Forget paintball, this company's team building activity is veganism

This year's team building exercise at Dr. Raj Attariwala's MRI centre in Vancouver doesn't involve scavenger hunts or escape rooms.

Instead, Attariwala, 52, and seven of his employees are going vegan for a full month.

At the beginning of the challenge, each person tests their blood, body mass index, visceral fat and peripheral fat.

In 30 days, everyone will run the same tests to see what difference, if any, the new diet has on their overall health.

"The goal is to try to stay healthy," Attariwala said. "We have the tools to be able to see how things are going to change."

AIM Medical Imaging isn't the first company to encourage an office-wide health initiative, but few businesses offer state-of-the-art equipment, such as Prenuvo full body MRI scans, to measure the benefits of a new diet.

"In the San Francisco area, people call it body hacking," said Attariwala, who also plans on wearing a blood glucose monitor for the next month.

"Let's see what it does."

Science experiment

Seated in front of three large screens at his clinic, Attariwala stares at an MRI scan of his body and points at his abdomen.

Attariwala is concerned with the amount of visceral fat, which is coloured white in the image, that has collected around his organs.

"The visceral fat is what we know is the more deadly fat," he said. "What want to see is by changing our diet, will this visceral fat change?"

Dr. Ali Farahani — Attariwala's friend who brought everyone participating in the challenge to his clinic to run tests — says foods that are high in carbohydrates can cause visceral fat levels to increase.

He says that's why it's important for everyone to find healthy substitutes instead of carb-rich foods to replace the meat and dairy products they're eliminating from their diets.

"If you don't eat processed food, and you don't replace your meat with carbs, then you should be fine," he said. "I think anyone who doesn't do better just screwed up their diet."

Going vegan

Meat has been a staple in AIM employee Erica Ferreira's diet since she was a little girl and she's curious to see if cutting it out will give her more energy.

"It's more of an experiment to see how my body reacts to it and really, if the vegan diet is superior to other diets out there," she said.

"I'm really trying to see if, for me, it's sustainable and realistic."

Ferreira eats out often and she's also anxious to find out whether it's difficult to find appetizing plant-based options when she goes to restaurants with her non-vegan friends.

For Attariwala, the biggest challenge will come at home, where his family has no plans to do the challenge with him.

"Chocolate is the big question," he said, laughing. "I'm kind of worried about that because I know my wife and kids are going to be eating chocolate and waving it in my face."