"I've been paleo for about a year, and what I miss most is the Philosopher's Pie from [the chain] Mellow Mushroom in Memphis, where my wife and I have a home. All else pales in comparison—it's a pizza topped with strips of filet steak, black olives, Feta cheese, and artichoke hearts. My cheat meal would be that and a microbrew. Good thing I live in England.
"My personal trainer suggested paleo to build muscle while staying lean, and it's one of the first plans that's worked for me. Sure, I like ice cream, but when you keep a healthy lifestyle, it's: Do you prefer sweets and crappy food, or do you prefer to have a nice body? It depends on what you want more. Breakfast is meat or eggs, and nuts. Lunch and dinner are more meat and a steamed green vegetable. Depending on how intense training was, I throw in extra carbs, like sweet potatoes.
"Three mornings a week, I exercise before eating—it's called fasted cardio—to burn fat. I go to the Hale Country Club & Spa near my house outside Manchester and do an intense walk—as fast as I can without running—on the treadmill at a 1 or 1.5 percent incline for 30 minutes.
"Mid-morning, I'm on the field for about two hours with my club team, Everton. I do goalkeeper training—the coach kicks balls at me and I'm diving all around. Kind of natural plyometrics, getting wet and muddy. Then I do tactical work with the rest of the team and implement a game plan for that week. I'll switch my focus to the U.S. national team once the last whistle blows on the Barclays Premier League. I'm looking forward to it.
"I'm a gym rat; I love my hour-long afternoon sessions with my trainer. He's into super-sets: a sequence of two or three exercises, so muscles fatigue and grow more. An arms workout could be weighted dips into bench presses into cable pushdowns. Rest, then three more sets.
"Ideally, I'm in bed by 10 P.M. That's all I have left. I like to get more than my normal 10 hours of sleep nights before a game. Athletes do so much to take care of their bodies, yet sleep is the element most get wrong. I even nap for an hour after practice. It's my favorite part of the day."
• • •