Since he was a kid growing up in Kitchener, Ontario, Winnipeg Jets center Mark Scheifele has always tried to eat well. But diet and fitness were not at the top of his priority list until he met Gary Roberts, who played 21 seasons in the NHL and is now considered one of the hockey world’s preeminent fitness gurus.

Last summer, before the start of his sixth NHL season, Roberts’ influence prompted Scheifele to take his diet more seriously than ever: He consulted with a nutritionist, took a food sensitivity test, picked the brain of Tom Brady’s chef, and then hired his own personal chef, whose services he shared with teammate and roommate Andrew Copp.

The result: Despite losing a good chunk of the year to injury, Scheifele notched 23 regular-season goals and then helmed a remarkable playoff run, scoring 14 goals in 17 playoff games and leading the Jets to the conference finals. We recently caught up with Scheifele to talk about the perils of eating corn, his rules of thumb for grocery shopping, and his unyielding hatred of all things mushroom.

GQ: What does your day-to-day eating routine look like?

Mark Scheifele: In the morning, I wake up and have a lemon water, to cleanse the body of all the toxins and other crap that have been digesting overnight, and to get my stomach primed to absorb everything during the day.

I took a food sensitivity test last summer, and eggs were a bad marker for me. They are very inflammatory—not good for my system. I am now totally off eggs. So my breakfast options are oatmeal, coconut flakes, granola, fresh fruit, chia pudding with toppings, or a smoothie bowl. I try to eat foods that are high in fat in the morning, because that’s the energy you want to burn off as you’re working during the day.

I am dairy- and gluten-free, but for lunch, I try to keep a variety of options so that I don’t eat the same things over and over again. If it’s a game day, there’s going to be a huge chicken component for lunch, paired with a carb—rice, sweet potato, or quinoa. On off-days, I’ll try to have anti-inflammatory foods. Fish is usually an option, or a vegetarian bowl, or sweet potato falafel.

What about snacks during the day? What are your options for dinner?

I’ll have pineapple water around the house. We’ll have snacks, like super-seed energy bars.

Before a game, I won’t eat much red meat—it’s definitely fish, chicken, or pork, not steak. I only throw red meat in there when I need to get my iron levels up. A lot of it is really based around our schedule: whether we have a game the next day, whether we played the night before, and how many off-days we have. It’s just based on how I feel, and on really listening to my body, which has helped me a lot.

What about after the game?

A lot of times, I struggle to eat after games, but I try to get as much in me as I can. Usually it’s chicken or pork, and there’s always salad, and a lot of carbs. You want to get your carbs up after the game, considering all the energy that you just burned.

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