The Real-Life Diet of Fernando Mendoza, Who Eats What AI Tells Him To

It’s been the biggest year of Fernando Mendoza’s young life.The 22-year-old quarterback started 2026, fresh off of winning the Heisman Trophy, by leading Indiana to the College Football National Playoff Championship with a 27-21 victory over the University of Miami (as it happens, the U’s campus is just minutes from Mendoza’s childhood home in Coral Gables). At that game, the athlete demonstrated to a wider audience what NCAA-watchers had long been saying: here was a kid with a golden arm and a brain to match it. Mendoza threw for 186 yards, and scored his own critical touchdown, too, all while remaining level-headed and pragmatic as the pressure mounted.After that, the spotlight started to burn hotter: Mendoza appeared on the cover of a Sports Illustrated issue commemorating the win. Then came a late-January appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. And then an Esquire cover. The NFL draft—at which many were saying he’d be the number one pick—was looming (and so were brand deals, including with BOSS, and, as of today, OpenAI).That destiny came true on April 23: Mendoza was selected first overall by the Las Vegas Raiders in a 4-year deal worth just under $60 million, guaranteed. Instead of attending the draft ceremony, he and his family threw a watch party in Miami, which was decided in part to make the event easier on Mendoza’s mother, Elsa, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2008. The group is close knit; Mendoza also has two younger brothers, Alberto and Max.Mendoza’s season begins on September 13 as the Raiders take on the Miami (!) Dolphins at home. Kirk Cousins, the veteran quarterback, has been named the Raiders’ starter for week 1, but Mendoza says he isn’t deterred: he’s as much an academic as he is an athlete, and will be closely studying Cousins as he prepares to eventually take the field himself.Below, Mendoza discusses everything from how he dials in his diet via ChatGPT to how he’s staying disciplined about his training.GQ: What’s one meal you could eat every single day for the rest of your life and not get sick of?Fernando Mendoza: That’s a great question. We were actually having this debate the other day in the cafeteria. I’d have to say tacos. It might not be the most nutritionally sound choice, but tacos can have variations. Fish tacos, beef tacos, breakfast tacos, even a choco taco every once in a while for dessert. There’s a lot of variety there. It’s not what my actual diet looks like, but yeah. Tacos for sure.On the flip side, especially now as you start your career in the NFL, what’s something diet-wise that’s completely off-limits when it comes to staying healthy?I’d say candy. I don’t need any more candy. It’s too artificial, and there are too many ingredients that have no real correlation to an actual meal plan.So candy is a no go. Do you still find you have a sweet tooth, though?There are exceptions, especially at certain points in the week. The person who coordinates my nutrition—honestly, my whole wellness—is Alex Guerrero, the Raiders’ director of performance, who was Tom Brady’s right-hand man for years. His whole philosophy is that everything’s fine in moderation. If you have a few bites of a donut, that’s fine. You just don't need the jumbo ice cream sundae, because at that point, what are you doing? It doesn’t need to be completely cut out at all times. If we play on Sundays, the last time I’ll have something sweet is usually Sunday night or Monday—a couple bites here and there—and then I’m dessert-free the rest of the week.I know you’ve got a new partnership with OpenAI. But I hear you genuinely used Chat for meal planning and nutrition even before that came about. How does it help?So I get my modeling from the Raiders’ nutrition staff, but I use ChatGPT to help me actually maintain [it]. Every day I’m at the facility, I'll have a four-egg omelet with half an avocado in the morning, and then for lunch and dinner it’s a cup of fruit, a cup of vegetables, about half a cup of carbs—rice or something like that—and eight to ten ounces of protein. That’s the plan they have me on, plus a protein shake mix depending on how my weight is fluctuating. Where ChatGPT comes in is on nights when I’m not on site, maybe a Sunday night, or if I’m on vacation. I’ll ask Chat what fits into the plan, or if I’m having something [that deviates from it], what the best option is. You have to do what’s best for your body. So, one example, if I’m hungry before practice, I'll ask: should I have an Uncrustable or applesauce? An energy bite? It even factors in the weather in Las Vegas, what I’ve already eaten that week, and things like the fact that I’m not a big dairy guy—so if one option has more dairy than another, it’ll flag that. It’s able to be my personal operating system for nutrition, filling in the voids for the times the Raiders’ staff isn’t with me.Have you ever been surprised by its recommendations?It's been useful anytime something doesn’t obviously fit into my plan. If I’m eating out and asking what protein makes more sense given what I’ve already had that week: do I need more omega-3s, am I already getting enough, is this cut of beef going to be inflammatory, should I have chicken instead. And it also goes the other way—it’ll tell you something you assume is bad for you might not actually be that bad.You’re just about to wrap the pre-season. Fitness-wise, what’s been the biggest physical adjustment between the college grind and the NFL grind?It’s really the structure of the programs across lifting, speed work, the overall performance training. In college, you’re there essentially twelve months out of the year because you’re also enrolled in school. In the NFL, you get a longer break—from late January or February, depending on how far you go in the playoffs, until around late April. A lot of guys go home and train on their own; others stay at the facility and work with the staff. There’s a lot more flexibility to either take a step forward or fall behind, depending on how you use that time. It’s much more consolidated to your own choices.So you’re left more to your own devices during off time?Yes. It comes down to the players’ agreement with the league. Part of that caps how many workouts, practices, or padded practices you can have in a week, and mandates time off. So it’s really on you to decide: should I rest today, should I train, should I get treatment—what does my body need right now? There’s a lot more leeway there than in college. In college, whether people want to admit it or not, every program runs basically the same twelve-month structure—lifting rules aside, your whole calendar is pretty regimented.The Raiders first game is September 13, and we’ve seen that Kirk Cousins has been named the starting quarterback for at least week 1. What are you doing to get yourself into “starter mentality” so that you yourself can get there?Mentality is probably the most important element for a quarterback. I’m making sure I’m treating this as a learning opportunity, framing it that way so it creates a positive reconstruction in my brain and lets me keep growing. Practically, that means asking the coaches questions, being in the playbook, but also visualizing. When Kirk’s getting the reps, I’m behind him doing ghost reps, and visualizing the plays at real speed. And this will be during practice or watching the film afterward. I’m making sure to be going over anything I’m struggling with. And I’m visualizing myself in the play, going through each read—seeing the first guy covered, moving to the next guy, throwing it—visualizing the defenders, and the situations where I’d need to check down or check out of the play entirely. I’m doing a lot of that visualization to keep my mind sharp, so whenever my opportunity comes, I'm ready.That’s very thorough and studious.I hope so.This year has been huge—the NCAA championship, the draft, and now going into your rookie NFL season. What have you done to stay even-keeled and tune out the noise when it gets too loud?This year the noise has gotten really loud. Louder than I’ve ever experienced. What’s worked for me is deleting social media, and making sure I’m getting my opinions and advice from a smaller circle—friends, family, coaches, people in the building. I did that through the draft process too, though there were points I showed some weakness and redownloaded social media because I couldn’t quite control myself. Now that the season’s started, I’ve deleted it again. It matters because you don’t want to ride the emotional rollercoaster of the highs and lows [it can bring]. I've heard athletes say, “I don’t care what some random person online says about me”—but when that person is saying you’re great, you put value into it. And then a couple months later, when the same person says you should be benched, that gets to you too, even if it shouldn’t, even if it’s someone who knows nothing about the sport or the situation. Negative or positive reinforcement—too much of either is a problem. You want to stay on an even, steady line rather than getting knocked out of sorts in either direction.That happened to me early in my career. My first three games starting at Cal [before Indiana], Twitter was all “this guy’s great, let’s go.” My fourth game, we played Oregon and got beaten badly, and suddenly people were saying I sucked. Because I’d already bought into the positive stuff, the backlash hit harder than it should have. That’s when I decided to just kill that variable entirely—there are so many things you can actually control, and that wasn’t one of them, so I got rid of it. Worst case, I’ll hop on LinkedIn, or maybe watch a YouTube video once in a while, but those are a lot more controllable than random opinions and thoughts.How does using AI factor into maintaining your mental health? Or do you keep that side of you more guarded?I do a lot of praying, which I consider a form of meditation. That, plus time spent with the mental performance coaches we have, keeps my mindset and rhythm right and gets me thinking productively going into the week. But for something more immediate—say, figuring out how long to nap before a game when the schedule and game times keep shifting—I’ll ask ChatGPT, since that’s not always something I can run by my performance coach in the moment: how long should I sleep so my body isn’t groggy but I’m still charged up and clear-headed, especially for night games?What have you been enjoying in Las Vegas? Have you gone to Sphere?I’ve been to a lot of great restaurants, mostly in the hotels. Those have been awesome. I saw the Alice in Wonderland visuals at the sphere. My younger brother, Max, came out and rode the rollercoaster at New York-New York and had a blast. My family loves Vegas, so I’m looking forward to seeing more of it with them as the season goes on.