Kai Lightner was a climbing prodigy. From an early age, he was climbing anything and everything—including, at age 6, a flagpole at Fayetteville State University, where his mom worked. It was that incident that encouraged her to bring her 6-year-old—diagnosed with ADHD at the time—to the nearby climbing gym. Scaling walls became an outlet. A year later in 2007, he attended his first national championship and in 2010, he won it. At this point, the North Carolina native has earned 12 National Championship titles (10 in youth categories; two on the adult circuit) and is a five-time youth world championship medalist.

In the last year, he's also become a strong voice on deeper issues in climbing. In the spring of 2020, he wrote about his experience with disordered eating. And after George Floyd's murder, he founded a nonprofit, Climbing for Change, which seeks to make climbing and the entire outdoor industry more inclusive. 

GQ recently caught up with the 21-year-old about how he fuels his training, the Got Milk? commercial he filmed with Dawn Wall director Jimmy Chin, and setting his sights on the 2024 Olympics.

For Real-Life Diet, GQ talks to athletes, celebrities, and everyone in between about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.

GQ: What’s the first thing you put into your body in the morning?

Kai Lightner: I get up around 7:30 every day. After I brush my teeth, wash my face, and brush my hair, it’s straight to breakfast. I’m big on oatmeal and eggs. I prefer my eggs to be sunny side up. Scrambled makes me nauseous. Then, I’ll typically have some fruit, Greek yogurt, and a glass of milk. I used to steal my mom’s glass of milk in the mornings after I finished my own. It makes me laugh just thinking about it, because it’s still a big part of my every day.

Are you a morning workout person?

My morning practice goes from 9 to 12. That happens at the U.S. Training Center in Salt Lake City. At noon I come home and work on my nonprofit Climbing for Change.

I also eat lunch, which is usually pretty heavy in protein. Right now in my fridge is tuna salad. I love making Thai at home, too, a Thai sort of situation. I’m always looking to eat something that helps me replenish my muscles and helps me gear up for the rest of the day’s work.

I’m assuming you have more training after that?

Oh yeah. Come 5 p.m. I’ll go back to the gym and train until 8. I’ll eat dinner at 8:30. I meal prep on Sundays. My mom makes them for me, bless her. In my rotation right now for dinner is steak, some potatoes and, a salad. The other one meal I’ll lean into a lot is succotash, which is basically a bunch of vegetables in a pot. After dinner, that’s when I wind down and get ready for bed.

What’s the difference between the morning and the night training session?

In the morning, I’ll do the non-climbing stuff. So, think of things like regular weight training, like campus boarding. For that, you have rungs in the wall and you’re climbing them with just your hands and arms to build strength. Other days in the morning, I'll go to the training center and I'll climb on competition-style climbs. 

At a climbing gym, that's not what you're going to see when you watch the Olympics or watch climbing on television. Those are completely different beasts. So we’ve got to train for that specifically. Whereas in the evening, that's when I go to a commercial gym and do the stuff you probably see more regularly—like lead climbing and bouldering. That’s my opportunity to get a lot of reps in on the wall in the gym.

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You spoke out about struggling with disordered eating a few years back. Tell me about how recovery has been for you.

Yeah. My sport is a strength-to-weight ratio sport. Think about it: We're hanging on our fingertips for extended periods of time. So a lot of times athletes would choose either to get a lot stronger or to lose a lot of weight in order to gain an advantage over the competition. Growing up in the sport, it was just very normal in the climbing community—among top-level athletes—to talk about weight. It was also easy to lose sight of balance and tip over to the other side and have to get out of control. I didn't necessarily have the best influences when I was younger telling me how to have that balance. I developed a pretty unhealthy relationship with food.

As I got older and developed more muscles and got taller, I realized that that balance is important and is vital to my performance. I took a break from climbing to go to college, and during that time I gained a healthier relationship with food. Now, coming back I have a pretty steady regimen. I’ve found what works for me. The right amount of protein and carbs. And thanks to that, I feel like a way better athlete than before.

Does your height and size work for you or against you in your sport?

I’ve learned how to make it work for me. I'm actually the tallest athlete on the circuit, whether domestically or internationally. I've always had a stockier build. Both together usually means kind of doomsday. But even though I may weigh more than others, I'm also strong enough to hold my body up. It all is good for me in the end. Plus, I have almost a 7-foot wingspan.

Anything you consider a guilty pleasure?

Not so much anymore, but I’m leaning toward saying Hot Cheetos. If you look at any of the early photos of me on the competition podium, you’ll see that my fingers are red and my face is red because that was my post-climbing treat. As soon as I’d get off the wall, my mom would be ready with the family-size bag.

What’s your biggest goal right now?

Olympics 2024. I set that ambition aside in the last cycle to prioritize school. I got a full-ride scholarship to college, and had to make a big decision to put off this particular goal. In my mind, the scholarship was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to school for free. But come 2024, I'll be 25, which is right in the prime for male athletes. I’m already back to competing.

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