Mike Tyson Dialed Back His Strict Vegan Lifestyle

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In the wake of his appearance last week on Oprah’s “Where Are They Now?” series, interest in Mike Tyson’s dramatic lifestyle change has been renewed – in particular questions about his vegan diet.

While all we’ve ever heard from the 46-year-old is his commitment to the food side of the vegan equation, he recently revealed to ABCNews.com that he actually started out embracing all the tenets of the animal-free lifestyle.

“Listen, I was there. I’ve been to there already,” he said. “I had my vegan clothes, my jeans, my shoes. It was just too strict. So I said I just won’t eat you. I may wear you, but I ain’t going to eat you. OK? Listen, when I go, I go. I’m to the extreme. But in order to be that way I have to realize my extremities [sic] can destroy my family so I’d have to say listen we all have to be vegans here. That was getting crazy so I had to say listen I’m going to have to take care of myself. And let me handle and worry about myself. It doesn’t work for everybody.”

While Tyson shed doubt on whether he would have maintained a vegan diet while fighting, he did share knowledge on the gladiators of ancient Rome and their animal-free diets.

“I found out the greatest gladiators, the greatest ones in Roman times, they were all vegan,” he said. “That’s fighting to the death! The best gladiators, I didn’t say all of them, when they looked at their bone marrow and did the research, they found that they were vegans. No meat particles in them.”

Check out the rest of the interview here – and for those wondering, Tyson has been a vegan now (by his own count) for over 4.5 years.

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