00:01
In 2005 that was really that turning point for us.
00:05
I explained to Dwayne it’s gonna come a time
00:08
you’re gonna see that your body
00:10
is not gonna respond the way that you want it to
00:12
because of the deficiency of vegetables
00:15
that you’re not willing to consume.
00:18
When Dwayne got hurt he came to me
00:19
and he said, Chef, I think I may want to try a salad,
00:23
here or there.
00:27
My name is Richard Ingraham.
00:29
I am the CEO of ChefRLI and I have been
00:34
the personal chef for Dwayne Wade
00:36
and Gabrielle Union for the past 17 years.
00:39
I would describe Dwayne’s tastes
00:41
as he loves comfort food.
00:46
The things that Dwayne was eating when I first started,
00:49
he would eat Little Debbie’s snack cakes,
00:52
the oatmeal cream pies.
00:54
One of his favorite dishes was fettuccine alfredo
00:57
with fried chicken on top.
01:00
He could eat whatever he want basically
01:01
because he was losing about five pounds
01:03
or so during each game and he would just run
01:06
up and down the court so he would burn that stuff off.
01:09
My main thing with him was if you want to eat
01:12
some of this stuff let me know and I’ll make it myself.
01:16
So instead of eating the processed oatmeal cream pies,
01:20
I would make the oatmeal cookies myself,
01:23
I would make the cream myself.
01:25
Alfredo sauce never out of the jar.
01:29
I found that a lot of NBA players
01:31
including Dwayne their mentality at the time was
01:36
listen I was eating fried chicken,
01:39
hot dogs, brownies, cakes, I grew up
01:42
on all of this stuff.
01:43
This is the diet that got me these contracts
01:46
and got me to where I am.
01:48
They weren’t really understanding
01:50
that because of their great genes
01:52
and the fact that they were young, youthful
01:55
that that was what was really carrying them.
02:01
There’s so much more required from your body
02:04
in being an athlete a lot of brain,
02:07
a lot of sweat, just the stamina that it takes
02:10
in order to perform at such a high level
02:13
the body loses so many nutrients
02:15
throughout that process and it’s up to the personal chef
02:19
to put all of those nutrients back inside the body.
02:22
When I first started working with Dwayne
02:25
he absolutely hated vegetables.
02:28
Anything green, no parts of it whatsoever, nothing.
02:33
The ball club would give him powders
02:35
and vitamins and things like that
02:38
that would replace the natural vitamins
02:41
that you would get from raw vegetables.
02:44
Supplements are great if you’re on the road
02:47
or if you just can’t sit down to eat certain things.
02:50
You can say you know what I know I need
02:52
a little bit of vitamin A or vitamin D
02:55
or vitamin C, but it’s nothing like
02:57
getting vitamin C from a fresh orange.
03:01
I had to kind explain to Dwayne
03:03
that listen as you get older unfortunately
03:05
there will be times that you get injured
03:08
and because you don’t have the necessary vitamins
03:10
that come from raw vegetables your body’s not going to heal
03:13
as quickly as you would want it to.
03:15
Not only does it effect your body,
03:17
but it effects your psyche as well.
03:19
It takes a whole lot longer for you
03:21
to get your head back into the game
03:24
because you’re so worried about your body.
03:27
Whereas if you’re taking care of your body
03:28
as they say, if you stay ready
03:30
you never have to get ready.
03:32
Whatever you put inside your body
03:33
that’s the fuel that’s all that you have.
03:35
So you have to make sure that you put
03:38
the best products inside of your body
03:40
so that you can get the best output on the court.
03:44
2005 that was really that turning point for us.
03:48
When Dwayne got hurt the next thing you know
03:51
Dwayne came to me and he said,
03:52
Chef, I think I may want to try a salad, here or there.
03:56
Instead of me saying you know I told you so,
03:58
I was excited about it.
04:00
In order for me to keep him performing
04:03
I had to go and look on the computer,
04:06
I had to read, I had to ask other chefs
04:09
who worked for other athletes who I really admired
04:12
what was it that they were doing?
04:15
What should I do to cut down on inflammation?
04:18
What should I do to help with migraines?
04:21
With the migraines we basically
04:23
tried to keep his body hydrated.
04:26
We drank a lot more water.
04:28
We took every type of other drink out of his diet.
04:31
We took all sugars out of his diet.
04:33
We added in some nice teas with turmeric
04:36
and some ginger and kept his stress level
04:39
as low as possible.
04:41
That’s where I came in just to provide
04:44
a very holistic environment for him
04:47
so that his migraines wouldn’t kick in.
04:50
I started learning all of this information
04:53
and I started implementing them slowly into his diet
04:57
and one thing that I would always do is
04:59
communicate with Dwayne what it was I was doing.
05:02
I wanted to have him included
05:05
and Dwayne being the leader that he was
05:07
he would take some of that information
05:09
into the locker room and tell some of the other players
05:13
exactly what he was doing because he wanted everybody
05:16
to kind of be on the same page,
05:18
not just mentally but as far as their bodies
05:21
were concerned as well.
05:24
When I first started with Dwayne
05:27
I wanted to get all of the information
05:29
and I wanted to do it all myself.
05:31
But then I had to understand that
05:33
there are different people that help to make one team
05:38
and the purpose of that team was to make sure
05:40
that the athlete performs at the highest level.
05:43
At some point I had to come to grips with myself
05:46
and say listen, you have to take the ego
05:48
out of the equation and understand
05:50
that it’s not about you.
05:52
What you do is just one portion
05:54
of what it takes for Dwayne to be
05:56
the best he can possibly be.
05:58
So instead of it just being me out on the island,
06:02
now I was actually getting on the phone
06:04
and calling people like Tim Rover,
06:06
David Alexander, the team trainers
06:09
to make sure that I was doing exactly what I needed
06:13
that my particular part fit into the puzzle just right
06:17
and if I needed to make certain adjustments
06:19
I was able to do that.
06:21
I remember one game it was the fourth quarter
06:24
Dwayne was running down the court,
06:25
he’s been playing pretty well the whole night
06:28
and the next thing you know he goes out
06:30
because he has cramps in his legs.
06:32
So I’m wondering you know what is it?
06:34
What didn’t I do?
06:35
That was the first thing that I always thought about.
06:39
There were times where David Alexander,
06:41
one of his trainer’s would give me a call
06:43
and say, Listen Chef, we need D to be
06:46
as strong as possible.
06:48
So what we want to do now is to
06:50
up his protein intake because we want to put on
06:53
just a little bit more muscle so that
06:56
he can withstand not only the bumps that he takes
06:59
when driving to the whole, but also
07:02
if you ever watch Dwayne’s game
07:05
he’s on the ground maybe 80% of the time
07:08
because he’s falling down from taking
07:10
these fade away jump shots and maybe getting bumped
07:13
on the way down so he needs to be able to have that muscle
07:16
so that when he hits the ground he’s strong enough
07:19
to be able to withstand all the rigorous bumps
07:22
and bruises that he would get.
07:23
So now what I would do was go out
07:25
and get more lean fish, you know maybe sea bass.
07:28
We would do some nice shrimp.
07:30
I would do maybe a little grouper, some snapper.
07:34
Then on the meat side maybe a pork tenderloin,
07:38
turkey tenderloin.
07:39
All of these things were very, very flavorful meat parts,
07:43
but they were very lean as well.
07:47
Later on in Dwayne’s career he suffered
07:49
a couple of different injuries; a should injury,
07:52
then of course his knee.
07:54
I would go in and I would talk to the trainers.
07:57
I would talk to certain nutritionists
07:59
and find out what foods should I take out of his diet?
08:05
And a lot of my pasta dishes that we would do
08:07
for pre-game I would take out dairy;
08:10
cheeses, heavy creams, butter.
08:13
Implement more legumes, more beans,
08:16
so that it would help him with his inflammation problem.
08:20
I definitely feel that you can always continue to learn.
08:23
I look and I watch and I study
08:25
every single thing about what people do,
08:28
what people cook and just because your a chef
08:31
that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn something
08:33
from a home cook.
08:34
You know from my mother.
08:35
I watch my wife cook certain things
08:37
and I may ask, listen how did you get that to do that?
08:40
Even when I go out to eat I continuously
08:43
try to learn different methods.
08:45
People they want the shine, but they don’t want the grind
08:48
and every single day is a grind.
08:50
And that grind means to continue to educate yourself.
08:58
We’ve never monitored calories.
09:00
Through my communication I knew how he was feeling,
09:03
so I would make necessary adjustments there.
09:06
Probably look at his body.
09:07
I would look at his obliques.
09:09
Look at him as a whole to see if I need
09:12
to taper off on this,
09:14
maybe check his portion sizes with this.
09:17
And then he would come to me sometimes
09:19
and give me suggestions on you know
09:21
maybe we need to try to do a cleanse.
09:23
Or we would do special smoothies
09:26
with kale, cucumber, lemon, things to kind of
09:30
flush his system out, speed his metabolism up
09:33
so he can start burning a little bit faster.
09:36
My philosophy is to continuously
09:38
throughout the season, throughout the off season
09:41
kinda keep the same regiment to eat clean,
09:44
to eat flavorful and then periodically
09:48
we would have a day where we may have short ribs
09:50
or we may have a hamburger with fries.
09:53
But once again, whatever it was
09:55
that we were indulging in we made sure
09:57
that it was made from the freshest products.
10:00
During the off season I kinda looked at it
10:02
like a workout, whereas you’re working out
10:05
throughout the season and then you take time off
10:08
and you don’t workout.
10:10
The hardest thing is to start again.
10:13
That’s the hardest thing to ever do.
10:15
Your muscles are sore, so you may take a day off
10:19
to get your muscles back and you have to go
10:21
through such a process to start that all over again.
10:25
So we really didn’t over indulge.
10:27
We didn’t over indulge in our sweets.
10:29
We didn’t over indulge in rice or pastas.
10:33
Once the season started then we started to implement
10:37
a little bit more carbs into his diet
10:39
because now he’s training, especially during the pre-season
10:43
he needed that energy boost.
10:45
But we didn’t just add any type of carbs in.
10:48
We wanted to make sure that we implemented
10:51
carbohydrates that would sustain his energy level.
10:54
In the morning a breakfast sandwich
10:57
or we may do some oatmeal which is a great carbohydrate
11:00
that sustains that energy level throughout the day.
11:04
And then for lunch we may do a nice orzo pasta
11:08
with some turkey and spinach meatballs
11:11
or something like that.
11:12
He may have a nice peanut butter
11:14
and jelly sandwich with some green grapes
11:17
that I would send him off with.
11:18
And then for dinner he would come home
11:20
we may have a veal chop with some farro
11:23
and broccoli stir fry.
11:26
When he, Chris Bosh and LeBron James
11:29
got together during the time of the big three.
11:32
Those were some very, very long seasons.
11:37
They played a whole season.
11:39
They played through the play-offs.
11:42
Then the finals.
11:43
Then the championship series.
11:46
His body got really, really beat up
11:48
very, very tired, very exhausting.
11:51
So I had to make sure that each
11:53
and every meal meant something.
12:01
I think Dwayne has changed in a way
12:03
of just be a little bit more open,
12:05
probably trying different things
12:07
and I think the reason for that is because of trust.
12:10
That comes with time.
12:13
For the past 17 years I’ve become part of the family.
12:17
When he’s away I’ve taken on the role
12:20
of being the protector of his family.
12:23
I stay a little bit later at night
12:25
to make sure everybody’s safe.
12:27
They have food there in case they want
12:29
to come down and snack.
12:30
They don’t have to order food out.
12:33
It alleviates the pressure from him wondering
12:36
if his family is safe while he’s on the road.
12:39
The only thing that he has to concentrate on
12:42
is his job which is making sure
12:44
that ball goes into that hoop.
12:47
Dwayne as you know he switched teams a couple of times.
12:51
We got the call that we needed
12:52
to go to Chicago, so my wife and my children
12:55
and I we packed everything up and we moved off to Chicago.
12:59
And then we went from Chicago to Cleveland
13:02
and then the next thing you know
13:04
we were boom, right back in Miami once again.
13:06
And then here we are now in L.A.
13:09
It was all about finding the grocery stores
13:12
and some farms in order to make sure
13:14
that we kept the quality of service,
13:17
the quality of food the same because that’s the reason
13:20
that you know I was asked to come along.
13:23
D wanted to keep the same way of life
13:26
that he had in Miami.
13:28
When the talk of retirement came
13:30
you didn’t really want it to happen.
13:33
You know you love being a part of
13:35
what he was doing out there on the court.
13:37
You loved to see him dunk that ball
13:40
or to make this amazing play.
13:42
As the Lord would have it
13:44
and as Dwayne’s needs would have it
13:46
he wanted to continue to keep me on
13:48
because he wanted to still be as fit as he wanted to be.
13:52
Our diet isn’t as strenuous as it was
13:56
when he was playing, but I still try to keep it
13:59
as clean as possible.
14:00
He still needs the energy to be a winner
14:03
on camera, in these interviews
14:05
and doing the things that he’s doing.
14:07
We still have that same philosophy of
14:10
if you stay ready you don’t have to get ready.