Tom Brady Cheats on His Famously Strict Diet With Pizza and Cheeseburgers More Than You Might Think
Tom Brady has always been known for his insanely strict diet that keeps his body running in tip-top shape. The way his dietary habits have been publicized over the last few years, you would think Brady would explode at the mere sight of a carb-loaded pizza or a greasy cheeseburger, but it turns out those are actually regular cheat meals for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback.
Tom Brady’s strict diet
Brady has followed a famously strict diet for most of his NFL career. How do you think he still looks the way he does at 43 years old?
In order to stay in great shape, Brady tries to cut out all sugars and mostly consumes natural products that come directly from the earth. About 80% of Brady’s diet comes from fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes, while the other 20% comes from proteins such as chicken and fish.
Allen Campbell, Brady’s former personal chef, detailed his rigid guidelines to Hilary Sargent of Boston.com back in 2016.
“No white sugar. No white flour. No MSG,” Campbell said. “I’ll use raw olive oil, but I never cook with olive oil. I only cook with coconut oil. Fats like canola oil turn into trans fats. … I use Himalayan pink salt as the sodium. I never use iodized salt.
“[Tom] doesn’t eat nightshades, because they’re not anti-inflammatory. So no tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, or eggplants. Tomatoes trickle in every now and then, but just maybe once a month. I’m very cautious about tomatoes. They cause inflammation.
“What else? No coffee. No caffeine. No fungus. No dairy.”
Seems normal, right?
Brady regularly cheats on his strict diet with pizza and cheeseburgers
We’ve come to believe that Brady refuses to let a single potato chip or piece of chocolate enter his body because of the ripple effects they might cause. But according to Alex Guerrero — Brady’s trainer, business partner, and dietary guru — the QB actually cheats on his supposedly strict diet all the time.
“He loves pizza and I would say that he loves a really great cheeseburger,” Guerrero said on the most recent episode of The Adam Schefter Podcast.
Guerrero said cheating happens regularly after Brady suffers an injury and becomes stressed. After injuring his hand in practice prior to the 2018 AFC Championship Game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Brady just needed a cheesy pizza to numb the pain.
“That day that he injured himself, that day after that, that we’re kind of getting him through the emotions of what had just occurred,” Guerrero said.
Guerrero says Brady’s diet is blown out of proportion
The narrative surrounding Brady’s diet has taken on a life of its own in recent years, but Guerrero explained it’s not as insane as everyone believes it is.
“We weren’t super strict on our diet. We’re not like that. We’re very balanced,” he said. “We do things to kind of help our body stay in balance all the time. So if we feel the need to heat up a pizza and eat a pizza, we’re gonna do it. If he needs to have a cheeseburger, we’re gonna do it.
“We’re not excessive like everybody’s written about. It’s really not that bad.”
It turns out Brady is human after all.
