All right, everybody, welcome to the Happy half Hour, the experimental version of Happy half Hour. This is gonna be like a concept album, like when Stergel Simpson decided to do a stoner rock album followed by a bluegrass album. It's gonna be like that. We're gonna just get weird with this for the next little bit, because it's got to be better than me yelling at the sky for
thirty minutes. I mean, podcast Matt told me, because of copyright issues, I could not just sit here and do a spoken word version of Alice's Restaurant for nineteen and a half minutes. Even though I could easily do that, I could probably do that song on karaoke without the words. Try me, seriously, my wife's already sick of hearing it, and she's only heard it once this season, and I can promise you you're gonna hear it at least two or three more times on the road up to see
Mom and Dad tomorrow night. So anyway, Happy Thanksgiving everybody. It's just me Darren Gant holding down the Happy half Hour for the moment. Hopefully, well, you will have some updates for you on future Happy half Hours coming soon. We've got our fingers crossed on a couple of things.
But in the meantime, what I thought I would do, since we call this the Happy half hour, is just take a second and bounce around this building and talk to some of the people who help make this place happy when, in case you haven't noticed, the football is not all that great at the moment. I know it's a tough time for the Carolina Panthers. They are one
and nine heading into Tennessee this week. But the thing about this operation is there's so many people who are just head down working, constantly pushing, trying to make this experience a little bit better for the players and coaches involved who have to be in here every day working, and it takes something. I mentioned this in my mail bag yesterday. It's easy to be grateful when things are going good. The measure of somebody is how they react
when things are going poorly. And I can tell you there there are a number of people in this building. There are actually a lot of people in this building who work the way you want them to work when things are hard. The people who are the same way every day, The people who are head down, grind and smile on their face, keeping guys uplifted, keeping guys fed, keeping guys well, keeping guys equipped, who make this engine run.
And I just wanted to take a little bit while we're in a while, we're in a transitional phase of the happy half hour, so to speak to kind of highlight some of those people. I started this off and when I kind of had this brainstorm in the middle of the night, I don't know, maybe it was a fever dream. Who can really tell the difference. When I thought about doing this concept for a little bit, one of the first names I thought of was Kate Callaway.
Kate Callaway is the director of Performance Nutrition for the Carolina Panthers. That is a fancy way of saying she's the one that makes sure these guys are fed correctly. She works alongside Tracy Hartman, our new chef here at the Carolina Panthers, who does a fantastic job. Tracy is a rock star who joined us this year after working for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And here's what kind of chef Tracy is. Tracy's the kind of chef who gets
players to like their vegetables. She's turned things out, like you know, and it sounds bizarre and We'll talk about Thanksgiving food in a second. But Tracy was able to make zucchini tots, and it's a way to sneak a vegetable past the goalie, get vegetable content in a football player, which isn't always the easiest thing to do. But I can tell you without reservation that Tracy Hartman's zucchini tots are par excellence. They are those players are well fed,
they are well taken care of. But Kate is not a chef. Kate is kind of a scientist. And I've told her this before we've had the opportunity to visit with her. You know, when I was working on the series of stories about Austin Corbett in his rehab, you know all the people at take to get these guys going. Kate worked with Austin to you know, get really specific with his diet at certain points of the rehab of you know, what to eat to reduce inflammation, what to
eat when you're trying to build muscle mass. And she is a scientist. She works with these guys on very specific diet tips, supplements, things to put in them to keep them running at a high level. Because no matter what's going on on and off the field. These guys are expending a ton of energy. These guys are doing a ton of work to try to get themselves ready for Sundays, and so I figured I would start with her.
It's perfect because it's Thanksgiving, but it's also perfect because Kate is one of the bright lights of the building. Players leave conversations with Kate happier than they walked in to them with. And that's something. I mean. When you're one to nine and you can put a smile on somebody's face walking around this building while probably telling them not to to eat as much of this, or maybe to eat a little more of those vegetables, that's saying something.
So I caught up this week with Kate Calway, the director of Performance Nutrition for the Carolina Panthers, just to get a couple tips on how to keep my finely tuned athletic engine burning, but mostly mostly how she keeps these football players running at one hundred percent through a long, long season. Here's our conversation with Kate. So it's Thanksgiving week and here on the Happy Half Hour, we thought we'd go a special guest since we're talking about gratitude,
because there's nobody in this building. I don't think who brings more positive energy on a day to day basis than Director of Performance Nutrition Kate Calway, especially when she brings rit to the pup to the stadium. That's been That's been a big part of this. Hadn't it been lately?
Yes? It has.
I got a puppy about a month ago and she's three months old, and I mean, I'm happy most of the time, but now I'm extra happy all the time.
It's one of the most amazing things. Kate's office is now to the weight room where there's always speakers in loud music blaring all hours a day or night. Walk by the other day and the pupper is sitting there with little ear muffs on to protect her little puppy ears from the loud, loud music. So that's awesome.
Yeah, I'm surprised she kept She didn't keep them on at first when she had a lot of energy, but then when she got tired, she didn't.
Have any problems. She feel right to sleep, so fun having her around.
I think there are days I might enjoy having uperrier muffs around the stadium. But I wanted to talk to you and again your titles Director of performance Nutrition. How would you explain what that role is and how it fits into the greater football operation here.
Yeah, overall, it's making sure that all the players have what they need in terms of fueling, fuel in their bodies, food they eat, things they drink, knowing how to make the right decisions in terms of what they need for play.
So it's really like the oversight of all of that.
But then the orchestration of making it happen is a big part of it because we do provide a lot of the food and drink options at the facility, on the road or wherever we are, so there are a lot of logistics involved as well, which is fun. And just getting to know the guys I think is the biggest thing because every because everybody has a different plan
or a different need. You know, certain guys in the same position who are the same size might need totally different nutrition plans or protocols, if you will, and so it's a pretty diverse. But yeah, mostly making sure they stay fueled and just getting them ready for Sunday, like the football week starts on Monday, when we you know, come come off of a game and I'm right there
with it. From a nutrition standpoint, making sure each day kind of matches what that day needs from a nutrition standpoint.
And for example, like are there certain days that are big protein days for muscle building or certain days more carbs for recovery or whatever that explain that in more intelligent language than I can possibly use.
No, that's a great You always have intelligent language, and that's a great question. The guys are really like especially during the season and getting ready for the season, They're in preparation and recovery mode at the same time. So usually when you think of getting ready for something, going into an activity or a strenuous physical exercise, carbs are
one of the biggest things that help you prepare. It's just if we to make to simplify and then from a recovery standpoint, protein typically is the priority, but carbs obviously are necessary. Protein can't do its job without enough carbs.
So throughout the week, yes, like when we come off of a game on Monday, like in the meal room, I work with a chef on having like a certain type of Different proteins have different amino acid profiles, different amino acids that make up proteins, so certain amino acids help guys recover better than others, so we'll make sure let's have foods in that are high and loucine is one of the amino acids, for example, and then plenty of carbs, and a lot of times a day, a
couple of days after the game, or the days where guys are like their appetites just catching up from playing so much and they're kind of, you know, they want to eat anything, so it may not be the quote unquote healthiest looking foods in there.
Sometimes we like to have a.
Balance, like some leaner proteins and leaner carbs and starches and stuff. But there are sometimes where it's like we need calories. So because the day after a game, the guys have burned a lot of calories in the game, so let's like add some extra calories to the mashed potatoes. So high protein, high carb on the days after the first forty eight we call it the first forty eight hours after the game, and then when we start practice
again on Wednesday, we go a little more carb heavy. Obviously, we still need proteins because that helps guys feel full, and fats are also a good source of energy. If we get healthy fats in like avocados and nuts and olive oils and stuff that's a more sustained type of energy, Like carbs are more kind of quick energy. Help the guys like immediately at practice and you know right at
lunch they want to have a lot of carbs. But they also because their activity is so long and so intense that like fat molecules will kick in for energy to provide energy at some point during an activity. So making sure we offer healthy fats and things they like to eat. And that's a big part of it too. It's like things, we want things to be healthy for them, but if it's like I don't know, sometimes.
There's like the.
Association of healthy foods being not so tasty, which I don't believe is true. But you know we think, oh, healthy, they're not going to want to eat it. And if that happens, ever, if we're just having like chicken and broccoli all the time, they're going to get tired of it. So part of it is like knowing what they like because then they're going to eat more and without really noticing it, they're fueling their bodies better.
They're just eating more because they like it.
So that kind of leading into practice will make sure we have foods they like, plenty of protein, plenty of carbs, especially some healthy fats. And then like Friday, before the game is usually today, we kind of have a fun catered meal where some people might call it a cheat day, but it's like, if we're going to have pizza and wings, we might do it on Friday because it's a lighter practice day.
There's not a ton of recovery.
Coming off of that practice, and then it still gives us a little time.
We have a little cushion before the.
Game starts, because on Saturday night it's we need pasta, we need chicken, we need veggies, we need more pasta, some olive oil.
So that's pretty much the way the weak cycles.
And I remember talking to you about it when we were writing stories about Austin Corbett's recovery back in the middle of the summer. You know, there's certain foods that are good for reducing inflammation, and I remember making the comment to you, then, you're not a cook, you're a scientist here. So I mean, it's an incredible amount of detail that goes into specific foods like that. Now, are are there things that are like targeted into like that
super food that people wouldn't necessarily think of that. Okay, these guys are going to eat a lot of this.
Yeah, you know, I think like we do for the most part. I think professional athletes obviously have figured out that eating healthy makes them feel better. And I've shocked at like the amount of avocados they go through. When we have potatoes with turmeric on, I'm like, our cheff will add like, turmeric's good for recovery, and we talked
about that back in the day. They really do flock to those things, and the guys who haven't really maybe some of the younger guys who are still trying to figure out their routine.
They model what the vets.
Do a lot of the time and they'll learn a lot through Like Okay, maybe when I tried this before, I didn't like it, but my body's different now. The level of play is different now. Just certain things they need to do and stuff as simple as like they love to make your own pasta bar. You know, maybe it gets worn out at times, but we always have it because that's a good staple. It's like if nothing else, you know that they can put all the ingredients they want in pasta.
Have somebody cooked in a pan for them and go from there.
Eat a lot of omelets again because they're made to order, you can customize them, and a lot of.
Like pre practice days. I was pretty surprised this season.
At the amount of sandwiches they I mean they want to you know, build their own, which makes sense, but we do like a deli bar before practice. So it's like it's good because it's a good fuel, but it's not heavy on their stomach.
All right, This week's got to be a little extra challenging for the Willness staff here. I mean, it's Thanksgiving and everybody around the country is going to be eating way too much of all the good stuff that you want to eat all year. What's what's the football answer to Thanksgiving? And are there certain things? I mean, is they're counseling. Do you tell these guys, you know, hey, you got to watch yourself on Thursday?
Some of them yes for the most part, thankfully at this time of the year, since Wednesday and Thursday or heavy practice days, like they need the calories anyway, And it's such a good reprieve during the season to get to spend time, you know, with family or friends or whoever you're with so most of the time, I'm like, as long as you're you know, the guys are eating well the rest of the week, that one half a
day is they're going to be fine. And the good thing about some Thanksgiving foods are like, you know, you sweet potatoes have a lot of vitamin A. It's a lot of carbs, you know, depending on if they go b for turkey your ham, like you have plenty of protein.
Maybe maybe not the.
Highest veggie consumption day, but again, they can afford it as long as they're doing it the rest of the week.
And I think the biggest thing, like I'm going to try to work with the guys on.
Thursday, is they're practicing Thirday day and Wednesday, you know, like and then leading into the week like sometimes you know, I think Thanksgiving is a day where a lot of us will you know, just wait it out and then have the big Thanksgiving meal, maybe not eat much leading up to Thanksgiving meal, and these guys really can't afford to do that. They need to eat breakfast and lunch and then they can go eat the big Thanksgiving meal.
And you know, when if and when we have players who you know, were struggling to keep their weight at a certain point, I would have a conversation with them. You know, let's just plan out your Thanksgiving day, like what are the things you really want, and let's make sure you can get those, but maybe not waste your intake on the things you don't really care about, so that you can still enjoy your Thanksgiving. Right now, I think, you know, overall, from a roster standpoint, we're in a
good place. I encourage the guys to get out of here and go eat what eat as much as they.
Can all right, on a scale of one to ten, what would be the best of the traditional Thanksgiving foods? What's the best performance nutrition option on the Thanksgiving table versus the worst performance nutrition option.
It's a really good question, as much as I can tell you. As much as I.
Love what I call dressing because I'm from the South, stuffing dressing, I'd say nutritionally the value is relatively low, not as carbs, right, you have plenty of carbs and plenty of fat, but it's very calorie dense. But again, like I think people should totally eat it and enjoy it. But let's balance it out with you know, the best I mentioned sweet potatoes, earlier, like a lot of times for Thanksgiving. Again, probably my perception is biased to the
way the South does. It is put in a lot of syrup or extra stuff, pecans, marshmallows, those things on the sweep to brown sugar, but they still have a lot of nutritional value even when they add, you know, and even when we add those things. So maybe still need to watch from an energy calorie density standpoint, but there's a lot of nutritional value there. And then like if you do like a fresh cranberry sauce instead of the can, like, there's gonna be a lot there too.
And then turkey actually has a good amino acid profile. So I know I didn't really single out one for you, but those those are the ones that come to mind.
You put together a pretty solid plate there, Kate. I'm not I'm not gonna lie to you, all right. Here's the big question though, at the end of the day, there's always going to be pie. It's all it's a huge pie holiday. So apple pie, pumpkin pie, sweet potato pie. What's the answer here from a performance nutrition standpoint?
Whichever one you like. That's that's what I say.
People say I'm too lenient sometimes but if you eat the one you like, then you're gonna eat the one you like and enjoy it. I guess though, technically sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, and apple pie you do have a vegetable or fruit component there that that you get some nutritional value out of my favorite ar pecan and chocolate pies. So like I you know, I can't. I don't have a room to talk, but those are probably the best two in terms of added nutritional value.
There you go, Kate Hawway has declared pie good for you. I've got it on record here. We're gonna spread it out to the people in the Happy Half Hour podcast. They will be delighted to hear that heading into Thursday. All Right, Kate, appreciate you taking a minute to kind of take us behind the curtain and show us what it takes to feed these guys and keep them going, especially this week. We're grateful to have you around.
Thanks Darren, always good to talk to you. Happy Thanksgiving y'all.
How cool is that Kate Kellaway empowered every single one of us to eat whatever we wanted tomorrow? How great is that I now know that as long as I am happy? Okay, maybe I can't eat whatever I want, and you have to put in an amount of exercise equivalent to football players to eat however you want. I'm pretty sure I do not do that, although, and we'll have to timestamp this one. It's Wednesday right now.
I'm gonna get up and run the Turkey trot tomorrow, so I think that emboldens me. I think if I run the turkey trot at South Park tomorrow five miles with my community and my neighbors, and following Kate's advice to eat, what makes me happy? I think, you know, since she has told me I can have as much pie as I want or something like that. I know I'm taking some liberties with her advice, but I'm going
with it. It's Thanksgiving, That's what we do this time of year, so we're gonna be happy about that kind of stuff. And I appreciate Kate spending a few minutes with us catching them up, catching us up on some of that kind of stuff, because it is amazing the work they do with players to keep them fed and keep them well over the course of the season. Of course, we have to talk about football stuff that is less happy.
I'm not telling you anything. You don't know. If you're a follower of the Happy Half Hour, you are a follower of the Carolina Panthers, and so you know that already it's one and nine. Things are not going well. They're coming off a pretty dispiriting performance against Dallas Cowboys here. I think in a way, it probably benefits these guys to get on the road for the next little bit. They're three straight road games starting this week at Tennessee.
And listen, nobody's feeling sorry for these guys. Nobody's rushing to their defense. But the good news, if you're looking for good news, is the Panthers are entering that point of the season where they're playing their peers. The Tennessee Titans are three and seven, they have won three of their last seventeen games. They've got some questions of their own at quarterback. They're in the middle of a transition now from Ryan Tannehill to Will Levis, and Levis didn't
practice on Tuesday. Don't know what that means yet. We'll keep an eye on injury reports Tennessee and abroad later today at Panthers dot com, and we'll have all the latest for you here. But the Titans got their own
problems right now. They are not going to be shedding any tears for the Carolina Panthers and what they've got going on, and it's going to be interesting to see, I think one of the biggest things, you know, at one in nine, I am not going to say, well, hey, you get a couple wins there right in the playoff picture in the NFC South, because even though that's true, I'm reading the room here. I don't think anybody wants
to hear that necessarily right now. But you know, the Panthers are entering a portion of the schedule where you know they've got some opportunities, and I think more than anything else, I'm not going to be focused on wins and losses as much as I want to see if this offense continues to develop. I want to see that progress from Bryce Young that everybody wants to see. And I think, you know, all year long, they've been kind
of looking for an identity. And if you are looking for silver linings, if that's what your conditioned to look for this time of year, I would say, hey, look at the way they ran the ball in the first half against the Cowboys when that game was close. You know, Chewba Hubber and Miles Sanders both jumping in there, and we're going to have some more about that at Panthers dot Com later this week. They ran well eighty five yards at halftime, and it's like, Okay, this is what's working.
They are not going to be last year's Carolina Panthers. This is not going to be six yards in a cloud of dust as it was lot of times last year because that was the only play they had that worked. They're trying to do some different stuff, and I think as you think about the long term development of this team, it's important to make this offense more than it was
last year. But I think there are ways to work in elements of that, and I think that's going to be one of the first things I'm looking for this week at Tennessee, because listen, the Titans still got that Derrick Henry cat all right, They're going to be doing the same thing. So if this game takes two and a half hours and they run it a lot to try to stabilize things for young quarterbacks, I'm not necessarily
going to be surprised this week. So we will see how that game turns out, and after Tennessee road trips to Tampa and New Orleans again not thinking division or not thinking playoffs or anything like that. But I think it's important as Bryce Young gets another look at division opponents, first look at Tampa and New Orleans in Atlanta, back here at home after that, when a second shot at those guys, I think it's going to be important to
see how he kind of progressed. Is the offense has been basically whatever they get out of the run game and Adam Thielen each week. Adam Thielen, by the way, congratulations to Adam Thielen was the team nominee for the Art Rooney Sportsmanship Award this year. Here's some Art Rooney Sportsmanship Award trivia. This thing's been awarded since twenty fourteen, named after the legendary Steelers founder. The Carolina Panthers have won this thing twice. Luke Keigley won it in twenty seventeen,
Teddy Bridgewater in twenty twenty. So I don't know, maybe this is the year for Adam Thielen. If you start looking at the things that have gone right for this franchise this season, it's not a terribly long list, but Adam Thielen is certainly one of the items on that list, so you know it's it's something. It's not a lot. I would rather light a cantle cursor darkness though. It's that time of year. So with that, we're gonna get out of here for this week. We will SIRC back
next week heading into that Tampa Bay game. It's uh mark your calendars. It's a four o'clock kickoff now. The league told us yesterday we get a few more hours of Florida sunshine. That's gonna be a four h five kick on CBS next week instead of a one o'clocker. Uh So it's gonna be an opportunity for him to sleep in in Florida, maybe a little bit rest up after what is certain to be a busy and eventful Thanksgiving week. I am Darren Gant. This has been the
happy half hour. It's Thanksgiving Gang, get with your people, whatever that looks like, and enjoy your holiday. We'll see you next week.