Man, I wish the Cryotherapy, Normatech’s and all the other outlets were around for sure. You had to figure it out back then and that’s still the case for guys now. Now, there are some guys who will come in and they’ll get it. Maybe because they had it in college and they went to a great program that was more advanced as far as taking care of the body. But when you’re young, you’re still trying to establish yourself as a player, so you want every opportunity there is to play. Now, they’re trying to provide all of that, but it’s kind of hard to see the big picture sometimes as a young guy.

Everything is kind of thrown at you at one time and you’re still in the figure-it-out stage. That’s the case still in year two, three, and four, regardless if you’re classified as a star, or a superstar. You go from trying to figure out the NBA to now trying to figure the NBA out as a star or superstar. So you’re trying to figure out how to carry that load while keeping your body intact, and now that goes back to nutrition because now you’re playing more minutes and there’s more of a workload. You’re not just sitting in the corner anymore. Now, you’re always in the pick and roll or iso’s. That’s more stress on your body and you have to learn how to utilize all this technology and information at your disposal to still perform at a high level. It’s a lot that goes into it that you might not necessarily think about, because the mindset is “lets go play.”

I’m sure you can’t eat the same way now that you did at 25, 30 or 35. Are there any foods you try to avoid or get more of now with having to focus more closely on what you’re putting into your body to get what you need out of it?

I try to eat lots of vegetables and greens. I like foods that fuel. I’m a sweater, so I prefer pasta for my pre-game meals most of the time. I don’t drink soda because I lose so much [fluid] when I play that I need to replenish. I don’t really eat as much fried food as I would have when I was younger because my body can’t shed it as fast. I’m able to have more bad days than the average older guy with just the way my body works, but I don’t take advantage of that. I know I can get away with bad days, but I don’t do it all the time. For me, playing in this league and playing a lot of minutes, I make sure I have the energy foods that kind of help me perform. I don’t really eat pork as much. There’s no particular reason. I just stay away from it. I’m just smart about what I eat and the times I eat.

There are times where I’ve seen postgame meals consisting of pizza and wings and there’s a flight to catch afterward. How do you maintain trying to eat healthy later with landing in a city in the early morning and the options available at those times not being the healthiest?

That’s a challenge but there’s also little things that I don’t hear people talk about as much that I think is very important that I learned as a young kid. The one thing my mom told me—and I hated it—was when I eat, whether it’s bad or good, not to go right to sleep. Sit up for 30 minutes. I think that’s an issue for us because we eat late at night. I don’t care if you go out or not, you go straight to bed afterward because we’re getting into cities late at night and you’re ready to get to bed, so the food sits there. You want to stay up, so the food can run its course and digest. That’s been a big thing for me over my career. It might sound stupid, but that’s something I’ve always done. I don’t care how tired I am, I just try to sit up instead of laying down, so the food doesn’t sit in my stomach. And stretching helps me a lot, as far as keeping my body loose and intact, as well.