[petertodd]

_If_ you can get enough exercise, you can be healthy on pretty much any omnivore diet because it's so hard to not get enough nutrition, and extra calories don't matter if you burn them off. I personally lost lots of weight when I was cycling regularly to work and school (10km and 50km round trip respectively), as well as caving and climbing on weekends. Almost everything I ate was fast food, because I had hardly any spare time. But I was definitely healthy and felt great so long as I took enough days off (I was getting enough exercise that I simply couldn't do it every day).

Meanwhile, I know lots of people who have given up on vegan diets because they felt like their health was declining, even with regular exercise. I'm sure with enough care and nutritional science they could have gotten it to work. But it's so much easier to just add some animal products to your diet.

[jxramos]

I remember hearing the question asked someplace about whether any professional athletes are vegans, especially for the intense sports that require a lot of muscle rebuilding and maybe even contact sport healing and what not. That might illuminate things a bit.

[asoneth]

There is an advocacy* movie called The Game Changers which highlights several vegan athletes and makes the case that their plant-based diet contributes to their success. https://gamechangersmovie.com/

* I would not consider it a documentary as it has a clear agenda, but I found it interesting nonetheless.

[centimeter]

https://www.lonesomelands.com/new-blog/2019/9/16/t2amoscp1u1...

[jxramos]

that guy may be able to make a statistical argument with this sort of data. Number of injuries and percent of time on the bench with the two pools and a simple t-test or something.