James Haskell On Food, Fitness And Ignoring Diet Fads

Listening to 33-year-old Haskell speak, it’s hard not to be swayed by his conviction. “Every time you go online and ask about diet, suddenly there’s 17 different ways to skin a cat. It’s just not the case. You just have to understand a few rules – calories in, calories out, and to look at your plate as a pie chart,” he says.

Alongside sleep and hydration, it is this ‘pie chart’ that sustains Haskell’s punishing gym routine, and his famously big hits on the rugby field. So what does a pie chart contain?

First, there’s the protein (“You don’t mess around with your protein”). Second is an energy source (“If you do a lot of training, you need a lot of carbohydrates”). And thirdly, “decent fats and vegetables”. Three meals, three basic food groups: In the gospel of Haskell, it needn’t be much more complicated than that.

With arms the size of Tube trains, Haskell has practised eating by numbers for most of his career (3,800 calories a day, to be exact), but he resists the temptation to see food purely as fuel. “To get results, there is going to be a bit of sacrifice, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourself sometimes,” he says.

There is something agreeably grounded in Haskell’s approach to, well, everything, but particularly cooking. Ask him what his food ‘guilty pleasure’ is, and his response is instant: “Pizza.”

Even if you question Haskell’s credentials as a nutrition expert, there’s no doubting the know-how of his collaborator, sporting chef-to-the-stars, Omar Meziane.

Meziane knows a thing or two because he’s seen a thing or two. After working with Haskell at Wasps, he catered for the British Rowing Team, and then spent the summer in Russia cooking for Gareth Southgate’s England squad. “He understood how to fuel us but in a really tasty way,” says Haskell. “He kept things very simple. You don’t have to see a witch doctor to get any of the foods.”

Haskell is never far from the headlines, be it for rugby or his perfectly tossed beetroot and Stilton salad. And, of course, he’s now married to fellow celeb Chloe Madeley, daughter of Richard and Judy, herself a published fitness guru.

Both in quite terrifying physical condition, she’s the perfect partner-in-crime for Haskell’s routine. “There’s scientific and anecdotal evidence that if you go to training with a partner or someone who knows nutrition, you’re more often than not going to be successful. Chloe’s diet and training are very, very different to mine, but having someone who understands the importance of nutrition has really taught me things.”