"I do follow a version of the Dukan diet, but I don't follow it to the extreme so a lot of fish and vegetables. If I want chocolate I'll let myself have a bit of chocolate in moderation."

"I am very, very strict with my workout regimen; not so much with my food, because I'm always working out, so I can allow myself to be a bit more naughty!"

"I'm sure I frustrate the trainers - in fact, I know I frustrate the trainers to no end. But I think there's a very fine line. I listen to their advice. I take their medical expertise very seriously. But then I also, the reason I am where I am, the reason I play the way I play, is because I push beyond normal."

"A balanced diet” is not so much about protein/fat/carbohydrate ratios. The real ratios to consider, at least for the typical American or European, are energy consumption/expenditure, pleasure/actual need, food/everything else."

"I was very fortunate to play sports. All the anger in me went out. I had to do what I had to do. If you stay angry all the time, then you really don't have a good life."

"If I'm alone, I tend to cook for myself. I do a pretty good job of preparing healthful foods. My go-to is everything in a bowl like quinoa, avocado. Later in the day, scrambled eggs. I'm not a gourmet chef. I cook in bulk very well."

"What Olympians eat can vary tremendously depending not only on the events they're competing in, but also their body type and lifestyle outside the Olympic arena. Their diets are affected not only by the demands of their sports, but by everything else in their lives, things that are almost impossible to accurately measure and factor in."

"People think I'm crazy to put myself through such torture, though I would argue otherwise. Somewhere along the line we seem to have confused comfort with happiness. Dostoyevsky had it right: 'Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.' Never are my senses more engaged than when the pain sets in. There is a magic in misery. Just ask any runner."

"I do heavy weights in the morning for about an hour, and then I do 45 minutes of higher-volume lifting in the afternoon. My least favorite is the legs... I do quite a few chin-ups and rows. I do mostly old-school lifting with a lot of squats."

"Much in the way Olympic athletes optimize their game by paying an enormous - borderline maniacal - amount of attention to things like diet, exercise, sleep, and of course the essential R&R, we all would do well to pay more attention to those key aspects of our lives that comprise our overall health equation."

"If you put the wrong foods in your body, you are contaminated and dirty and your stomach swells. Then the voice says, Why did you do that? Don't you know better? Ugly and wicked, you are disgusting to me."