When you look at NFL superstar Tony Gonzalez, you don't think: He eats oatmeal for breakfast.
But the tight end, who plays for the Atlanta Falcons, does eat oatmeal for breakfast. Plus a fruit smoothie. For lunch, it's often beans and brown rice. For dinner, is it a steak? No, it's fish, whole-wheat pasta, and veggies. Dessert would be fruit sorbet.
And he's not a small guy — 6-feet-5-inches, 251 pounds — and Gonzalez certainly gets enough exercise. He's had a blazing football career, smashing records and establishing himself as the go-to man if you need a touchdown.
But a few years ago, he didn't feel so hot. He had a health scare and then got Bell's palsy, a rare illness that can paralyze one side of a person's face. He recovered, but started learning about healthy ways of eating. He read about how people in other countries may be healthier because they eat more vegetables and grains and less fat and sugar.
Gonzalez decided to change his usual menu, which included a lot of hamburgers, steaks, French fries, and milkshakes.
"His diet was full of lots of fat. He changed his entire approach to eating," his nutritionist, Mitzi Dulan, said.
Dulan was the nutritionist assigned to help Kansas City Chiefs players eat right. When Gonzalez was with the Chiefs, he went to her for ideas. She helped him through a 2-year process to overhaul what he was eating. It worked out so well that the two wrote a book together, "The All-Pro Diet."
Just being healthier is great, but that wasn't the only reason Gonzalez kept eating this new way. For him, eating better meant better performance. Gonzalez says he's faster and has more energy now.
"What he's seeing on the field is improvement in both recovery and energy levels," Dulan said. Gonzalez is going strong.
Want to see his numbers? Gonzalez caught 93 passes for 930 yards in 2012, the same year he scored eight touchdowns. And in his position — tight end — he's smashed records. He has 1,242 receptions, which means he caught the ball 1,242 times for more than 14,000 yards!
