The Real Life Diet of Ernie Johnson, Who Eats Wherever Mike Fratello Tells Him To

When Ernie Johnson sat down with GQ, he was just a few days away from beginning his 35th year as cohost of TNT's award-winning studio show Inside the NBA. Johnson may be best known for producing basketball’s most viral commentary alongside Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O’Neill, but, in recent years, the 68-year-old has also become a major health advocate, sharing his experiences of fighting non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2003 and prostate cancer in 2019.

Before beginning his extensive preshow research, Johnson—who recently teamed up with Depend to encourage men to get screened for prostate cancer—spoke on how those two bouts of cancer changed his approach to taking care of himself. Johnson also discussed the secret to making the best studio show in sports TV history, why you need Mike Fratello in your contact list, and why you'll never see him on a pickleball court.

In Real Life Diet, athletes, celebrities, and other high performers talk about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.

Ernie Johnson: Part of it is that when you would go in for treatment and you see the parking lot full. It's like, you know what, there are a lot of folks out there who need encouragement, who maybe just need a push to go to the doctor. I'm not ashamed of anything. It's not like I'm just going to hide. One in eight men is going to be diagnosed with this in their lifetime, and if you can go to your doctor, screening can be as easy as a blood test—it's nothing. There’s always that fear factor, trepidation—and I can say this just from being through it—the unknown is what kind of drives you crazy sometimes. It's that kind of thing that makes people say, well, I'm just not going to go. That's the exact wrong thing to do. You just got to go, face it, and you got to stand up. If they catch it early, it's like up to 99% treatable.

Once you sit there across from a doctor and you get the word that you have prostate cancer, you discuss what your options are. The decision me and my wife (Cheryl Ann Deluca-Johnson) made was surgery. That was over five years ago. Now, I feel great, never better, and as determined as ever to try to encourage men. Don’t just sit there and say, “Nothing will happen to me” or “I hope nothing will happen to me.” Just go check, especially with this. It’s an easy check and if you get it early, you’re in great shape.

I always want to be in as good a shape as I can be. I'm 68 years old now and I like to hit the golf ball. I'm addicted to the Peloton bike—love the sweat. You're on TV and you don't want to show up, and it's like, Wow! Ernie Johnson let himself go. I've got five grandkids that I'm chasing around. I want to be there for them. I think my wife and I both share that. We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to our marriage to take as good of care as we can of ourselves and be smart about it.

Every Friday, I wake up and I'll do some stretching. I have somebody that I work with at the workout place who's helping me flexibility-wise.

I've had some friends—don't take this the wrong way, and I'm not trying to disparage anybody who plays it—they're trying to tell me, “You really need to play pickleball.” That's a ruptured Achilles waiting to happen for me. All I'm going to need is one little quick move, and it's going to be over. So I'm just sticking to golf and the bike.

My wife got me kind of hooked on avocado toast—a little salmon on there—and I like that. There’s this place called Papa Jack’s. One of my golfing buddies owned it forever. It’s a Southern country cooking, breakfast place. I will dive into the two eggs over medium with some cheese grits and a side of sausage with no shame. But I don't do it every day. I kind of treat myself that way. It's like, I had a pretty good workout yesterday and I’m going to Papa Jack's this morning. At work I do a lot of salads for lunch just to kind of tide me over. I’m a pretty basic guy. I'm a big seafood dude.

I like all kinds of fish and chicken—nothing really outlandish. I do try to eat right and try to stay hydrated. I think that’s where I really need the most reminders—just because I forget about it in the middle of the day. I'll down (a bottle of water) right away when I wake up in the morning, and then I haven't had a bottle of water since I had that thing. That's what I'm trying to really stay on top of. I have a doctor who tells me I want you to get at least 64 ounces. Then, I’m trying to add up these bottles and how many I've had.

The city you're in right now. I mean, Chicago's got great restaurants. When you're up there during early baseball season—I used to do a lot of games at Wrigley and the food there was great. The settings were great. Since I'm a seafood guy, Boston's always been great. San Francisco—the [Fisherman’s] Wharf out there and I enjoy that. What you find—and I don't know if you found this—is that wherever you go in this country, cities have incredible restaurants if you know where to look. I do have a soft spot for Italian food as well. My wife makes great Italian, but I lean in on a guy like Mike Fratello. Fratello coached in the league for so many years, and he knows every Italian restaurant in the world.

I'd call him up and say, “Coach, I'm in Cleveland.” Okay. Here are your places. It’s bang, bang, bang. He’ll say, “Do you need to get in there? Let me make a call.” You’ll get a phone call five minutes later and you’re set up. You have to use your resources but, there’s great food out there wherever.

It’s this way every year. You just can't wait to see how some of these moves pay off and if they do pay off. Boston was great last year, and they basically bring the same bunch back, and they add Lonnie Walker to that mix. Now, who's going to challenge them? You look at what the Knicks did, and now you got Karl Anthony-Towns and Mikal Bridges there. Philadelphia adds Paul George. Those are the things I think in the East that are kind of intriguing. Then, it's like, oh, excuse me. A guy named Giannis still plays in Milwaukee with Damian Lillard, Khris Middleton, and now Gary Trent. Anybody who acts like they know right now, you just call them on it and say, “You don't know.”

You don't know who's going to be healthy, or who's going to turn out to be a great addition. The West is still loaded. When you have Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and you add my son—we joke on the air about Alex Caruso looking like me because of the hairline—Isaiah Hartenstein, who was so good with the Knicks. What will Memphis do with a healthy Ja Morant because he’s so dynamic? Is Zion [Williamson] going to be great? Now, Dejounte Murray is over there with him. Denver? You ask me that question and I’m trying to give you a short answer, but there is no short answer this time of the year because you want to give everybody their due. I’m also happy to see Lonzo Ball back in uniform. The guy’s so talented and he makes such a difference.

That it's different every night. It's an unrehearsed show. In fact, Kenny, Chuck, and Shaq aren't allowed in the production meeting. We don't want them to know what we might have cooked up. We just assume they’ve kept up with what’s going on in the league and are ready to talk about it—and they are. But, they don’t need to know that we have an embarrassing video of Kenny when he was in Houston. They don’t know that we want to do this to Chuck if he makes a guarantee that doesn’t work. All of it’s pretty organic. I think that unpredictable, kind of let-it-fly nature is what has resonated with fans.

I think the key to the whole thing is I’ve got three former players who have been in every possible situation in a game. People want to hear from them on what that’s like. I’m the guy who is trying to get us from point A to B, and C, and trying to move the conversation along. I keep a daily log of every game played in the NBA. So, at the end of the year, every year that has been played has who the leading scorer was, who got hurt, and I can always refer to that as the season goes on. It’s reading quotes, being on top of things. If I throw this [Chicago Bulls head coach] Billy Donovan quote at Charles in the pregame quote, I kind of know how he’s going to react to this and Shaq is going to broadside him because I know how he feels about it.

Part of the preparation is the years of reps that we have. We all kind of have this knowledge of what we’re all thinking at all times. Charles has told me before, “I saw that little look in your eye and I knew that you were going somewhere.” I think that’s the beauty of longevity. I think back to Joe Maddon when he was managing the Cubs, and he always talked about the gift of experience, and that’s what it is. Once you have the gift of experience for years, you have this engrained knowledge of how guys are going to react and what is going to make them be forthcoming and jump on a topic.

Doing the show is the easy part. It’s always the prep. If it ever gets to the day where the prep is a drain on me, then it’s time to go. But, I can’t do my job unless I prepare like a knucklehead.