We recently connected with John Fredricks and have shared our conversation below.

John, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear stories from your time in school/training/etc.

I chose a unique field to study, a clash of the culinary arts and nutritional wellness. Taking on the challenge of creating inviting, flavorful, and perfectly executed dishes while shifting the focus to meet the nutritional needs of each individual provided a deeper understanding and passion for food than I ever imagined.

Studying under world-class chefs at Johnson & Wales University, nothing less than striving for excellence was accepted; but room for failure was granted. From there, I learned the most growth came from failing, analyzing, picking back up and executing. While failure never seems like an option, it’s more about what you do with that opportunity to learn, and it applies to every industry.

I recall spending hours on finding the right ratios in a brine to mitigate high sodium content in meats, while still providing a delicious, tender piece of meat. The goal was to produce a product fitting for DASH diets, the infamous diet for those with hypertension. After failing to time and time again in production labs, I found my answer in potassium chloride, an equivalent molecular structure as sodium chloride (salt). I went on to test this, successfully, and even share the ratio with French’s Food Company as a use for their salt alternative product ‘No Salt’.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I got into the food industry at 17, and it stuck. While flipping burgers and making generic American concession-level food items, it didn’t take long for me to realize the amount of creativity, flare, and fun that could stem from the beauty of food.

While I grew directly into the craft of food and fine dining, I couldn’t put my passion for fitness and lifestyle to rest and sought out the best ways to pair these two together.

I still find myself on that journey. Because truthfully, there are always new obstacles, new industry trends, new fads for diets, cuisines, and foods alike.

Delivering a service that I’m proud of means taking on the responsibility and commitment to offering pleasure with hard choices, and choices with cold truths. It’s a balancing act of wants and needs, and how to excel to provide each individual with something that not only feels, but is, right for them.

Intriguing every person who seeks help to fully place trust in your knowledge of fitness and nutrition is hard; but flavor is very convincing. And that goes both ways, flavorful food, and flavorful training. Taking science and delivering in an exciting way excites me, and to the consumer it’s empowering and at often times…fun.

But everything has it’s drawbacks, and my drawback is that I can’t do everything under the sun in the fields of fitness and nutrition. My best advice to these situations, is to find a focus and go with it. Understand the strengths you have, invest in them, trust in them, and go deliver, Growth will be part of the process, and eventually you can stem in to larger projects, or maybe down the line you may find you’re not even interested in them anymore like you once were and a better focus has now taken place.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I was working as a Special Diet Chef, delivering high level meals to those with restricted diets, allergens, celiac disease, you name it. I was applying everything in the books I had learned, from my experience in Matthew Kenny’s restaurant exploration in vegan cuisine in my time at Plant City, to making Gluten Free breads and pizza crusts in downtown pubs. After spending time perfecting this job, I got asked to take on a larger role of executive chef.

There I was fulfilling my dream as Head Chef at 22 years old, when my first angst for that exact role came to me at 18 in my first professional kitchens.

And I felt nothing….

Everybody knows industry burnout, and I was having an episode coming to the realization that I’d spent so much consecutive time in restaurants and food service that at the culmination of my original career goals I had nothing left inside to show love for it.

I rocked the job nonetheless, and alongside was pursuing my interests in exercise science and physiology, studying for a high level Strength and Conditioning Coach certification. I never quite got that certification, but my eagerness and vision led me to take opportunities that have lent themselves to right where I need to be.

At the end of my year’s contract, I packed up and moved to Atlanta to become a Personal Trainer, banking on my nutritional knowledge and some prior experience delivering nutritional coaching as a side job in a local boxing gym where I lived. I wasn’t even certified yet! Within a couple weeks I passed a different course to get me in the doors and started carving a path down the fitness industry with my ultimate goal in mind: to learn the ins and outs like I do the kitchen and bring the two together finally.

Without ever fully letting go of food, I’ve taken what I can from the fitness industry and applied it to my food to create a meal prep company. Now in the Atlanta area, we’re securing contracts with university athletic programs to deliver teams with better meal alternatives to fuel and satisfy athletes without anyone skipping a beat, or a rep.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

Food and fitness feels right to me. I know I’m just knocking on the door of what’s possible and I think it’s safe to say that the COVID-19 pandemic stirred up new emotions among the public and high level athletes alike to pay more attention to their overall health, including what we eat.

My biggest struggle has been my fight in the choice to not continue my education and become a Registered Dietician. The extra time, money, and focus on education seemed like unsurmountable obstacles when I felt I already had so much to offer and a streamlined route for success. But, my desire to be at the top of my field has be wrestling with the desire to go back and feel further empowered to deliver more.

In a field where so much media construes the idea of what a healthy diet is, I want the best reputation as a credible source. And additionally, the vast amount of words and influences on eating habits has me concerned for the consumer, as time and time again I see the signs of eating disorders pop up amongst clients in the market, and maybe this is an opportunity to create a new focus and direction for my work when the time is right.