TB12 diet diary: what it’s like to eat like Tom Brady for a week

As a Patriots fan, it will be a strange, uncomfortable and somewhat bitter experience to watch Tom Brady compete in his 10th Super Bowl – the first without a New England uniform. I will be forever grateful for Brady’s contributions to a dynasty that spanned almost my entire childhood. Still, it’s always hard to see an ex thriving after a breakup, you know?

But since Brady is tied to the Super Bowl and one of my strongest personality traits is the ability to punish me at any opportunity, my bosses here at CBS Sports thought it would be a good idea to embrace this personal crisis. What better way to prepare for the uncomfortable experience of watching Brady at the Super Bowl LV than to live the TB12 lifestyle for a week before the game?

For those who don’t know, TB12 is Brady’s lifestyle brand built around his method of living, which has allowed him to find an unparalleled level of sustained success at the NFL level. Exercise, nutrition, expensive pajamas … it’s all part of the Brady method. For this experiment, we will focus on the diet and flexibility aspects of the TB12 method and will document my experiences along the way.

And for the record: I used to lead a somewhat respectable lifestyle before the world closed last March. I used to work out often, try to eat well and at least make a casual effort to pretend to take care of myself. However, over the past year or so, my brand has basically become cigarettes, cheap beer, frozen pizza, video game marathon sessions and deteriorated hygiene. This project by my bosses may well be an intervention masquerading as a “job assignment”, so let’s see how it goes.

The guidelines

There’s a good chance that you’ve heard of Tom Brady’s absurd diet. The checklist of things he cannot / will not eat is apparently longer than the things he can / will. Here’s a glimpse of Brady’s personal chef insanity:

“No white sugar. No white flour. No MSG. I’m going to 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 like sodium. I never use iodized salt.

[Tom] do not eat nightshade, because it is not anti-inflammatory. So no tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms or eggplants. Tomatoes drip from time to time, but maybe only once a month. I am very cautious with tomatoes. They cause inflammation.

What else? No coffee. Caffeine free. Without fungus. No dairy.

Children eat fruit. Tom, not so much. He will eat bananas in a smoothie. But on the other hand, he prefers not to eat fruit. “

Yes, so it’s safe to say that I won’t be following Brady’s diet exactly as the quarterback does – I prefer to refuse the assignment and be unemployed. However, I will follow the outline provided by the TB12 website. Here is a basic outline of the rules:

• 80% fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds and legumes
• 20% protein (chicken, red meat, seafood)
• Eat until 75% full
• No dairy or solanaceous
• Divide your body weight in half in pounds and drink that amount of water (70 ounces for me daily)
• Maximum of 2 cups of coffee / No caffeine after noon
• No food for 3 hours before going to bed

Day 1

As I mentioned in the jump, this is a drastic change in my natural way of life, so I had to take a quick food shopping trip to prepare. I thought my local Trader Joe’s would be the best option for many of the organic meats and vegetables, so I filled in some of the gaps with a trip to Stop & Shop.

We have already reached an irritating block, as I imagined that yogurt and granola would be a good way to make nuts and seeds bearable. I happen to be an idiot who forgot that yogurt is milk, and also an idiot who didn’t realize that granola has a ton of sugar? God, that sucks already. I also decided to try a “green juice” simply because it looked healthy and looked like something I would be involved in while dieting. It tastes like rainwater collected in a yard garbage bag and I will never do that again.

I ate a palm-sized portion of chicken (cooked in coconut oil) for dinner, along with a little spinach, carrot and cucumber for dinner. It wasn’t exciting, but, honestly, it was solid. The biggest problem is that I got hungry again and I kind of broke the rules on the first day, because you shouldn’t eat anything three hours before going to bed. I ate celery and almonds as a “treat” late at night to calm my hunger. You know that your life gets complicated when you need to feel guilty about eating celery and almonds.

In addition, there is a lot of water to drink. I can’t stop peeing.

Day 2

Okay, I’m not going to lie … I ate a banana for breakfast and then skipped lunch completely because I just didn’t want to eat any of that healthy junk. That’s how diets work, right? It feels like I’m about to lose weight in one way or another.

The water thing is still killing me. I always knew I never drank enough water throughout the day, but I feel like I’m drowning from drinking so much water. I am bloated and feel that I could legitimately burst like a water balloon.

I finally got hungry enough to make another one of those meals for dinner, and I definitely made up for it. Again, I had seasoned chicken and lots of vegetables. Like, lots of vegetables. Here’s how stupid it looks:

Yes, about the whole “eat until 75% full” thing … it may have passed the landing a little. I also dropped a bunch of carrots on the floor as I took them out of the fridge. And, yes, I cheated eating two pieces of chocolate last night (OK, okay … it was four pieces of chocolate.) This is already off track.

And, for the sake of total transparency, I’m farting. Much. I am still trying to find out if this is the fault of the diet, but it is quite worrying.

Day 3

My bodily functions at least seem to be a little under control today, which is a good surprise! The food still bothers me a lot – I ate bananas and avocados for lunch, then chicken, green beans and corn for dinner. Also, I tried green juice again just to see if my body would be better equipped to handle it after two days … and no. It still tastes like swamp soup.

Three days later, I officially got to the point where I could report a family member to the police if it meant that a cheeseburger with beer was waiting for me on the other side. Throw a side of the fries and I can admit crimes I didn’t commit.

Honestly, one of the hardest parts of this thing is not being able to keep my hands busy and snacking / drinking while looking forward to watching sports at night. Last night I had to settle for chewing on ice cubes just to keep from breaking into a hiding place late at night.

Overall, though, I feel pretty decent out of the irritability that comes from not being able to do what the hell I want, when the hell I want. I feel quite fulfilled by spending a day without breaking any rules. But I’m already daydreaming about the absolute destruction I’m going to unleash on my body when this experiment is over.