Being Vegan, Vegan Being: The OM Twiins! Being Vegan is an Active and Effective Way to End Oppression and Violence

Our names are Eileen & Gilian Reichert but we are better known as the Om Twiins.

We are two Lil Mexicans, currently living in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo where we work as personal trainers at the Evolve Gym and actively trying to help others transition to veganism.

Our story begins about 10 years ago, when Gilian already had doubts about eating meat, but at that young age our parents made it impossible for her to try to cut animal flesh out from her diet. But still, she would turn to a family member that was vegetarian for motivation.

When we turned 17, we moved out from home and rented a place for our own. This is when Gilian decided to exclude only meat from her diet (still eating dairy, eggs & honey and she thought this was enough to help animals) Eileen at this time would only care to party and not so much about anyone else.

At age 20 Eileen was off traveling trying to find herself, we didn’t get along & we were too different from each other really living by the “Good twin/Bad twin” tags, We were both doing our thing separately for a while and then Gilian watched the video that changed everything forever “The best speech you will ever hear” by Gary Yourofsky.

At age 21 Gilian decided to go Vegan, all our family was very concerned about her health so they called Eileen for help. But little did they know she would end up ripping the social blinders off too!! So long story short, thanks to Gilian’s brave decision and love for animals we are both vegans now!! Gilian 4 years strong, Eileen 2 1/2 years and loving every second of it!!

Shortly after Eileen went vegan we got into fitness and combined these two passions together and this led to the beginning of the Om Twiins channel, a space to break taboos about heavy lifting for women and all that “can’t build muscle without animal products” B*llSh*t!

We feel it’s important to be vegan cause this is our true nature, we aren’t violent senseless people (or at least that’s what everyone says/think about themselves) we are taught to be this way by society and being Vegan is an active and effective way to end this oppression input to animals today.

We need to start acting with love & compassion and not looking away from those who need us the most and don’t have a voice of their own! We are so happy and proud to be part of the biggest movement in history that promotes peace and a cruelty-free life!!

This is why we have made it our mission to put our life, bodies, and results as an example for everyone to see, in the hope we inspire others to do the same!! We were alone for the transitioning period, no vegan friends. It was hard but we had each other. We want to be this support for others!! We love Instagram cause of the beautiful vegan community, the love and support we have gotten from users all around the world fuels us to train harder, to speak louder and to never stop till every animal is free and safe!! For this, we feel so thankful, blessed and humble.

Veganism has truly given so much to us, we feel connected to a bigger power and gave our life’s so much purpose!!

You can connect with these Inspirational Souls online here: @om_twiins on Instagram, and on Facebook and YouTube as Om Twiins.

Web page: www.om-twiins.com

What is your favorite Vegan meme?

Our favorite Memes are from @vegansidekick

What’s your favorite Vegan restaurant?

favorite vegan restaurants are @clorofila.vegan
@thepitteddateplaya
@bioorganicos.

Please share your favorite vegan recipe?

Our favorite vegan recipe must be: banana protein ice cream, perfect for any occasion, breakfast, snack, lunch or dinner lol and only 3 ingredients 😱
– Frozen bananas
– Any other fruit (or more bananas lol)
– 1 scoop of @vidabirdman protein powder
Blend and enjoy!! (We are simple girls who enjoy simple things hehe)

What is the vegan stereotype you hear the most and how do you respond to it?

Our favorite Vegan Stereotype is “Vegans are weak and can’t build muscle” we love to surprise people with our before and after pics that show all our Vegan gains (especially booty gains 🙊) in all its glory!

Some encouraging words for new Vegans?

We would love to tell every new vegan to do this for the animals when you put yourself on the victim’s shoes, the choice is easy, you will choose compassion over tradition anytime with this mindset. And to just hold on to all the beneficial beautiful things this lifestyle brings and all the new wonderful doors it will open, really seems like nature’s way to say thank you 💚💚

What does living cruelty-free mean to you?

Living Cruelty-free for us means living as responsible and ethically possible, to act with our hearts and do just as we would like others to do to us. If we want to see peace in the world WE HAVE TO BE PEACE FOR THE WORLD 💚

What is the toughest Vegan item to find that you need?

In Mexico veganism is just starting, thankfully Playa del Carmen is catching up faster and we can get almost everything vegan version, including vegan cheese and meatless meats. But we still haven’t found a good egg replacer. But we are almost raw Vegans so we don’t really crave all these transitioning products anymore, just gives us fruits and veggies and we are good to go! 😃😃

Talk about a time when you struggled with your Veganism?

We only struggle with some social events (that directly involve big amounts of animal products) and we prefer to avoid attending to stuff like this. Also when we first came to work to the gym people were doubtful and looked down at us for not supplementing or eating animals… with time more than one has been open to try veganism or at least hear us out. ☺

We would like to ask other vegans what they think about adopting cats…cause we have two rescued babies and cats can’t be veganized like dogs? We had one vegan say that this made us “not vegan enough” But they have been with us for almost 10 years (Muty and Arigato). We would never think of giving them away or putting them down… and as sad as it makes us that here in Mexico we haven’t found vegan cat food we don’t feel this makes us bad vegans… as soon as we can find an alternative we will switch! What would you say to this??