Video: Eating TB12 Method, Plus NFL Combine Attempts

New video this week, Dad vs. Tom Brady. In the video, I tried eating like Tom Brady (his TB12 method), and then I tried to see if I could match the stats Brady put up at the NFL combine 20+ years ago when he was taken 199th in the draft. You can watch the video below and go over to YouTube to subscribe.

This video makes 7 weeks in a row of publishing a video. I plan to keep this schedule going for at least another 4 weeks, so get on board! I’m almost to 50 subscribers, which I am thrilled about.

TB12 Method: The Diet

According to reports, the TB12 diet consists of mostly whole foods, including lean meats, vegetables, certain fruits and nuts. He also drinks something like 25 glasses of water a day, usually with electrolytes. The interesting part that people have made a big deal about are all the restrictions his diet includes. He supposedly does this to avoid inflammation.

Restrictions include not having:

• Sugar
• Artificial sweeteners
• Caffeine
• Oil
• Dairy
• Grains, bread, cereal, etc.
• Nightshade vegetables (no tomatoes or white potatoes)

I wanted to eat this way for a day to clean out my system a bit and hit a low calorie total the day before Thanksgiving. The diet was fine and I think I could do it for a short period of time, like a week or two. But even for me, the diet was too restrictive to be a long-term solution. Brady has professionally prepared meals, which probably makes adherence much easier.

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Not having caffeine was a bummer, but I think if I did it for a week or so I wouldn’t miss caffeine. The part that I’d have the worst time keeping up with is probably artificial sweeteners, grains and dairy. I like to have Greek yogurt in my protein ice cream recipes, to eat bread and cereal. I am fine not having oil and sugar.

The TB12 Method works for Tom Brady, which is great for him. It seems very healthy. But, I find the way I’ve eaten this year to be the most sustainable. A mix of whole foods and “anabolic” recipes, with some high volume protein ice cream most days is sustainable for as long as my Ninja Blender is functional.

NFL Combine Challenge

The NFL Combine challenge was thrown together on a very cold day with a rushed warm up. Because of that and because I hadn’t trained any of the events ahead of time, I didn’t quite hit Brady’s numbers. These are definitely excuses, but it’s good to be humbled at times by trying some things you don’t normally do.

The bench press test was my best event. I got 25 reps at 135lbs and I got 2 reps of 225lbs. That wasn’t terrible for 162lbs of bodyweight.

Finally, with absolutely no prep whatsoever, I took an online Wonderlic test. I wasn’t watching the timer very closely and I only finished 40 questions of the 50 in 12 minutes. I got a score of 33 out of a possible 50, which matched Tom Brady. With any prep at all, I think I could have done better, but it was fun to go in cold.

The test doesn’t seem to be designed for you to finish, given the extreme time pressure involved. But, give the test a shot and let me know in the comments how you did.

So, that’s the summary of the video. It was fun, not as thoroughly planned out as some of my other videos, but we made it work! Thanks for watching and reading.

Keep it on the DL, fam!