committed to those things, right? And I think that setting small goals for yourself is key.
Bryan (20:42)
Mm
Zachary And Amanda (21:08)
and creating ways in your life to remind yourself and reward yourself of what your goals are. So you can say, you know, a lot of times we like reward ourselves with food and that's great and that's fine. But if your goal is to lose weight or alcohol, yeah. But if your goal is to lose weight, there are much healthier ways to reward yourself with like,
Bryan (21:25)
Or alcohol.
Yeah.
Zachary And Amanda (21:33)
like a spa day or something else that you really enjoy. But yeah, I think that setting small, manageable goals for yourself that will lead you to that big goal is vital. Instead of just saying, I want to lose 50 pounds, well, first I want to lose five pounds. First, I want to be able to squat more than a bar. First, I want to be able to run a mile.
instead of I'm gonna run a marathon or I'm gonna become a power lifter or whatever, finding those small goals in between so that when you achieve them, you're really proud of yourself and you don't get discouraged. When we first start with someone too, we like get to know them and what their motivations are. And one of the things that we've had frequently come up is people that want to live to be 100 or they want to like outpace their grandchildren, their future grandchildren, because they're like, you know, 30 or 40, but.
Bryan (22:00)
Right. Yeah.
Mm -hmm. That's right.
Yeah.
Zachary And Amanda (22:24)
That's like the bigger picture, like the long -term goal, but that you can't keep that in your mind forever. So that's when you like, set goals on the way there. You know, let's set a one week goal and a six month goal and a two year goal. And then by the time you're a hundred, you did it.
Bryan (22:40)
Boom, you're there.
Zachary And Amanda (22:41)
Like, and that's a component of our online coaching as well as we provide this level of accountability that you don't get when you buy like a $10 online program or even subscribe to an app because there's a real person on the other side of the computer holding you accountable, messaging you. haven't heard from you in a few days. What's going on? didn't complete your check -in. I see you haven't logged any food for this long. And you know, it's not, I don't want to call it like a shame tool, right? But it's like, I paid this money for this attention from this person and I'm
Bryan (22:54)
Mm -hmm.
Zachary And Amanda (23:11)
I'm going to get everything I can out of it. And then by the time the program ends, they're set up for success and they have an intrinsic motivation within them.
Bryan (23:11)
That's right.
That's awesome. I love it. I read this book a long time ago. Leaders Eat Last is Simon Sinek. Everybody, most people have heard of Simon Sinek. So but he did the start with why. But he said, I think the leaders eat last is just start with making your bed in the morning because then you've accomplished one thing and then it's all downhill from there. Right. So I'm curious, like on the community side of it, like you're clearly having people come through your program and you're touching so many lives. How do you foster that sense of community?
Zachary And Amanda (23:38)
Yeah.
Bryan (23:51)
and maybe that connection to the bigger vegan fitness community.
Zachary And Amanda (23:56)
That's definitely something that we tried to do a Facebook group when we first launched. And if I can be just completely transparent and honest, it was just too, there's not enough hours in the day for the amount of work that I have to do. Yeah, because I'm a little bit forced too.
Bryan (24:12)
It comes with running those pages sometimes for sure. Yeah
Yeah.
Zachary And Amanda (24:19)
tacky or something? Yeah, was like, yeah, I didn't, it didn't feel like a true community. So what I try to do is be a part of other vegan communities, like on Facebook. And when people ask for advice, I just give free advice. And I have lots of free resources that I give out to.
Bryan (24:30)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, I, know. Right, and it's it is that thing like, you know, we're all trying to do our own thing and we all can't have a Facebook group because like I'm already in too many of them, whether it's Facebook group or LinkedIn or Slack or Discord, whatever they are, there's too many of them. So I applaud your transparency right there of of just saying like, look, that's not for me and running my business that way. There's others that do it. And this is the different path that I'm going. Like I try to feed into other certain.
as well. It's hard to maintain that. I'm curious, like what are some of your future plans for bold body fitness? Anything new upcoming, expansions, new projects?
Zachary And Amanda (25:15)
Right now we're, we're right about to start our competition season for bodybuildings. We have five shows this year and the final show is the WNBF world championships in Boston, Massachusetts. and we've also just, we've just, partnered, guess you would call it, or we just, started working with the plant power and athlete. So, they're going to be kind of attending one or two shows with us and, we're gonna.
Bryan (25:20)
Mm -hmm.
Woohoo!
Zachary And Amanda (25:43)
Help them promote their, their protein, which is really good by the way. but yeah, that's, that's kind of, that was my own version of advocacy. When I first started competing was like using this as a platform to talk about veganism. this is probably going to be my final season. so just going to dive into it super hard. And yeah, like I said, go out with a bang at the world championships and.
Bryan (25:49)
Very cool.
Very cool. Are you participating in the World Vegan Bodybuilding stuff?
Zachary And Amanda (26:19)
No. No, is it like Mr. America or what's the other one? Are you thinking about Jeff Palmer's thing in Florida? Yeah, we were going to join a team, the plant -built team, and go to Mr. America. And it didn't work out. We couldn't make it work out because they didn't have the right number of spots for bodybuilders and bikini athletes and everything.
Bryan (26:25)
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Sure, sure,
Zachary And Amanda (26:47)
And then Jeff's thing, I was going to go my last season, but the timing didn't work out. was like, been dieting for too long.
Bryan (26:51)
Okay. Let's go say I I had Jeff on the show a few different times. So I know he has a great little thing going there. So I just wanted to make sure. Absolutely.
Zachary And Amanda (26:59)
He does. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. know Shelly does that like every year. One of our friends, Shelly Beecher. I'm sure, know, maybe you know who that is. She's another WNBF pro. Yeah.
Bryan (27:11)
Cool. Well, I wish you guys lots of amazing luck on the competitions you're going into and I hope you crush it and take home some strong medals there on that front. As we're trying to wrap up here a little bit today, what advice would you give to others trying to start a business in the fitness industry or in this whole food plant -based type world that we're all in?
Zachary And Amanda (27:24)
Thank you.
Yeah.
Patience. Patience. Yeah. Yeah. You're not going to be a millionaire overnight or even within the first year or even the first two years. Know that you're going to put in a lot of hours with no financial return and you just have to keep
Bryan (27:45)
Yes, that's a good one.
Mm -hmm.
Zachary And Amanda (28:05)
working even when it seems like what you're doing is not getting you where you want to be, it's going to pay off in the end. Momentum will build. And every single client you bring on is somebody that you are helping. So even if your business flops and you end up having to shut the doors, whatever, go do something else, you've still helped however many people you signed on.
Bryan (28:13)
I agree.
Zachary And Amanda (28:30)
to create a healthier lifestyle for themselves and that's an accomplishment in and of itself.
Bryan (28:39)
That's right. I'd say most businesses fail in the first five years. So stay strong and follow that passion that got you going. That's great, great advice. I got a quick hit question for both of you. What are each of your favorite exercises and vegan dish that you swear by for sort of maintaining that peak condition? Don't say burpees. Please don't say burpees.
Zachary And Amanda (28:58)
like healthy vegan food?
No.
right now my, my favorite exercise is something called a seal row where you're laying down on a bench and you're like using a barbell and you're trying to hit the bottom of the bench with the bar. So it's just like a really, really strict row. it's just, there's no one exercise that's like the best or the greatest. It's just something that I really enjoy right now. and, a favorite dish. mean, I think I got to go with.
Bryan (29:11)
Okay?
Okay.
Zachary And Amanda (29:33)
the classic bodybuilding answer, instead of chicken rice broccoli, it's going to be seitan rice broccoli. That's like, that's my go -to right now for sure. Yeah.
Well, the bikini division and bodybuilding is all about glutes. So hip thrusts and any variation on hip thrusts are something I spend a lot of time doing every single week. And I hate them and I love them at the same time. hate. Mostly hate, but they're the movement I've seen the most strength advancement on. So I'm very proud of them.
And my favorite meal right now in prep, I make an open face sandwich every morning with say grace protein. Have you heard of say grace? It's like, do know what TVP is? But it's formed into like pieces, big pieces. So there's like chicken nugget sized TVP.
Bryan (30:18)
I have not, Mm -hmm, yep.
Okay.
Okay.
Zachary And Amanda (30:30)
and it's meaty and it's really filling, it's super high in protein and low in fat because it's a defatted soy product and my whole plate is just loaded every morning with this segre's protein and two pieces of toast and hot sauce and it's it's so good yeah
Bryan (30:47)
You can't go wrong with the hot sauce. That's right. I love it. Thank you so much for being here. What can we do as a community to help support you and hit us again one more time with all the different ways we can get in touch.
Zachary And Amanda (31:03)
Yeah, we're on Instagram at Bold Body Fitness LLC. Our Facebook page is actually Zachary's personal Facebook page. It's Zachary Bellnap, B -E -L -K -N -A -P. And yeah, and to show us support, if you see something that you like, share it with friends.
Bryan (31:17)
We'll make sure it's in the show notes, no worries.
Zachary And Amanda (31:26)
Comments, anything that feeds kind of into that Instagram algorithm is gonna be helpful for us, but it also just warms our hearts when we see that people have shared our stories or saved something that I've spent a lot of time in, like informationally, when you comment, this was so helpful, thank you. That makes me happy.
Bryan (31:44)
That's right, that's right. Very, very cool. Well, that is all the time we have for this episode of the Plant Based on Fire podcast. Thank you again so much, Amanda and Zachary, for joining us and sharing your insights and experiences with our community. Until next time, everybody, keep the fire burning.
Zachary And Amanda (31:49)
Thank
Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Brent.
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