5 Pro Athletes' Nutrition Tips - And Whether You Should Take Them Seriously

4. Gabby Douglas - Enjoy Salmon For Dinner

Gabby Douglas is likely finished, or close to it, with her career as a professional athlete. However, many will undoubtedly remember her as a star of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team - something of an Olympic darling in 2012, and a veteran team leader by 2016. Gymnasts are among those athletes with fitness and nutrition routines that seem almost entirely foreign to ordinary people, because the level of caloric intake needed to fuel the amount of exercise is, under more regular circumstances, outlandish. However, they’re also some of the fittest people in the world, and so are at least worth exploring for inspiration.

Douglas has made it sound on multiple occasions as if her own nutrition routine is fairly simple (even suggesting in her younger days that she simply ate whatever her mother made her). But she’s also joined many other top athletes in making it clear that salmon is one of if not the primary proteins in her diet. Why athletes land specifically on salmon so often is slightly unclear, but Heart.org does include salmon among recommended healthy, lean proteins, on the grounds of its Omega-3 fatty acid content (nobody tell Tom Brady!).