Desmond Howard retired as one of the most successful football players in both the NFL and NCAA.  He continues to lead a healthy lifestyle even after quitting professional sports.

How Desmond Howard stays fit now:

“I usually try to work out four-five times a week, but it’s kind of difficult when I travel a lot. When we do a lot of college football games, I’ll ask the Sports Information Director of the university where we’ll be if we can use their weight room. Sometimes the hotels we stay in have pretty nice weight rooms too. We really don’t need a lot. I try to do cardio. I like the elliptical machine a lot, because it’s low impact on my knees. If they don’t have that I’ll do the stationary bike. I always get in at least 35-40 minutes of hard cardio, work my core, and then work some other muscle group.”

How Desmond Howard trains after sports:

“It’s less intense! When you’re in professional sports, you’re surrounded by professional athletes and you push each other. When I was working out back then, I was preparing to go do battle every Sunday. Now, I’m not preparing for battle any more!”

What Desmond Howard eats:

“I definitely watch what I eat. First of all, I don’t eat beef and I don’t eat pork, so that eliminates a lot of different unhealthy dishes. I substitute those things though, with lean ground turkey. You can have lasagna without the beef, just make it with ground turkey, or make it a vegetable lasagna.  I eat a lot of chicken and fish too.”

Desmond Howard’s favorite healthy food:

“Probably baked grouper and steamed vegetables. I love Caesar salad too.”

Desmond Howard’s favorite unhealthy food:

“Any cake my mother makes! In fact, I probably don’t even have to eat the cake, I could probably just eat the batter. Just lick the bowl.“

Desmond Howard’s advice to those trying to get healthy and fit:

“To me, it’s all about your diet and all about discipline. A person can have all the books, DVDs, or gyms to go to, but at the end of the day it’s up to each individual to have discipline and make sacrifices to make it work.”

(I believe this is great advice.  Its all about taking personal responsibility for weight loss.)

The quotes used here come from this article.