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Josh Norman

@performancechefjosh

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Performance Chef ⚽ Premier League football
BSc Sport Science · MSc Sport Nutrition
Food that fuels winning ↓
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Sport science degree. Master’s in sport nutrition. So why am I in a kitchen? 👨‍🍳 Part 2 of the story. 🏃 It started with my own performance. I was fuelling myself as an athlete - and while I didn’t make it pro, it opened my eyes to how much cooking changes performance and recovery. 🎓 Then came the master’s. Brilliant science, but it wasn’t hands-on enough for me. And it taught me something I believe more every day: 📈 You can have the best nutritionist in the world. But without a chef who understands the science - and actually cares - there’s a ceiling on the impact they can make. 🔪 So I became that chef. And I didn’t leave the science behind. I brought it into the kitchen with me. Follow for more from the performance kitchen ⬆️ #performancechef #sportsnutrition #chefsofinstagram #sportsscience #footballnutrition by @performancechefjosh
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4 hours ago
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No appetite after a hard session? Recovery doesn’t wait for one. 🥶 Hard training kills appetite right when the body needs refuelling most. So in the performance kitchen, I stop asking players to eat a big hot plate and make it easy instead: ❄️ Go cold. Hot, heavy food is the last thing a wrung-out player wants. Chilled rice or pasta salad, overnight oats, yoghurt pots. 🥤 Drink it. When nobody wants to chew, liquids still get in. Milk, banana, oats and honey, blended. 🍱 Go small. A big plate looks like a job. Wraps cut in half, rice pots, mini portions to graze. 🍋 Go bold. Flat food gets left. Salt, lime, soy, a little chilli - big flavour, no heavy sauce. Get it in first. Refine it later. Save this if you feed athletes ⬆️ #performancechef #athletenutrition #chefsofinstagram #performancekitchen #sportsnutrition by @performancechefjosh
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a day ago
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“Performance cooking” doesn’t mean cooking without salt and fat. 🧂 Somewhere along the line, athlete food became steamed chicken, plain rice and no seasoning. That’s not performance cooking. That’s just bad cooking or a lack of care. 🧂 Salt isn’t the enemy. Players sweat out sodium every session — seasoning food properly helps put it back. 🧈 Neither is fat. It carries flavour and the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. Keep it lower close to kick-off, not off the menu. ⏱️ It’s all about timing. Leaner, lighter plates before a game. Richer recovery meals after. Same kitchen, different job. A good performance chef doesn’t remove things. They control the dose and the timing. Performance cooking isn’t about cutting things out. It’s about timing them. Performance chefs and nutritionists — agree or disagree? 👇 #performancechef #performancenutrition #sportsnutrition #footballnutrition #nutritionmyths by @performancechefjosh
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2 days ago
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MSc in Sport Nutrition and then become a performance chef. People ask why ‘divert’ my path. 👨‍🍳 Because I kept seeing the same gap: 📋 Nutritionists know exactly what a player needs. 🍳 Chefs know how to make food people actually want to eat. ❌ But this food rarely supports performance. A perfect plan means nothing if half of it gets left on the plate. So I learned both. Now I can look at a plate and see the nutritional contents and the timing… and still care whether it tastes right. The science matters. But it doesn’t cook the food. Follow for how the pros actually get fed ⬆️ #sportsnutrition #performancenutrition #eatlikeanathlete #footballnutrition #performancechef by @performancechefjosh
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3 days ago
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Glycogen: the fuel prices we should be talking about. ⛽ Every carb you eat gets stored as glycogen in your muscles and liver. It’s the main fuel for sprints, pressing and high-intensity running - the moments that decide games. Start with a full tank and it lasts the 90. Start half-empty and you’re running on fumes before the final whistle. That’s when the legs go in the last 20. 🍝 Fill up: carb-led meals the day before and the morning of. ⏱️ Top up: a carb-led meal(s) about 3 hours before kick-off. 🔋 Boost: carb drinks/snacks at half time. 🔄 Refill: carbs back in afterwards, or you start the next one behind. Start on empty and the legs go in the last 20. Fill up before kick-off. Save this for your next matchday 👇 #footballnutrition #sportsnutrition #performancechef #fuelforperformance #eatlikeanathlete by @performancechefjosh
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5 days ago
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Athlete nutrition on a double-session day looks nothing like a normal day. 🍽️ Two sessions means two tanks to fill, and a short gap to do it in. Here’s what changes on the plate: ⚡ More carbs, all day. Not one big pasta dinner- carbs go up at every meal. ⏱️ Refuel fast. Session 1 ends, recovery starts. Carbs and protein within the hour. 🥄 Smaller, more often. A heavy lunch sits like a brick for session 2. Light and frequent wins. 💧 Fluids and salts back in between sessions. You can’t start session 2 already behind. Same player. Same food. Different day, different plate. Follow for how the pros fuel 👇 #footballnutrition #sportsnutrition #performancechef #fuelforperformance #eatlikeanathlete by @performancechefjosh
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6 days ago
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Protein and carb boost breakfast, done properly. 🥣 Overnight oats get a bad name because most people make them wrong: wet cement, flat flavour, soggy fruit. This is the version I’d hand an athlete: ⚡ ~60g carbs to fuel the session 💪 ~35g protein to start recovery ⏱️ 5 minutes, made the night before 🫙 Better still, make 2–3 jars at once. They keep for up to 3 days in the fridge (check your dates), so a few days of breakfasts are done in one go. The fixes are simple: ⚖️ Weigh it. 🧂 Salt it. 🫐 Top it in the morning. Performance doesn’t start at breakfast. It starts the night before. Save this for Sunday prep 👇 #performancechef #athletenutrition #healthyrecipes #mealprep #eatlikeanathlete by @performancechefjosh
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7 days ago
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Protein gets all the attention at breakfast. For an athlete, it’s the wrong headline. 🍽️ If you’re training, carbs are the fuel - protein just does the repair work. So a proper breakfast leads with carbs and backs it up with protein, not the other way round. Two ways I’d build it: 🍳 The salmon bowl: eggs, smoked salmon, avo, 2 slices of sourdough. ~58g carbs, 44g protein. 🥣 The yoghurt bowl: Greek yoghurt, granola, banana, berries, nut butter. ~85g carbs, 38g protein. Balance beats chasing one macro. Fuel the work, repair the damage, start the day right. As always, context is key. These are sized for a training day- if you’re not training hard, keep the balance and just dial the carbs back a little. Save both for the week ahead 👇 #performancechef #performancenutrition #eatlikeanathlete #sportsnutrition #mealprep by @performancechefjosh
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8 days ago
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How much protein do you actually need? Less than the supplement aisle wants you to believe — and more than most people actually eat. 🥩 The honest numbers: 🔹 Athletes training regularly — 1.4–2.2g per kg. That’s where muscle repairs and grows. (For an 80kg person, that’s roughly 110–160g a day.) 🔹 Per meal — aim for 20–40g, spread across the day. Not one giant shake after training. Here’s the bit nobody selling protein powder will tell you: you can hit all of this with food. Chicken, eggs, fish, dairy, beans. Powder is convenience, not magic — handy when you’re short, pointless as the foundation. Get the total right, spread it out, food first. That’s genuinely it. Save this and work out your number 👇 #performancechef #performancenutrition #sportsnutrition #eatlikeanathlete #nutritiontips by @performancechefjosh
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9 days ago
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Unpopular opinion: most “protein snacks” are just expensive sweets with a health halo. 🍬 A ripe banana and a spoon of peanut butter will do more for you than 90% of the bars marketed to athletes — for a fraction of the price and none of the additives. Five snacks I genuinely keep in, macros included. Simple beats shiny every time. Agree, or are you still buying the bars? Tell me below 👇 #performancechef #performancenutrition #sportsnutrition #eatlikeanathlete #performancesnacks by @performancechefjosh
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a month ago
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Away days test one thing: whether your standards travel. 🫡 The hard part of this job was never the cooking. It’s holding the same bar when you’re out of your own kitchen, in unfamiliar surroundings, with none of your usual rhythm. 🛣️ Anyone can hit the standard at home — doing it on the road is the real test. So the mindset doesn’t move: the food should feel familiar, the work should be done long before anyone’s hungry, and matchday should feel like any other day — just in a different postcode. 📍 Same standards, wherever we are. That’s the job. On the road this weekend — follow along ⬆️ #sportsnutrition #performancenutrition #eatlikeanathlete #footballnutrition #performancechef by @performancechefjosh
2
a month ago
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Hot take: most players don’t lose their edge in training. They lose it in the three hours after the whistle — doing nothing. Recovery is the most neglected part of performance, and the supplement industry has sold everyone a lie about how it works. It’s not a £40 tub. It’s four things, and two of them are free: 🍚 REFUEL — carbs back in. 90 minutes drains the tank; glycogen has to be topped up. 🥩 REBUILD — protein to repair. ~20–40g rebuilds the muscle match play tore down. 💧 REHYDRATE — water and electrolytes. You lose 1–2L+ a game; put it back, and then some more. 😴 REST — sleep. Repair happens overnight, and no powder on earth beats 9 hours. If you’re smashing a protein shake and sleeping 5 hours, you’ve got recovery completely backwards. Sort the free stuff first. Then talk to me about supplements. Save this and send it to the teammate who needs to hear it 👇 #performancechef #sportsnutrition #eatlikeanathlete #footballnutrition #performancenutrition by @performancechefjosh
0
a month ago
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