A personal trainer to Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively shares his 5-meal-a-day diet and why he tracks his food intake

Don Saladino is a celebrity personal trainer.

Eating healthily is no chore to Don Saladino.

As we spoke on Zoom at 9 a.m., he made his way through a portion of chicken breast, broccoli, sweet potato, and sauerkraut drizzled with olive oil and apple cider vinegar. It was his second meal of the day.

A celebrity personal trainer, Saladino thrives on eating and training to optimize his health, performance, and physique.

Saladino, who is 47, explained how he fuels himself and why he likes to track his food intake.

Saladino, whose clients include Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, told B-17 that he first became interested in nutrition as a teenager and has learned a lot since then.

“You’re probably not going to ever meet anyone who’s more into this than I am,” he said.

Saladino doesn’t always eat nutritionally perfect meals, but tracks the nutritional content of his food to measure his progress and support his active lifestyle.

He focuses on eating a balance of protein, fiber, carbs, and healthy fats, with fermented foods to boost his gut health, he said.

Saladino said he is more disciplined with his diet than the average person needs to be.

“But for me, this has become like a game. This has become really fun for me. This isn’t work,” he said. “I enjoy feeling really good and I enjoy my body responding a certain way and looking a certain way.”

Don Saladino is a celebrity personal trainer based in New York. 

Saladino eats five meals a day

On the day of our interview, here’s what Saladino ate:

• Meal one: Greek yogurt, blueberries, whey isolate protein powder, milled flax seeds, cinnamon, oats, and almond butter
• Meal two: chicken breast, broccoli, sweet potato, and sauerkraut drizzled with olive oil and apple cider vinegar
• Meal three (pre-workout): white rice, egg whites, whole eggs, and baby carrots
• Meal four (post-workout): whey protein, almond butter, Cream of Rice
• Meal five: lean beef, rice, zucchini, sauerkraut, and walnuts

Saladino said he pays as much attention to his fiber intake as the three macronutrients: protein, carbohydrate, and fats.

He rarely drinks alcohol and only has one or two drinks when he does.

Saladino doesn’t tend to deviate from his regular diet for more than one meal, he said, and wouldn’t have a whole day off-plan.

“People are like, ‘Oh, live a little.’ I went to my family’s last night and had a bowl of pasta the size of my head. It was fun, but I can’t do that a lot. Otherwise, I feel like shit,” Saladino said.

Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are longtime clients of Don Saladino. 

What gets measured gets improved

Saladino doesn’t track his food intake every day of the year, but he does on a lot of days.

“Why do I do this? Is it because I want to take my shirt off and look a certain way? Sure. Is it because I want my energy levels to be really high? Absolutely. Is it because I want my sleep quality to improve? Yes. But I’m doing these things throughout the year to measure and gamify my progress in the gym,” he said.

Saladino has annual body scans and tests to see how his body responds to changes in his diet, training, or lifestyle.

“Now I’m dialing in my macros to try and drive body fat down while I’m increasing muscle. For someone to do this, you have to be very calculated,” Saladino said.

This means that Saladino’s diet and training are both structured, and he is continually pushing himself, he said.

One major benefit of tracking his food intake is that it ensures he eats enough, Saladino said. When he stops tracking, he often finds he eats less, which makes it harder to hold on to muscle.

“Tracking is going to eliminate any of the guesswork,” Saladino said.