Venus Williams’ illustrious career nearly derailed after she was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease in 2011. To treat her condition, the tennis star went to a wellness center where she had to stay on a raw vegan diet, which was a big change for her.
During her latest appearance on the Virgin Radio UK show, Venus took listeners through her journey with the disease that is called Sjogren’s syndrome. She revealed how her sister and the legendary tennis player Serena Williams advised her to visit the wellness center near her home in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Venus and her sister attended the orientation on the first day and learned that the program would only serve raw vegan food.
Thus, the sisters decided to settle their food cravings on the same day. As soon as the orientation ended, they went and grabbed steak and other foods and desserts of their choice.
“We go to orientation and we find out it’s all raw vegan. So no cooked food, only vegetables. So we look at each other and we are like,’ you want to get a steak?’ We went to go get a steak right after orientation. We had steak, we don’t really eat dessert, we had chocolate fondue cakes. So we ordered everything we could,” said Venus.
The seven-time singles Grand Slam champion revealed that her one-week wellness program ended up getting extended for two more weeks. Calling it ‘life-changing’, Venus described how it taught her so much about food and the immune system. However, she is not a raw vegan anymore.
Venus is a chegan now
In fact, Venus Williams refers to herself as a ‘Chegan,’ a term she uses for ‘cheating vegan.’
“It was life-changing. I am no longer a raw vegan. I am a cheating vegan now and I call it Chegan and living my best life,” concluded the former world number one.
Venus also shared that she believes it’s okay to occasionally cheat on diets, as she follows the 80-20 rule. This means strictly adhering to the diet 80% of the time while allowing for some slip-ups during the remaining 20%.
She also released a book recently named ‘Strive,’ which details eight mantras to help one lead a good and healthy life. The tennis star has curated this wellness book based on her personal experiences, with the aim of educating people about what is beneficial for their lives and what is not.
