Nick Baumgartner is a professional snowboarder with two simple goals: be the first one down the hill and the coolest dad on the planet. After winning a bronze medal in the FIS Snowboarding World Championships in 2009, Baumgartner competed in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics before nabbing gold and silver medals in the 2011 and 2012 Winter X-Games. Fresh off the slopes of Sochi, the 32-year-old athlete chatted with Haute Living about training for the XXII Olympic Winter Games.
7 AM I wake up and eat a light breakfast of oatmeal with dried fruit and honey, and then I’ll juice a bunch of vegetables and make a green drink.
7:30 AM I take my dog and go for a quick two to four mile run to the lake down the road from my house in Iron River, Michigan.
8:30 AM I eat a bowl of cottage cheese to replenish what I burned during my run. Then I practice on the little pump track that I built in my yard. It really helps with my starts. There’s this gate that I can use to pull up the hill. When I get to the top of this big ramp that we made, I jump off the side of it and land in a half-pipe of sorts. It’s not a real half-pipe… it’s more like a hill of snow. Then I come back and I put rollers all the way up to the road, which is probably about 30 yards, and then I jump the quarter-pipe alongside the road. I pump all the way back to the start of my gate and do it all over again.
10 AM I run that a few times and then I take a shower and hop on the computer to get some work done. There are always a lot of emails to answer and interviews to complete, especially before the Olympics.
12 PM When I break for lunch, I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich using tons of nuts. It’s kind of like eating cardboard, but it’s good. I use honey instead of sugar to make things taste better.
3 PM I pick up my 9-year-old son, Landon, from school. It’s homework time! We get his homework done and then I take him to basketball practice.
6 PM When I’m home for these little spurts, I try to eat dinner with my mom and dad, who live four blocks from me. I try to visit as often as possible, and if I don’t, I get scolded! If there’s snow on the ground then I’ll shovel their sidewalk and porch as soon as I arrive at their house. I do what I can while I’m home because they do a lot for me when I’m not—and even when I am home.
6:30 PM If I eat a healthy breakfast and lunch and I’m as active as I can be during the day, then I like to eat whatever I want for dinner. Usually, it’s steak and potatoes. I need to eat a lot of calories for all the training that I do. Right now, I shoot for maybe 6,000 calories a day and even more in the summer and fall. When you first start putting that many calories into your body, it’s a chore to eat that much and it’s so hard! I’m not much of a drinker, but every once in a while I’ll have a glass of wine with my mom. People are always trying to take sweets out of their diet, but if you work your butt off all day and eat correctly, then you can reward yourself with dessert. I try not to treat myself too much because I have such a sweet tooth and self-control with sweets is tough.
7 PM It’s back to the computer and back to work. I don’t have cable so I don’t watch much television. I get my news from the Internet and I get pop-up alerts on my phone from FOX. I always have a list of stuff that I need to get done, and if I watched TV, then that list would be a lot bigger. Occasionally, I’ll watch a movie with my parents, but that’s it. I try to stay away from TV and be more active.
11 PM Sleep is super important, so I try to go to bed at a reasonable hour.
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