The Real-Life Diet of Kelly Slater, Who Thinks Everyone Should Be in Therapy 

The greatest surfer of all time caught up with GQ wellness columnist Joe Holder about mental and physical health at age 50, his personal nutrition bible, and why he still has the drive to take a shot at Olympic gold. 
A collage of kelly slater smiling and holding a surfboard on a red and blue swirled background
Photograph: Getty Images; Collage: Gabe Conte

After a 32-year pro career and 11 world titles, you think Kelly Slater would have gotten comfortable with being called one of the greatest athletes ever. As it turns out, he's not big on cross-sport comparisons, so we're happy to do it for him: Slater is the surfing GOAT, one of the greatest athletes in any sport, and a bona fide cultural icon. The craziest thing? At age 50 he's still competing—and winning—at the highest level.

Which is not to say it has always come easily. Slater tells GQ he has struggled with burnout and other mental health issues—and learned a lot about the mental and physical practices that help him feel his best along the way. So we caught up him over a Zoom from the opposite end of the world to to hear about his perfect breakfast, what the end of his career might look like, the lessons two weeks without food have taught him, and how he got swindled into being on Baywatch.

For Real-Life Diet, GQ talks to athletes, celebrities, and other high performers about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.

GQ: I like to take kind a “tourist/purist” perspective for these interviews. Some people who probably aren't that familiar with surfing will be reading this. So I'd like to set the stage for people who have really no idea. What's it like being on tour and how crazy is that grind? Because you've been in it, man.

Kelly Slater: Yeah, I have. I finished high school in ‘91, in June, and by July I was starting on the tour. ‘92 was the first year where the whole tour was just the top 44 surfers in the world. I qualified in 43rd place, and made it by one spot. The following year, I won the world title.

Yeah, that’s a crazy start—and then getting to where you are now. Now you are literally a living legend. Do you find it interesting how you transcend cultural pockets? I’m a Black kid and even I’m familiar with you. There’s a rap song, “Swag Surfin," one of the lyrics goes “surfing on the scene like a young Kelly Slater.” So your cultural impact, do you take time to think about that or is it just kind of whatever to you?

Sometimes it's hard to believe that those things are real in my life, to be honest. Obviously, my fame is more based around the coastline, but I think having done Baywatch in the early '90s kind of catapulted me into more of a mainstream thing. From my goals and desires were in life, that wasn't necessarily a good thing at that time. I think in the long run, it probably fit into my life pretty good to help me accomplish all the things I wanted to. But at the time, I just wanted to be a surfer. I wanted to just quiet all challengers to some degree, and it definitely spurred on my competitive drive to do better. I actually didn't want to do the show, but that's a longer story. My manager at the time basically obligated me by signing a contract on my behalf—he basically had power of attorney for me and signed for me to do the show.

So I’m going on 32 years as a pro now, I'm really, really happy where I ended up. For sure, I accomplished all the things I've set my heart on and wanted to do, and figured out a way to win in times where it was really hard. Where sometimes I didn't think I could, but I had this deep inner belief. 

I get pretty excited when some of the younger guys come to me and ask me for advice, because I feel like there's a certain level of respect they're giving to their elders when that happens. Recently, one of the young guys asked me, “What advice would you give me? How could I set myself up to be my best?”, and I told him “you don't really need to let anyone else know what it is you want to do, you just have to know it and feel it, you just have to love it and be obsessive about it." 

I don't know anyone in the world who is becoming the best at something without being obsessive, because they love it. My advice to this kid was to just know exactly what you wanna do and really, truly believe you can do it—not even that you can do it, that you're going to do it, and you just figure out a way to make it happen, and once you know the end goal, you can figure out how to get there.

So I want to stay with that lens a little bit—just like the old man, wise sage energy. Because a lot of times, I think people think surfers are super happy go lucky, but looking at your body of work, your interviews, and in your book, all these different things, you kinda remind me a little bit of Eliud Kipchoge, who's one of the greatest marathoners ever. You have all these quotable gems. You’ve also been through some things. 

Yeah, I’ve been through some things. Everyone's got their own challenges to different degrees, and most often it is going to stem from family issues and stuff. In my 20s I started to read a lot about diet, that kind of led me into a lot of philosophy and about trying to understand myself and clear my mind. I was really confused about my dad in my early 20s. He drank a lot and he wasn't really a family guy in with his wife—with my mom—but he loved his kids. He really got us outdoors, he was a really personable guy. That rubbed off on me. But I spent a lot of time confused about my relationship with him and who he was as a dad and a husband.

So I think in my early 20s, it really kinda hit me. I started to really focus: What are all the things I can control about my life, and my surfing, and what are all the bits to go into that recipe?

I got really into my diet and that led me to learn about the Gracies and then eventually that led me into jujitsu. Their diet theories led me to a book called The Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity which is kind of like a Bible to me in my 20s. It talked about what foods to eat together and not eat together, basically. Not mixing proteins and carbs together, and eating fruit by themselves. That when you do that, your body uses that fuel most efficiently. It also got into a lot of breathing techniques and working out and all sorts of stuff, and even talked about sexual practices. It's a really holistic approach to life through the Tao. So that really spoke to me, and I think helped give me a lot of guidance at those times, and I knew if I could control my diet and my body, really work my board design, and understand my competitors. There’s a mental game to competition, and I love competition. I always loved competition

Let's lean into eating a little bit. What are you on now?

I've tried a lot of different diets and I sort of float in and out of different ones. I truly do believe certain people's bodies work better on different foods. From my experience, I really do believe there's something behind the blood type diet. I'm blood type A, and so I'm supposed to be more vegetarian-based, maybe a little bit of fish, but yeah: more of a plant-based diet. And when I've done that, I've probably felt my most efficient with my digestion, elimination, all that kind of thing. I think it really suits me.

My girlfriend and I are working with this doctor and nutritionist who, before we do anything, we go and get a huge blood panel on food allergy tests done, and then build our diet around that. She and I try to stick to that, but it's not necessarily plant-based or carnivore or vegan or any of that. We’re trying to figure out the best way to eliminate the foods that we react to. And I noticed that when I eat a lot of wheat or a couple of different foods that I'm allergic to, either mildly or incredibly allergic to, and so I definitely noticed a difference when I've cut those out.

You pay attention. You're an intuitive eater. 

Yeah, yeah! You gotta know, when you lay down in bed, how you felt. How was your sleep cycle after you ate certain foods? Did you get tired after eating proteins or carbs? All those kinds of things. I think it's really good to be aware of, read as much as you can from various different sources, even if you don't agree with them and see if some of it resonates with you.

What’s your perfect breakfast?

My favorite breakfast is just making a big healthy smoothie, some fresh fruit and some protein powders and some little health remedies that I throw in there.

Or I'd start with some warm lemon water, maybe some ginger, and kind of let that just cleanse me out first. Then have some fruit and then, like said, I'm not a vegan at this point, so I might have some eggs or some kind of a cooked breakfast. But I generally would start out with fruit or with chia in the smoothies to get the fiber and omega-3s.

What's that supplement routine? Are there any specific supplements that you've seen that have made you feel better, whether it's more plant-oriented ones, spirulina or chlorella or whatever?

Gosh, I have to look at all of them, but I take them in the morning before I eat, and then I take another set right before I eat because that helps with my digestion. Those are a bunch of different enzymes. And I take... all the different vitamin letters—COQ10, GABA and 5-HTP. Natural stuff, as plant-based as possible—I think that's a key thing. There's a lot of fake supplements out there that are synthetic and basically useless unless a plant uptakes that and makes it bioavailable to your body. You’re just eating a rock: Your body didn't really know how to use it and you just poop it out, so it's important to try to get plant-derived mineral supplements, and then just get as close to nature as possible. You know, as real and raw as you can. 

That makes a lot of sense—I'm definitely on that supplement wave. But I would love to hear also about what the workout routine is like. I know that you kind of get most of your fitness through surfing, but are there other things that you've done that have helped you workout-wise? 

I think cardio is a big one. With surfing, we're not into endurance cardio, it's quick. It's almost like sprinter cardio, but spread over 30 minutes when you need your cardio to be pretty good. And if you're surfing a long way, that’s a lot of overall cardio. I don't have a workout routine per se. If I start to feel tight, I stretch. If something is really bothering me. I'll go see somebody. I like to get a lot of body work, Thai massage—or any kind of real deep tissue massage. And if you can get in the habit of really working on yourself.

I'll take a Hypervolt on a plane and I'll just work my legs for an hour, work on my neck, working on anywhere I can. You kind of loosen up. The more bodywork you get in your life, the more you find out it's all tied together—something in your ankle can be bothering your knee.

When I was a teenager and I started riding for Quicksilver, I started traveling around with Tom Carroll and he was one of the only guys on tour that really worked out, worked on his diet, looked after his body. He was really serious about being an athlete. He used to complain about the different things—how his ankle caused this in his back. I used to think he was crazy, and I thought he's just full of shit, but then I realized it actually was true. He was way ahead of the game. So I do some Pilates. I will do a little bit of strength training here and there, but I'm just on the road, so it's hard to have a program. 

You've talked about this earlier, but I'd love to hear a little bit more on just some stuff that isn’t talked about enough. As a kid, you dealt with  issues with your parents. Being poor, getting rich but mishandling money and striving through that. Dealing with relationships. Man-to-man, how did you emotionally and mentally overcome that, and have you ever done therapy or non-traditional therapy or anything like that? Because it's tough, building from that.

There's a lot to unpack there. I definitely had a lot of life lessons to learn in terms of relationships and not pointing the finger, but didn't really have the best example at home for my parents. As you get older, you learn: You've got to go through your own bad relationships and figure it out. But I've been lucky. I've had a lot of really good mentors. Good men and women in my life that have taken me in like family and have good families and values, and just spent time with them and occasionally get a little debrief or therapy on the couch. 

But I've also done some formal therapy, and I've done some off the beaten path therapies as well. I think you need to just be inquisitive and try to learn from your mistakes. Take the approach that everything that happens in your life is your responsibility and not someone else's. Don't play the victim in life and know that you can be in control and that there are ways out of desperate, terrible situations. I've also had a lot of friends commit suicide, which has been really difficult to get my head around at times—but I'd be lying if I didn't say I also have felt horrible desperation at times where I didn't see a whole lot to make me feel good about my life.

But I think that's temporary. Suicide is permanent. It's been really hard. During COVID, I've had, I think, five friends commit suicide and many more pass away from other things as well. But suicide is a really tough one, man. It just leaves so many questions. I think if you watch UFC, Patty talked about it the other day, he said “I'd rather have my friend crying on my shoulder then go to a funeral next week” That really rang true for me. So yeah, everyone...everyone needs a friend. Everyone needs therapy. Everybody. There's no one who's just got it wired.

I know you're not a huge fan of cross-sport comparisons, but you are one of the greatest athletes of all time, we don't even have to compare sports. But like other greats in sports, including Jordan, is like you left, you retired, and then came back. There is a famous Jay Z line that goes “come back like Jordan wearing the 4-5,” and you did that. But how hard was that when you retired, to come back and not win for a few years, and then finally get back to winning? What was that like mentally?

Yeah, so I took '99 to '01 off. I did still surf one or two advanced competitions every year. But I was just really burnt out. I got offered a spot for the season ‘02, to come back, I kinda reluctantly took it because I was really enjoying not being on tour, but I knew at some point I was gonna jump back in and compete again full-time. My dad died in the beginning of the year, and that made it a little bit...kind of strange. I don't know, surfing just didn’t mean as much after my father passed.

Well, the first contest after my father passed away in 2002—literally two or three weeks later—I was in Fiji, and I'm sitting in water and thinking about him, and all of a sudden, as soon as I thought about hm, I just thought I'd love for my dad to be able to catch one of these waves in his lifetime. Every single wave that was coming through was better than probably every wave my dad ever caught in his life, and I remember thinking, I wish my dad could just ride one of these in his life to experience this wave and fully experience this wave. 

Right then I got it to 10-point ride and then 9.5s sort of back-to-back in the next five minutes. It made me feel like that's why I started surfing—to connect with my dad as a kid—and that was a real confirmation that I was on the right track. That made me excited about surfing again, but for the rest of that year, I didn't care so much about my results and I was a little depressed.

The following year, I really put all that energy back into it. With the third-to-last event that year I pulled into the lead and I won back-to-back events and then got in the lead and went, Oh my God, I'm gonna win the world title again, and sort of maybe counted my chickens before they hatched a little bit. I was going through a lot of personal difficulties in a relationship, and it was super distracting and it was super hard to deal with. I mentioned before about pointing fingers? I got myself in a situation, so it was mine to deal with, but the relationship was not helping me be my best.

So I lost a title at the end of the year, just kinda let it slip out of my hands, and that was kind of heartbreaking. In 2004 I almost didn't wanna even put myself back in the mix. In 2005, I just said, Screw it. This is what I do. Why am I here if I'm not putting it all on the line? And then I won that year. I won ’06, ’08, 2010 and 2011. I really turned things around because I found that inspiration again. I just found loving surfing again

Why do you keep coming back? Are you ever gonna leave?

Why do I still do this and how long will I do this? I'm definitely getting to the end of the line here.

I won Pipeline this year. I've said for years that if I won Pipeline again, I'm gonna retire right then and actually on the last wave I won. I did it and said “I'm fucking done.” But I had already committed to the year, so I said I'm gonna do the year and go see the fans and friends around the world and kinda do a send-off. I don't know if I did the tour this year for the right reasons. I don't know if I did it for me or for other people in a way. I don't know that my heart's really been in the competitive aspect of it so much. As you grow and get older, different things become important. Beating this guy or winning that heat is not the same as it was to me in my 20s or even my 30s—or even in my 40s! If I can really put everything into surfing next year and make the Olympics then the Olympics will be the end for me, but if not, I might finish before then.

Are the Olympics one of the reasons that you're sticking around?

I think it would be pretty cool. As I said when the Olympics got announced in the first place, that was never my goal as a kid. I never thought I'd be in the Olympics, I never thought surfing would be in the Olympics, so that wasn't anything I was thinking about. It was never a dream of mine. 

Be honest. Let’s be real, you’re the man, one of the greatest to ever do it. Just be straight forward: do you want to win the Olympics?

Yeah, I'd love to win the Olympics, and that's where I'm at right now. I don't know if the world tour grind trying to win a world title is my thing at this point. I just don't have the same motivation for it, but the gold medal is gonna get handed out at Teahupo'o, and if I could be on that team, I think I have a good shot of winning it. I’ve actually been saying I think it's going to be harder for me to make the team than it would be to win a gold medal. Teahupo’o suits my skill. I know the wave really well, I think I beat anyone out there on any day—I really have that confidence at that wave in myself. Winning the gold medal at Teahupo’o would be amazing and somebody's going to win that—I'd like it to be me.

If you had to suggest any mental wellness practice or mindfulness practice that people should do consistently that you have used, what would it be?

Something you can do yourself—or is also fun to do with other people or in classes—is breathwork. Most people will be like, “you mean just breathing?” But when you breathe in certain cycles for certain periods of time, you get basically a spiritual experience—your brain and your mind goes somewhere else, you become totally present, but you also sort of separate from your physical body. It's like putting yourself on a trip but with oxygen. I think it's super beneficial to flood your body with oxygen like that. 

Also, as Wim Hof talks about, any kind of stressor that puts your body and your mind through different tests releasees different chemicals in your body. The cold plunges, the ice baths combined with the breathwork. And heat, also: Heat makes you uncomfortable, and you go back and forth from the heat to the cold and you get that breathwork in there, you're just healing yourself. 

I don't know how to stress enough how good that is. It just makes you literally forget about all this shit going on in your life. It helps you remember that this moment right now is the important one, not something you're looking forward to in a year or a month. I've lost enough friends, I know you can die in your next breath man, you should do what you can to get present right now and be happy, because it's all gonna end one day for all of us—whether it's that career, that job or your life. Things will come to a halt and you should be as happy as you can in the moment. I think breathwork takes you there.

It seems like you've tried everything—cleanses, fasts. What's the craziest thing you’ve tried for health or wellness?

I think water fasts are really cool. Master Cleanse is amazing. Master Cleanse is like two weeks of your life dedicated to not eating food, people think you’re crazy. But when you start eliminating stuff from your body that has been stuck inside your body your whole life, you thank yourself. It's kind of gross, but when you're talking about medical stuff or health stuff, you need to address those things. The elimination and digestion process in your body is super important. If you can clean that thing up, you don't need to eat many foods, your body becomes more efficient, you feel quicker, you sleep better, you don't need to sleep as long you have more energy, all those kind of things are really important.

It takes a lot of personal discipline. That discipline teaches you things about your mind, and all this is really important. I think it's no different from jumping in ice cold water. It stresses your mind out and you have to slow it down. You have to actively slow down and control those things. Food can be an addiction. Sugar is an addiction. Our phone is an addiction. All these things need to be cleansed out of your life in some way—it helps your mind get stronger and it helps you become stronger as a person. It helps you help other people; it helps you become more mindful of what's going on for others. You can help other people who are struggling with things, and you become aware and get epiphanies about while you're going through these processes for yourself. That should be number one importance for people: One’s own personal health ahead of everything.

For somebody who's reading who is on their health journey now or just needs a kick start, what advice would you give them?

Gosh, maybe the easiest thing for people to start with would be intermittent fasting. Everyone should just start reading about what happens in your body from fasting and colonic irrigation, Master Cleanses. Look, the world is full of bias. Obviously I've got my own. But mine are based on things that hopefully should make your life last longer and you should have better health from. There's not a pill out there that's gonna make it magically happen for you, you gotta put the work in, and the hardest part is getting started. Start reading about alternative ways of dealing with your health, because there's a lot of health problems out there that people don't realize.

I wish for empowerment in my own family and I wish more of that with all of the friends around me, with people suffering with chronic health issues, especially preventable ones. Some things you can't help if you're born with it, and maybe there’s not a fix for it. Some people get cancer. But I still believe everything can be turned around. I think that's how you have to view these things, and the challenge is a spiritual one. I'm not talking about praying, hoping it goes away. I'm talking about making changes in your life and being in control, so you feel like you're making progress based on your own actions. That's super-empowering for people. If I could teach anything to little kids coming up ? I say think of 30 years from now. When you're 30, think of when you're 60. When you're 50, think of when you're 80.

I know when—if—I make it to 80 or 90, if something else doesn't kill me off, I want to be looking out for myself. I don't want someone taking care of me or feed me or any of that—I wanna have a good, long life and be healthy, and so I think about 80 years old right now when I'm 50.