From college sports to the NFL with Ema Thake - Ep. #149

Inside Sports Nutrition

Ema Thake, Sports Dietitian and Director of Performance Nutrition for the Denver Broncos, joins us to share her insights and experiences as a Sports Dietitian from the collegiate level to her current work for a professional football team.

Our discussion includes:

• Ema’s athletic background and how she got into the field of sports nutrition
• Changes in sports nutrition throughout her collegiate experience
• Challenges that collegiate athletes face and biggest nutrition mistakes that are made
• Example of a success story
• The use of supplements in collegiate athletes
• An overview of differences in working with professional football players and her roles with the Denver Broncos
• The importance and impact of a performance team

Links:

• About NIL in college sports
• Follow Ema on Instagram @emathake

More about our guest:

Ema is a Registered Dietitian and Board-Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics.

Ema graduated with her Bachelor of Science from the University of Northen Colorado in 2010, where she ran cross country and track and field. In 2013, she completed her master’s degree in Sports Nutrition and Exercise Physiology, as well as her dietetic internship at the University of Utah. Through her graduate work and internship, she worked closely with the Utah football team as well as a handful of Olympic sports teams as the sports nutrition team and athletic department navigated deregulation and a rapidly growing demand for sports nutrition services.

Ema started her career as a sports dietitian at UCLA (2013-2014), also working at the USC Keck Medical Center as an inpatient oncology dietitian. During this time, she also consulted with California State Long Beach as the first dietitian working with their athletic department. In 2014, Ema returned to Salt Lake City and the University of Utah to work as a sports nutrition fellow. From 2014-2015, she worked as an outpatient performance dietitian, building the sports nutrition clinic within Intermountain Healthcare.

Ema has held positions as Director of Performance Nutrition at the University of Washington (2015-2022) and the University of North Carolina (2022-2023), where she oversaw the entire nutrition department and supported athletes from football and Olympic sports. Ema returned to her hometown of Denver, Colorado and joined the Broncos staff as the Director of Performance Nutrition in 2023, where she oversees all aspects of player nutrition and food service.

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