Hi, I’m John Berardi.
I’m a Canadian-American entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of Precision Nutrition, the world’s largest nutrition coaching, education, and software company.
I also founded Change Maker Academy, a company devoted to helping would-be change makers turn their passion for health and fitness into a powerful purpose and a wildly successful career.
My book Change Maker: Turn Your Passion For Health and Fitness Into A Powerful Purpose and Wildly Successful Career – which kicked off the Change Maker movement – won several awards, became a best-seller, and continues to be highly rated and reviewed on places like Amazon.com.
Finally, for over a year, I hosted The Dr. John Berardi Show, a podcast that went beyond health and fitness to seek out important life lessons in a seemingly unlikely place, amid competing points of view. While in production, our episodes regularly appeared on top podcast lists, alongside shows like Joe Rogan’s, Tim Ferriss’, etc.
Over the last 20 years I’ve advised:
- Apple,
- Equinox,
- Nike,
- Titleist,
- San Antonio Spurs,
- Carolina Panthers,
- US Open Champ Sloane Stephens, and
- 2-division UFC Champ Georges St. Pierre.
I’ve also been named one of the 20 smartest coaches in the world and 100 most influential people in health and fitness.
I currently live in Ontario, Canada with my wife and four children, although we tend to escape the cold Canadian winters by spending January to April in warmer places.
And I occasionally share what I’ve been up to, what I’ve been learning, who I’ve been learning with, and what’s getting me excited on Instagram and Facebook. (Although, I’m mostly retired and spend the lion’s share of my time offline).
If you’re interested in my extended bio, please click any of the links below for more on my work as a:
Or you can click here to contact me.
Writer
Since the year 2000 I’ve written countless articles for nearly every site or magazine that covers health, fitness, and nutrition. In addition, I’ve also had the great pleasure of leading the world-class content team at Precision Nutrition, as Editor-in-Chief.
In addition to articles, I’ve written:
I’ve also written (or been a co-author of):
And, my latest book, the culmination of 30 years in the industry, is Change Maker: Turn Your Passion For Health & Fitness Into A Powerful Purpose and A Wildly Successful Career.
If you work in health and fitness, or you hope to one day, I highly encourage you to pick up a copy of my new book ASAP. It took me over a year to write and it contains everything I’ve learned in the last few decades in. You get it all for under $30, a heckuva deal.
Coach
I’ve personally coached and consulted with thousands of people from all walks of life–from everyday people who could be your neighbours, right up to athletes at the highest level of sport.
For years I lead the extraordinary coaching team at Precision Nutrition, and co-developed Precision Nutrition Coaching, which broke ground as the first web-based nutrition coaching system.
(If you’re looking for exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle coaching, I encourage you to check it out. Spots are limited and sell out quickly when opened to the public).
Nowadays most of my coaching is done: a) in partnership with my wife as we try to raise our four children to be happy, healthy, hard-working, and helpful members of society and b) in youth sports like track and field, flag football, and soccer.
Professor
I studied Pre-Med, Psychology, and Philosophy at Lock Haven University, Exercise Science at Eastern Michigan University, and received my PhD (in Exercise and Nutritional Biochemistry) at the University of Western Ontario under renowned sport nutrition researcher Dr. Peter Lemon.
Since then I’ve been an assistant adjunct professor at the University of Texas and a course instructor at Eastern Michigan University, teaching courses in Exercise Science, Nutrient Metabolism, Fitness and Wellness, and Exercise Nutrition.
Researcher
In my doctoral studies, my research focused primarily on exercise nutrition; specifically, what to eat before, during and after exercise to optimize performance. Since then I’ve been involved in a host of studies (click here for publications) covering a wide range of disciplines from online coaching, to probiotics and mood, to dietary supplementation and urinary pH.
In addition, at Precision Nutrition, I developed a new kind of research that falls somewhere between heavily-controlled, small-scale laboratory studies typically done at universities, and the loosely-controlled, large-scale epidemiology studies typically funded by groups like the National Institutes of Health.
Using this medium-scale method, PN rapidly tests hypotheses with thousands of real, motivated people, collects and interprets the data online, and turns those data into better coaching methods for their clients. Here’s an example. And here’s another.
Speaker
For the last 25 years I’ve traveled the world to teach the latest in health, fitness, and nutrition science at hundreds of conferences. Here’s an example talk from Fitness Business Summit. And here’s another from the NSCA’s national conference.
While my travel schedule is limited nowadays–my great joy is staying home to spend time with our 4 children–I do, on occasion, appear at industry events to speak on: entrepreneurship, turning your passion for health and fitness into a powerful purpose, and developing a long-lasting, sustainable, successful career.
Guest
Although I travel very little, I do enjoy great conversations with thoughtful interviewers and have recorded hundreds of podcasts in the last few years. Some of my favorites include this conversation with Mike Cazayoux, this one with Jay Ferrugia, this one with Dr. Michael Gervais, and this one with Kelly and Juliet Starrett.
While there are lots who can talk about nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle, there are few people better suited to speaking on my favorite topics: entrepreneurship, turning your passion for health and fitness into a powerful purpose, and developing a long-lasting, sustainable, successful career.
Athlete
As a young man, I competed at a fairly high level in track and field, rugby and football. I also won a US national junior bodybuilding title back in 1995.
These days, the majority of my athletic time is spent strength training and preparing for masters-level track and field meets, where I compete as a 100m and 200m sprinter.
Entrepreneur
My first venture, Precision Nutrition went on to become the world’s largest nutrition coaching, education, and software company.
Precision Nutrition is a 100% remote company, uses a distributed authority organization structure (i.e. Holacracy), is known for its unique use of Jobs To Be Done research, and was named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company magazine.
In 2017, I sold 80% of my ownership in the company at a valuation of nearly to $200M and it’s continued to grow year over year.
My next venture, Change Maker Academy was aimed at helping folks passionate about health and fitness turn that into a powerful purpose and a wildly successful career. Although we closed our doors in 2024 to focus on getting our ideas out to more people via my book Change Maker: Turn Your Passion For Health & Fitness Into A Powerful Purpose and A Wildly Successful Career.
Podcaster
For over a year, I hosted The Dr. John Berardi Show, a podcast that sought important life lessons in a seemingly unlikely place, amid competing points of view.
In each episode, I looked at fascinating—sometimes controversial—topics through the minds of divergent thinkers. And together we teased out unifying threads from ideas that may have felt irreconcilable.
We live in an age of divisiveness. This show offered an alternative. I searched for common ground, uncommon wisdom, and deep insight into what it means to live a better life.
The show regular appeared on Apple’s top podcast lists, alongside podcast like Joe Rogan’s, Tim Ferriss’, etc. Yet we stopped recording so I could retire and spend more time with my family.
