Hey, I’m Stephanie!
I am a Performance Dietitian with passions for performance nutrition, cooking, and helping others lead healthier, happier lives. Cook Eat Compete brings you applicable, research backed nutrition information and fueling, delicious, and easy recipes and ideas. Whether you are a full time athlete or someone who enjoys an active lifestyle, I hope you can find the info and inspiration you need here to fuel your health and athletic performance!
Get in touch with me: stephanie@cookeatcompete.com
My story
Where and who I am today started with 2 things: always playing sports growing up and having family who loved food.
Food first: My grandparents live on a small farm and have cows for meat, chickens for eggs, and a huge garden for more fruits and veggies than you could ever eat. Every visit to the farm was all about the food. The excitement and passion around making and sharing food was seeded in this time and has only grown since.
Sports second: Soccer was definitely my sport up until half way through college, but I also played a few years of ice hockey and field hockey in high school. I could always tell the difference between when I was fueling well and when I wasn’t. This was my introduction into how food could make such an impact on performance.
Bringing it together: The connection between food, cooking, and performance was so clear to me as something super important and something I felt I needed to pursue, I only applied to one school for college to do just that. I studied cooking, its connection with health and performance, and learned so much cooking professionally in several kitchen environments during my college years. After this, I shifted out of the kitchen and into sports and clinical nutrition. I took opportunities to work with D1 college athletes, professional athletes, and now am helping fuel Team USA. And somewhere in there, I managed to start this site (and Instagram!) to share all my ideas around fueling well and deliciously.
Qualifications
I have a Bachelor’s in Culinary Nutrition from Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island. After JWU, I went on to The Ohio State University where I completed a sports nutrition focused dietetic internship while also earning my Master’s in Clinical Dietetics. I am a Registered Dietitian (RD) and Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics (CSSD). I also am ISAK Level 1 qualified to perform body composition and anthropometry measurements.
Experience
Throughout my undergraduate time, I cooked professionally at an outstanding restaurant serving modern, locally sourced foods in downtown Providence. I was greatly influenced and educated by the wonderful people here as I started as a prep cook and worked my way to becoming a lead line cook. In Phoenix, Arizona, I spent a few months as a culinary nutrition intern at Athletes' Performance, now EXOS. Here, I was able to combine my passions for sport, nutrition, and cooking, working with the site dietitians and creating meals for aspiring and professional athletes in an amazing environment. For a year, I volunteered at a Boys & Girls Club in Rhode Island, teaching kids how to cook and create nutritious foods.
At Ohio State, I was able to work with many of the talented Division I athletic teams, planning team meals, giving presentations, teaching cooking classes, working with student athletes one-on-one, and more. Through the OSU dietetic internship, I also have experience in hospital, long-term care, and corporate wellness settings.
Several years ago, I had the amazing opportunity to practice sports and wellness nutrition at a gym in Malta over a few months. Other experience ranges from fine dining serving to being a student athlete myself to creating a series of cooking videos for athletes as part of my graduate degree thesis project.
I had an amazing experience as Registered Dietitian for Food & Nutrition Services at the US Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado where I got to support some of our nation’s greatest, and seriously inspiring athletes. With this position, I helped fuel Team USA athletes at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang South Korea, the 2019 PanAmerican Games in Lima Peru, and planned for the 2020 Tokyo Games as well. I wrote many, many delicious and performance focused menus and recipes, taught cooking classes, educated on performance nutrition, made this super fun cooking series with some awesome Team USA athletes, and more!
After this, I spent some time as Nutrition Coordinator for Minor League teams within the Tampa Bay Rays organization. Here, I supported with elite baseball athletes with nutrition education, cooking classes, and grocery store tours in both English and Spanish. This role allowed me to practice skills with food service management and organizing hundreds of performance-based meals by working with dozens of caterers.
I am currently corporate Director of Nutrition at Canyon Ranch. This is a unique role where I get to work with executive chefs at Canyon Ranch properties around the country, develop menu design and strategy for a high end experience that encourages healthful ordering and eating behaviors, work with people one on one to improve health and performance goals with nutrition strategies, and lead a team of Dietitians in doing the same.
All words and photos are my own. Please don't use without permission. Thank you!