Performance Chef

I was forwarded a link to a pretty cool article about my current client, Preston Brown. As I read through the article, I came to a few paragraphs that specifically addressed the chef services I provide, which I thought was AMAZINGLY AWESOME! I’m very happy this article speaks about Preston’s determination to perform his best right now and down the road, as the season progresses. Here’s an excerpt from the article in The Athletic, which is an online news site covering sports teams.

“To maintain the slimmer frame, Brown has turned to another former teammate, one who has never gone to a Pro Bowl or made a tackle or even worn a helmet. Courtney Brown is a chef from Atlanta who has worked with Preston in the past, including last year before he went off the nutrition rails.

Preston had Courtney move in with him to ensure that doesn’t happen again. She shows up at the team hotel every morning during training camp with a lunchbox containing three pre-packaged meals — egg whites and fruit for breakfast, salads for lunch and a grouping of chicken, greens and fruits for dinner, along with a few healthy snacks to give him a boost of energy during the long days of training camp.

Many of the players head to the team cafeteria when the meetings end each evening to get cheeseburgers or chicken wings to take back to the hotel. Not Brown, who digs into his lunchbox and opens a plastic container the size of a Lean Cuisine and continues down the path that he hopes leads to being a three-down linebacker.” Jay Morrison - The Athletic, Aug 3, 2019

As a performance chef, my job is to help my professional athlete client to coordinate his nutritional component by utilizing food to reach optimal performance and recovery, fight fatigue / increase energy and provide education around quality versus junk food choices. When a sports team is paying millions of dollars for your expertise at a particular position, you do everything in your power to put on a stellar performance every single time you hit the field. Food and nutrition is a huge component in this equation.

Coming from the IT world where diagrams rule, this process reminds me of an elaborate Venn diagram where the end goal is the athlete performing at their best, every single game. To be transparent, the team dietician and I have touched base so I have an accurate calorie count for low, moderate and heavy activity days. To stay on track, Preston and I communicate on a regular basis regarding his activity level, which determines if we increase or decrease his caloric intake each week. It’s not uncommon as the season progresses to cut the caloric intake, due to his reps being decreased, in order to prevent excessive weight gain.

Here are a few meals I’ve prepared during the 2019 season.