Saquon Barkley On The Importance Of Health In His Life And Career

By Okla Jones ·Updated January 29, 2024 < />

This month, Saquon Barkley continued to emphasize health and wellness both as a football player, as well as personally. To celebrate the new year, he partnered up with the plant-based brand Silk, in order to promote a consistent morning routine, positive habits, and intentional steps towards a higher quality of life.

Silk’s Feel Planty Good Challenge is creating an avenue to incorporate plant-based nutrition into morning routines and turn New Year’s resolutions into full year habits. In teaming up with Barkley, the company highlighted its dedication to fitness and one’s overall well-being. For 7 days, Silk is challenging people to incorporate their products into breakfast, and stressing fitness.

“Staying fit and strong is a year-round commitment for me, and it all starts with a good breakfast,” said Barkley. “This year, I’m upping my commitment and getting in the zone with a powerhouse plant-based smoothie. I’m pumped to be teaming up with Silk for their Feel Planty Good Challenge. It makes it so easy to add nutrition into the morning. I feel like I can tackle any intense workout or challenge that comes my way.”

Amidst his partnership with the nutrition brand, Barkley sat down with ESSENCE to discuss his fitness and career goals for 2024, his morning routine, and the importance of healthy eating.

ESSENCE: So when did you start adapting plant-based food into your lifestyle?

Saquon Barkley: I would say over the last two years. In college, you’re filled with the mindset to eat meat, meat, and more meat; lift and get strong, get big, especially as a football player. I think really the first one who really was the big athlete on it was Tom Brady. I think he really was the first one that came to my knowledge. Obviously when you see a guy like that and how successful he’s been and how long he was able to play. But you want to get a step ahead and you want to get advantage and it’s all about your diet, it’s all about your nutrition. And the most important part, the most important meal of the day is breakfast. So that’s another reason why I was able to partner up with Silk and be excited for this.

I want to stay on the breakfast aspect—what does a healthy and nutritious morning routine for Saquon Barkley look like?

Well now with the challenge, it’s going to be just a simple smoothie with a tasty recipe. That’s easy, it’s simple. I feel like a lot of people overthink it when it comes to breakfast. So you have to put something in your body that’s going to help you and get you ready to perform at the highest level, whether it’s a practice or Sunday, Thursday or Monday night game.

Why do you think it’s important for others to prioritize healthy eating within their life?

I just feel like just anything when it comes to being healthy is good. We’re fed so much nonsense and BS to just be completely honest, if you can focus on healthier eating habits, I feel like it’s just going to give you a better opportunity to live a healthier, longer life. Really if you break it down to the core of everyone, it’s “What can I do to stay on this planet and have a life that has a lot of memories?” And it starts with eating. It starts with your diet and nutrition. I feel like adding more plant-based foods is definitely helpful.

What are some of your resolutions for 2024, man?

Good question. For me, the biggest thing that comes to my mind is to fall in love with the game of football. Every year it’s a new challenge. Every year there’s different opportunities and you see the business side of it, but it’s just getting back to that mind space where you’re a seven-year-old, eight-year-old kid and you’re out there just having fun. I think I kind of fell into the, still loving the game, but more of as a competitor, just knowing that you’re out there on the field and there’s another man over there who’s trying to beat you and trying to have a better game than you and try to make sure you don’t have a successful day. It’s a great reason to drive you too. But I feel like it’s also important as I feel like I play or my better years or my better games is what I’m out there, I’m just free. So just being free, that’s probably my biggest thing. Being free, loving the game, enjoying life, and just being thankful for every opportunity, every day that I get.

So for the person that’s unfamiliar with this campaign, what exactly is the Silk Feel Good Planty Challenge?

The Silk Feel Good Planty Challenge. One, I’m super excited to partner up with them on this one. It’s a challenge that I’ll be doing myself, especially after a long tough season playing 17 games, your body gets banged up. And as I get longer and deeper into my career, I realized that the diet is really important. And the biggest thing is breakfast, starts with breakfast, and that’s where it really is a chance for seven days for you to have a simple, tasty breakfast that’s powered with a plant-based diet.

How exactly did your partnership with Silk come about?

I feel like for me it’s always something that when I partner with brands, I want to be authentic. I want it to be real with me and this opportunity came to me from my team and it’s something that I want to do as, like I said, mentioned previous get into my, what is it? I just finished my sixth year. It’s crazy that I’m going into my seventh year. I always try to find new ways on how I can increase my performance and get my body ready and keep it healthy, especially after a long, hard season. And adding more plant base into your diet is something that’s important. In having conversations with my teammates, you can see that’s where the trend is going. And having conversations about my nutrition and knowing how important it is, if that’s what my teammates and competitors are doing, you always want to be a step ahead of them. So when this opportunity came for me it was a no-brainer. I like challenging myself and I think it’s a really fun, inspired way for others to get involved too.

To join the challenge, simply pledge to incorporate Silk into your breakfast for seven days in a row this January and enter to win on Challenge.Silk.com for a chance to win free breakfast for life. Six other randomly selected winners will receive free breakfast for a year.