Tom Brady’s Performance Secrets | Podcast #306
Since we witnessed a great win and performance of Tom Brady in the NFL, we have Dr. J and Evan talking about the basics of food template and physical training to be an excellent athlete and fit in general. The Tom Brady Template, or TB12 Method, is a whole-foods-based diet that protects against diseases, may aid weight loss, and boost your sports performance and recovery. Still, it is very restrictive, not based on sound science, and likely difficult to maintain long term.
It is important to note that everyone is unique, and well-known athletes are no exempted. It is still best to know what works for you. The bottom line is, if you want to perform excellently in your field (sports, fitness, etc.), it always encouraged to eat minimal processed, whole foods, etc. It is highly recommended to avoid inflammatory foods or acidic and hydration. It’s also good to have a fitness program that aims to achieve adequate energy levels, recovery, performance, and overall health.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
0:47 Vegan, NFL Diet, Tom Brady’s Diet
7:23 Grains, Gluten, Paleo
10:44 How We Can Do The Same Diet
15:03 Psychology Side Visualization’s Importance
16:29 EMF Mitigation Strategy, Bedroom Temp Control
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we are live. It’s Dr. J here in the house with Evan brand. We’re coming off at amazing Super Bowl win just last night. I’m a big Tom Brady fan big Patriots fan growing up in the Boston area. So we have to kind of connect what’s happening with current events to health, right? We know Tom Brady oldest quarterback ever most successful, he’s the goat right greatest of all time. And there’s definitely some nutritional and health secrets and tips. I think we can parse from his experience, maybe we can apply to ourselves for optimal performance and function. What do you think Evan?
Evan Brand: Yeah, I think that he’s doing everything that we’re preaching all the time. So it’s great to be able to see that the proof is in the pudding. You’re not seeing any amazing performing vegan quarterbacks, maybe there’s some out there, but none that I know on mainstream television like this.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, the problem with you know, you can look at Cam Newton was vegan a couple years back and he had a lot of big bone and foot injuries is part of the reason why is unless you’re doing tons of protein powders, it’s really hard to get a lot of the dense amino acids you need for rebuilding your muscles, your tendons, your ligaments, you’re also not getting a lot of that the collagen amino acids to turn over your cartilage and tendons and stuff. And then also really important fatty acids, you need fats to have cell healthy cell membranes, these fats are like a really important kind of building block for kind of buffering yourself helping yourself be more flexible, because fats are that outer cell membrane. And when you look at vegan vegetarian fats, a lot of them are going to be polyunsaturated fats, higher omega six, these fats tend to be a little bit more fragile, a little bit more heat sensitive, and a little bit more, let’s say oxidizable in the body, because there’s more omega bonds, right? So omega six fat means there’s four, six double bonds throughout that long chain fatty acid and double bonds, they’re not as resistant, they’re not as pliable, okay, they’re, they’re more fragile, and they can oxidize with heat and stress. And so the benefit of having animal fats is you have a lot more stability, because the fats are more saturated, you have a lot of fat soluble vitamins A D, and K in there. And then you don’t have the oxidizable nature. Anytime you oxidize a whole bunch of fats, you’re going to, you’re going to require a lot of antioxidants to help stabilize those cell membranes, because oxidation means those cells have lost electrons, and you need antioxidants that are willing to give up an electron to stabilize it. So good saturated fatty acids, again, fish oil, wonderful, right, but it’s an omega three, so it’s a little bit more heat sensitive. But if you’re doing some good omega threes with some saturated fats, and you’re keeping some good balance, omega threes are going to be wonderfully anti inflammatory. And they’re a plant based omega three, they just they don’t quite get converted to the active omega threes in DHA, EPA 80% go don’t get converted or kind of lost in that conversion be that delta five desaturase enzyme. So that’s the first thing on the fats.
Evan Brand: Let’s go through the list here. So they they’re calling it his NFL diet, which is kind of funny because like I said, this is the diet that you and I are pretty much prescribing for almost everyone. He’s saying here that of course, he’s got a private chef, of course, at that level of wealth, you’re gonna have private chef 80% of what he’s eating his vegetables. He’s getting the freshest vegetables. If they’re not organic, he doesn’t use it. And he will do some rice. He will do some quinoa and millet. He’s doing grass fed organic steak. He’s doing duck, he says every now and then he’ll do chicken. He’s doing wild salmon. He uses raw olive oil, but he doesn’t cook with it. He only cooks with coconut. And he uses Himalayan salt and never uses iodized salt and then no nightshades which you and I’ve done podcast on autoimmune protocol. And you’re going to pull out the Nightshade. So he’s saying here Nope, no tomatoes, peppers, mushroom, or eggplants. Tomatoes trickle in every now and then he said, but he said he’s very cautious about them. No coffee, no caffeine, no fungus, no dairy.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So a couple of things to highlight there. So number one, just want to highlight a few things is Tom’s using saturated fats to cope with why we’ve already talked about that there are a lot more heat stable, they’re not going to oxidize, they’re not going to break down. Also Coconut oil is very good for your cell membranes. And if you’re kind of switching into a fat burner status, right, you kick off a lot of ketones, a lot of fatty acid metabolites called ketones from coconut which is very high and a medium chain triglycerides, right, this is c6, c8, c10, c12, right capric caprylic, caproic and lauric acid, these are your medium chain triglycerides. So very important for fat burning. Also, Tom does about 20% meat. So that’s good quality, organic, high quality grass fed meat, right? So he’s probably consuming with his body six for 230 pounds. So he’s probably consuming about at least three to 4000 calories a day if he’s really active and working out. So you can imagine he’s probably consuming about I’m in a gas between 160 to 250 grams of protein a day probably around that depending if he’s lifting or how story is. And also he’s cutting down a lot of the nightshades now nightshades may be okay, a lot My patient may be listening and saying, Well, you know that J started me off on an autoimmune diet, I could add back in some Nightshade, some tomato, some potatoes. And that may be great for you. But when your joints are under a lot of stress, and a lot of inflammation from big linebackers tackling you every Sunday, your joints may be a little bit predisposed to inflammation and those nightshades and that alpha solonian content, maybe just enough to flare it up. So depending on how active you are nightshades may be something you want to keep down. inflammation in your joints is the problem.
Evan Brand: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think with the fruit thing, it’s interesting, too, he’s saying he’s not really doing fruits, occasionally. There’s something in a smoothie, maybe some berries or banana smoothie, but beyond that, he’s not really doing fruit. So, I mean, yeah, you would assume he probably is, you know, I wouldn’t say keto, because he does say he is doing some grains and rice and stuff. But I mean, in general, this is what you and I are doing everyday personally, every day clinically, he’s saying he does do nuts, or he’ll do a organic salad. And that could be roasted chicken with guacamole and mixed nuts. So what else here?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I also know Tom does a lot of protein and he’s his big protein his way. So he does whey protein. Whey Protein is an excellent protein because it’s very high in sulfur amino acids very high in cysteine. Very high in MSM or MSM mfine. So it’s high and a lot of the sulfur based amino acids, glutamine, glycine, cysteine taurine, so whey protein is really good to me, it’s 99% dairy free. So even though I think Tom doesn’t do dairy, they may do a little bit of butter in there. But it’s a good amino acid. Now, if you’re sensitive, you could always do pea protein or just collagen amino acids. If, if dairy, were the potential that even a tiny bit of dairy is a problem. Again, whey protein is 99% lactose and casein free. So most people that have dairy problems are with the lactose and the casein. So that’s one component. Tom also doesn’t do a lot of coffee. Now, I think coffee may be okay for Pete many people. I think Tom’s issue with coffee is the diuretic aspect. And the minerals. I know Tom talks about minerals a lot. Now, you could still do coffee, just keep it to once a day, you know, you know, do your one or two servings in the morning, take it with fat and amino acids. And just make sure you’re hydrating before and after. And you are supplementing extra electrolytes, your muscles and your cells need good levels of sodium and potassium. So that sodium potassium pump and that good cellular communication can happen. That’s very, very important.
Evan Brand: Yeah. So I mean, really, we should title this podcast, the Super Bowl diet or something or this how to win a Super Bowl diet. Now, in regards to the training, I don’t have any details on that. But I mean, I will say that in general, he’s he’s an athlete, obviously. So he’s probably going to benefit more. Some of the people may say, Well, what about the grains, you guys always talk like grains are a bad thing. I think in his case, he’s gonna need some more starch. I just feel like in general, if you were trying to perform at that level, and he were just like strict keto, like just meats and veggies, I don’t think he would perform as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So Tom does a lot more starches in the wintertime. And so his big starches are still going to be safe starches, grain free starches. So sweet potatoes are from what I understand are going to be a big source of a lot of the starch that he consumes in the winter and Tom when I have seen his grain free.
Evan Brand: I don’t know maybe he changed it. This one article said that he was doing rice, millet beans and quinoa.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I’ve seen other articles. And again, that that may be that may be something that he does, but I’m pretty sure in during the season he is 100% grain free. I know he’s gluten free. And a couple articles talking about him getting more sweet potatoes and other safe starches. But again, it depends, right? A lot of those foods are pseudo grains, like the qinhuai is the beans if you have good digestion maybe right? So it depends kind of where you’re at on that. I’ve seen a lot of grain free but definitely gluten free, right? The problem with gluten free is you can consume rice and oat and still be gluten free. But they they’re still not grain free. So grain free I think is gonna be a big component. And then I think the other thing is I have seen in Tom’s locker room I have seen him with creating in his locker. So I do know creatine is a powerful thing as a fuel your muscle uses. So creatine and whey protein, and I think bcaas are something that he uses on a day in day out basis just for easy accessible fuel for his muscles out of the gates. hydrations a big component. Electrolytes are a big component, mostly a paleo paleo autoimmune kind of template, I think is a big one out of the gates there. And I know Tom’s trainer Alex career is a big kind of proponent of acid alkaline diet kind of stuff. I’m not a huge fan of that. But in general, if you’re consuming good quality meat and lots of vegetables, you’re pretty much gonna not be overly acidic anyway because of the alkalinity from the vegetables. And in regards to the pH that people forget right, meat may be acidic, but grains are actually 10 times more acidic than meat. So if someone is concerned about pH and their food, remember grains are going to be 10 times more acidic than me it’s a logarithmic scale. Meats like around a 5 ish. I think grains are in the four range. So each number is a 10 X, you know, interval from the previous number.
Evan Brand: Yeah. And people listening are like, Well, I’m not performing in any Super Bowls. So what do I do? I mean, honestly, you can benefit from the same thing. Like I said, we’re implementing this clinically, I do rice, I feel fine with it. I don’t have any issue. It’s not a staple. For me, it’s a treat. But you know, I think it depends on what’s going on with your gut with your blood sugar, with your sensitivity. I mean, it is possible you have some gluten cross reactivity. So you know, if you’re looking for advice I see in general, do what we’d mentioned. But you know, what the, with the grain piece, I don’t know, you really got to consult with us and look at your labs, because I think that’s how we could base it off.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% I mean, the big thing is, Hey, you know, you want to be active, you want to be able to play with your kids, you want to be able to do your hobbies, to your sports, be active well into your old age, and it’s all about yours, it’s about quality of yours, right? So it’s about being able to do your thing, right. And I say, the more you can participate in life and not notice the pain in your body, that’s the better the more you can be present with your kids and your family and your hobbies. The more you’re worried about your back and your elbow in your knee as you’re doing the activity, I think the less present you’re going to be and so I think one of the key things is just keep your body in a great place. So you can do all those things. Now, from a training standpoint, I know Tom Just so you know, I think what you said is perfect regarding like rice and such as long as you don’t have a serious activatable immune issue. You know, you could probably cheat on some of that stuff. As long as you don’t have a significant you know, symptoms afterwards. I think it’s probably okay as long as it isn’t that 80-20 80% of the time not 20% maybe Okay, I my birthday last weekend, we had some we had some crab fried rice and of course it was gluten free, but it just a little bit of it and I felt good afterwards. So you know, you always can mitigate that. From a training standpoint, though Tom really trains for playability. He doesn’t overly inflame his muscles with too much lifting because he wants to keep his muscles strong and active, and be able to contract turn on and off fast. But he also doesn’t want to overly inflame the muscle and cause it to become reflexively stiff. Think of it as like beef jerky, he wants a strong muscle, but not a muscle that’s going to be overly inflamed that won’t absorb for so it’s kind of like a soft, raw fillet steak versus beef jerky, right? Beef jerky is hard and stiff. And if you put a lot of force into it, it can kind of tear, right? Think of that soft tenderloin. It’s like a sponge, it can absorb force. So Tom’s kind of training modality is training for pliability training for force absorption. So not overly inflaming the muscles, so doing a lot of band work. And doing works that really not overly hypertrophy and cause the muscle to get more inflamed and bigger and stronger, but strong, but also smart, strong and not overly inflamed and hard and stiff. So the playability is important because he asked to absorb force. And he asked to put repetitive inflammation on it from throwing and doing certain movements. So he wants that force to be distributed throughout his muscles well and not rip that beef jerky every week, if you will.
Evan Brand: Yeah, and that’s probably a better approach for most people to have. I mean, you know, like you mentioned, maybe the people on the defensive side, the line, they’re gonna have a totally different strength training profile than him he wants to be lean, he wants to be flexible, nimble. So that’s what I want to be, I don’t want to be just just huge and strong like a rock, I want to be just nimble, I want to be flexible, but still have strength.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, some of the band works nice. I mean, you can get bands that provide a lot of force, like the x three bar band is one that I have, because you can provide hundreds of pounds of force and create a three to 400 pound deadlift to that band. It squats as well, push movements pull movement, so you can still create a lot of force. The thing I like about bands is just use some technical terms as most people, they hurt themselves in the eccentric motion of a lift. In other words, you’re going into a squat, right and you drop down at the bottom, maybe you go a little bit too fast, or you’re doing a deadlift at the bottom, you kind of bounce that bar up, or you’re doing some kind of a bench press and you’re really trying to push that thing back up and you come down too hard and, and stretch that muscle. The nice thing about a band, it’s more forgiving as you go into a eccentric motion as you elongate as you elongate the muscle, right? So in other words, you’re going deeper into a squat, or you’re letting the bar go deeper into your chest. The the elasticity in the band becomes less because the band’s becoming, it’s moving closer to its origin and insertion. So there’s less force, so where your muscles the most compromise. It’s putting the least amount of force on that muscle, so there’s less chance for you to injure it. And that’s helpful. So if you’re an athlete, that can be helpful. If you’re an everyday person, it just gives you that little bit more forgiveness so you don’t get hurt.
Evan Brand: Yeah, makes sense. Well, I think that’s all I really need to say about it. I mean, I think we could ramble on about how awesome it is that this is probably the one of the most successful athletes of all time and he’s doing what we’re telling people to do every day. I think it makes Look up. But beyond that, I don’t have anything else to add.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One other thing I would say sentiment wise amino acids, creatine bcaas. On the mind, psychology side visualization is very important. Anytime you go into an event like the Super Bowl, if you can go into into that place 1000s of times ahead of time. In your head, it gives your nervous system the ability to feel like it’s not a foreign environment, the more you can put your body in your mind into a place 1000s of times or hundreds of times ahead of time, once you go in there that fight or flight response is less likely to happen when there’s less fight or flight, you can use your frontal cortex better, right? frontal cortex allows you to think read the play, do all the things you got to do go through your reads as a quarterback, the more your fight or flight is happening, the more you’re going to react out of fear. And that may not give you the best opportunity. So I’d say that’s the big, I would say sleep is a big component, you kind of already highlighted that, you know, probably 10 hours a night. There’s other modalities that Tom’s using, he’s using certain clothing types that are infrared in regards to it to generate infrared heat, which helps decrease inflammation help a blood flow. I’ve heard things in regards to late potential laser stuff, infrared lights, hyperbaric oxygen, these are all other potential modalities that may be used may or may not be accessible to the average person. But when you’re making 10s of millions of dollars off your body, they help with reducing inflammation. And then other things may involve stem cell stuff, things like that outside of the season. Who knows. I mean, Tom looks amazing.
Evan Brand: Oh, one last thing. Yeah, one last thing. I did see that he’s like strictly no tech in the in the bedroom. So he luckily he’s not bringing the cell phone into the bedroom. So maybe he does have some kind of emf mitigation strategy in place to that would be smart.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: There’s probably some EMF mitigation there, I think as well. And then also, I know Yeah, and that’s a big one. And he also is a big thing in regards to temperature control at bedtime. He really mitigates You know, he tries to dial in the optimal temp at bedtime for deeper sleep. I know that’s around 65 to 69 degrees Fahrenheit. On the bedtime side. Is there anything else I would say outside of that playability component, good training. Just think about all the right I think that’s really the big one. Oh, he has a big smoothie in the morning with some banana and some fruit and some whey protein. So I like I like smoothies in the morning. Because if your digestion isn’t great, or you have to get up and workout in a few hours, you don’t want a big solid food in your body, you want something easily accessible. So I think that’s great for anyone that’s being more active in the morning. I think we hit a lot of the major things. So if someone’s listening here, how do you become more like Tom Brady out of the gates, I think you kind of progress to a paleo template, see if nightshades are an issue for you or not right, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peppers, look at adding in some bands to a little bit more of your workout to stimulate muscle growth. I think adding good sleep and hydration added minerals, you can always play around with amino acids to help enhance body. anabolic metabolism, healing and recovery. minerals, of course, I think is great. And mindsets always great, too. Anything else you want to add, Evan?
Evan Brand: Now there’s probably some other secret supplements we don’t know about. But yeah, I’d be interesting to know with adaptogens and all that. Or if he’s doing, you know, neurotransmitter support, maybe he if he’s doing bcaas, who knows maybe he’s doing some brain support too, right? Like some fossil title sarine or some acetyl l carnitine. A lot of that stuff in there too.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: There’s definitely some more stuff in there. I 100% agree. So hey, this gives everyone a good start kind of a little bit of an insight. I know Tom Brady is one of those guys either love him or hate him. But I mean, the fact that his longevity is there and his victories are hot, the highest ever, right? He’s the goat greatest of all time. So we got to at least be able to kind of put our emotions aside and learn from it and see if it’s a couple of things we can use to make our lives and our health better.
Evan Brand: Awesome, awesome. If people need help clinically to implement some of this stuff. Like I said, We do this every day with our clients. Tom Brady’s not our client, but you know, we would certainly be open to helping him run some labs on him. I’m sure where is he? Or is he? Maybe he might be happy to look at his mitochondria, see what’s going on there. Make sure he’s running on all cylinders. But if you need help, you can reach out to Dr. J at JustinHealth.com or me Evan at EvanBrand.com. And we look forward to talk with you all next week.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Have a good one y’all. Take care.
Evan Brand: Take care. Bye bye.
References:
Audio Podcast:
https://justinhealth.libsyn.com/tom-bradys-performance-secrets-podcast-306
Dr. Justin Marchegiani Featured on “The Fat Burning Man” Podcast with Able James: Tom Brady’s Diet, How to Slow Aging & Fine-Tune Your Carbs
Weird question: what does amputating limbs teach you about health?
That’s how my guest this week started his career… in the surgical ward assisting with amputation after amputation. He knew there had to be a better way.
Now a practitioner of holistic medicine, Dr. Justin Marchegiani treats the root cause (not just symptoms).
On this show with Dr. Justin, you’ll learn:
- How bad bacteria in the gut can cause depression and fatigue
- How to boost testosterone without drugs
- When you need to fine-tune your carbs
- Why we can control aging
- What Tom Brady eats for performance
- How to heal your thyroid
- And much more…
Click here to access the podcast audio and full transcriptions!
Tom Brady’s diet and lifestyle performance secrets – Podcast #77
Dr. Justin Marchegiani and Evan Brand dig in a little bit on Tom Brady’s success, some of the people that he’s attributed that to, as well as what he’s doing and how we can extract some tidbits from it and apply it to a functional medicine healthy Paleo template or lifestyle.
The emphasis on this podcast is about getting diet and lifestyle dialed in first. There’s a discussion on avoiding inflammatory foods and really eating anti-inflammatory foods in this interview, plus how you can avoid toxicity as well. Find out why we need to go for foods that are anti-inflammatory, nutrient dense and low in toxins which is very much like Tom Brady’s diet. Discover why you need to get sleep dialed in, too. Also learn how to make your own chocolate avocado ice cream when you listen to this podcast.
In this episode, topics include:
00:35 Who is Tom Brady?
1:38 Why diet is important
4:58 Tom Brady’s diet
7:40 Tom Brady’s chef tips
10:57 Acid alkaline diet
20:04 Supplementation
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Evan, it’s Dr. J. What’s going, man?
Evan Brand: Hey, we’re gonna be breaking down some fun stuff about pro athletes’ diets today, so this is fun and something that’s very relevant because anytime the word diet pops up around a celebrity, whether it’s an athlete or not, people are like, “Oh, that’s so weird.” So hopefully we can bring some clarity to this thing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it, yeah. So what kind of inspired this is I’m from Boston, so I’m a big Patriots fan and, you know, less about sports as I get older and, you know, more focused on helping patients, but again, I still watch some of the games especially around playoff times and we just watched the Patriots game last night and it was really a great time, strong defenses on both sides, but one of my favorite athletes is Tom Brady. He’s a Boston guy, basically was a real late round draft pick around 2000 and has been just one of the best athletes I think, all time. Not having the best physical stature, not being too fast, you know, not having the best arm, just totally the kind of, you know, great underdog story, and this guy has made it successful in so many different areas and a lot of his success–people aren’t really talking about it, but they’re starting to talk about it more now–is having to do with his diet, with his lifestyle, with his training, which again is such a huge important factor at why he is so successful and people are starting to catch on to it. So I wanted to dig in a little bit to his success, some of the people that he’s attributed that to, and then what he’s doing and how we can maybe extract some tidbits from it and apply it to a functional medicine healthy Paleo template or lifestyle.
Evan Brand: Yeah, it sounds good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So off the bat, right? Diet is super important. Why? We gotta hgave 3 kind–my big 3 reasons why diet’s important, is one, nutrients are what runs you body, not calories. Now all nutrients have calories, that’s a good thing. So if we’re eating nutrients, calories always take care of themselves. But in this day and age, we can eat a whole bunch of calories and not have nutrients. So I like to put our focus on nutrients and if we put our focus on nutrients, calories always take care of themselves and not the other way around. Next is inflammation and you‘ll see this in Tom Brady’s diet here is avoiding inflammatory foods and really eating anti-inflammatory foods. Basically, when you’re too inflamed, your body breaks down faster than it repairs and part of the things that are associated with inflammation are gonna be pain, are gonna be lack of range of motion and flexibility. All of those things that as a professional athlete, you really need to be at 100%. And last but not the least is toxicity. Alright, avoiding pesticides and chemicals that we know, there just–there are already known carcinogens. Why would you wanna put something in your body that’s a carcinogen, that will have to make your liver and your detox system work harder. Getting exposed to sketchy things like GMOs that have their whole, you know, whole bunch of risk factors there; hormones, antibiotics, all of these things aren’t good. So if we back up, right? Our underlying kind of one or two, three tenants that we’re looking at are foods that are anti-inflammatory, nutrient dense and low in toxins.
Evan Brand: Makes sense. Yeah, so for him, I mean, we’re basically eating a pro athlete’s diet all of the time, and that’s amazing to think because it’s really not that much different. Everybody’s looking for the competitive edge. It’s like this is the starting point. No matter how many supplements or pre-workout drinks these athletes are doing and growth hormone, and all that stuff, it’s like if they just got the diet dialed in like this, they would significantly increase their–their skills I think.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely, and the reason why I love Tom Brady is because he wasn’t the best growing up and he had to make himself great so training and lifestyle and nutrition was a huge part to get him to that level where a lot–because I’ve worked with a handful of professional athletes in my practice on the functional medicine side and on the–the physical side when I was doing more physical work and a lot of them are just naturally just raw talent. They just grew just kicking butt in high school, kicking butt in college and a lot of times, they would just kick butt in spite of their workouts, their lifestyle, their diets. I mean, I would see guys come in and they would train and they would eat McDonald’s afterwards and they would still kick butt. Now once you get to the pro level, it’s a whole different ball game because you can’t make healthy ligaments and tendons and joint tissue off of, you know, McDonald’s food, right? Or in other words, you can’t look or perform like a million bucks when you’re eating off the dollar menu. That’s kinda my slogan. So the diet plays a really big important factor especially once you get hurt. Once you get hurt once, one is if you don’t have the building blocks coming back in to heal you, you lose a step. You lose 2 steps, you’re–you’re out of the game. It’s that simple. So the diet is such an important piece. The lifestyle is such an important piece. So I like Tom because he has become probably the best athlete all time in football and he had to work at it to get there and he had to take advantage of all of these things that we’re talking about in the show. So let’s highlight a couple of things. First, his diet is kinda Paleo-esque. If we look at his diet, he’s avoiding GMOs. Everything is 100% organic. He’s eating–he’s avoiding refined sugar. He’s avoiding gluten 100%. And for the autoimmune crowd, he’s even avoiding nightshades. And he finds nightshades really aggravate his joints and create inflammation in his joint tissues, especially after you’re getting hurried or sacked a whole bunch of times, if you got already inflammation from external physical sources, i.e., a 250-pound linebacker blitzing you and knocking you on your butt, well, if you’re eating extra nightshades or inflammatory foods, that’s gonna be just smoldering fire that, you know, it adds a little bit of gasoline that make you take off. So avoiding nightshades is important because of the alpha-solanines and the glycol-alkaloids in there that can be inflammatory and that can irritate the joints. So we already have some sugar. We have some nightshades. We have all of the things that are toxic-based like the pesticides, chemicals, GMOs, hormones, antibiotics, and then he really emphasizing a lot of plants. And when you look at his diet, he’s not doing much fruit. The only fruit he does is that a smoothie, typically post workout or in the morning. So if you look at his diet, it’s mainly vegetables for the carbs, a little bit of starch. He’s doing 20% animal protein, right? So he’s doing a lot of grass-fed meats, wild Alaskan co–wild Alaskan sock eye salmon, beef, chicken, right? And it’s grass-fed meat because he’s emphasizing the quality, emphasizing hormone-free, organic. So the meats are there, lots of vegetables, little bit of fruits, little bit of starch, and then, you know, some good fats. One of the things he talks about is really enjoying his avocado ice cream. So he makes ice cream with raw, organic cacao sugar-free, and then mixes in with avocado and blends it up and that’s Tom Brady’s ice cream. So this guy’s a super healthy guy and he attributes a lot of this success from Alex Guerrero’s who is a traditional Chinese medical doctor or a traditional Chinese like acupuncturist kind of a, you know, non-traditional physician, and he attributes all of his success to Guerrero’s. He kinda talks about the whole als–acid alkaline diet which we can break down in a few minutes, but he attributes a lot of his success to it. Not only the diet and lifestyle piece but also he gets to bed by 9 o’clock at night. My God. So we all know why that’s important, or at least we talked about that in our previous shows because of the growth hormone output that we get by getting to bed before 10 o’clock is amazing so he stresses the sleep component and the diet component. I’ll take a breath, Evan, so you can kinda give your analysis, too.
Evan Brand: Well, I’ve–there’s another couple cool pieces to this thing is that his cook, so we were kinda reading off of an interview that his chef wrote or that, you know, the chef was transcribed and he was talking about using raw olive oil. So he even has that dialed in where he’s not even cooking with olive oil. He’s using just cold use only there but cooking with only coconut oil. He’s using pink Himalayan salt. No coffee, no caffeine, no fungus, no dairy. I mean, this is pretty impressive to see and is actually mind-blogging because I hope articles like this and just stories like this will accelerate the growth of what you and I are doing because we need a change, and there was another link that kind of goes deeper and he was talking–this was Brady talking more about his–his teammates that if they ask him about the diet, that, you know, he’ll tell them. But otherwise, he doesn’t really like preach to the whole team, but this is sort of the small starting point to really make this thing more mainstream. I mean, if it takes somebody’s favorite football player to have a good diet for them to wanna do it, then that’s–I–I totally commend and support that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and I just–I love Brady because he had to, like this was his–his gateway to get to that level. He didn’t have that raw talent where he was already there. He had to work hard and the nutrition and the lifestyle portion was huge. It was a–a huge portion of it and that’s why I’m such a–a huge advocate for what he is doing and he, you know, he called out the–the junk food industry, the Ge–the General Mills, the Kellogg’s, all the soda, saying it’s crap and saying how it’s poisoning kids, and I really respect that because it’s true. I’ve been talking about this stuff for years. We’ve been talking about it for years here and it’s so true that someone can put themselves on a limb and, you know, when you’re making potentially tens of millions of dollars a year on sponsorships and we know that these major food companies, they generate a significant amount of advertising for these stations along with the pharmaceutical drugs as well. I mean, you can potentially cause yourself millions of dollars in sponsorships but putting yourself out there and saying this stuff. So I–I really appreciate it from just a, you know, transparency perspective and just putting your–your livelihood out there on the line.
Evan Brand: That is true, I mean, because who knows how many of these people are sponsored by the big agri and big food companies selling corn and dairy and garbage and if you go strictly on the dollar signs, you’ll never see like a commercial for example for organic broccoli. It’s just not gonna happen, so it’s just gonna continue to have to be this kinda grassroots people speaking out and, you know, another thing that’s cool here, he was talking about talking the dehydrator. That makes me wanna buy dehydrator again. We used to have one at the house but we don’t anymore. He was talking about dehydrating spirulina. Taking spirulina algae and dehydrating it. That’s–that’s pretty cool, making raw chocolate chip cookies, raw granola, and let’s see, makes fruit rolls from bananas and pineapple and spirulina for his kids. That’s just–that’s really cool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, a lot of it, too, is, you know, Tom Brady obviously makes tens and millions of dollars a year so he can avoid that private cook. I think his wife is worth a quarter of a billion dollars, Gisele Bundchen, so she’s a supermodel so I think she makes more money than him. So they’re quite the power couple, so money is not an option for having really good high quality cooking at their fingertips. But one other piece to the puzzle is Brady talks about or in the interview, Alex Guerrero is a big fan of the acid alkaline diet piece and I think there’s some merit to it. I think a lot of people take it, you know, like it’s gospel and–and utilize everything on that diet as how you should eat. Now there’s some good components. If you look at the acid alkaline diet, you’re automatically gonna be eating more green vegetables, right? That’s a really, really good thing. A lot of green vegetables. The problem is though, you could also avoid the green vegetables and eat a whole bunch of fruit, especially that tropical fruits that are super high in sugar, you can go off the deep end there. So if you look at Brady there, yeah, he’s doing a whole bunch of the vegetables and he’s not doing much fruit at all. So you can see, yeah, he’s focusing on the more alkaline foods but he’s not going over the top with the high sugar foods. So he’s got that piece right. And also he’s not eating any gluten at all. And a lot of vegetarians kinda provo–you know, really stand on their pedestals saying, “I’m trying to be alkaline,” but we know a lot of vegetarians and vegans still eat a lot of grains and grains are actually 10 times more acidic than meat in general. They’re typically like a 4 or a 5 where the meats are typically like a 4-1/2, 5, 5-1/2 and above. So you could see like eggs, fish, chicken, beef, they tend to be a little bit more alkaline than any of the grains. So that’s a good piece to the puzzle there, because if you’re eating grains and thinking you’re healthy being a vegetarian-vegan, well, you’re actually–that’s 10 times more acidity than meats. So Brady is doing over 20% or 20% meats, could be higher, who knows? And he’s emphasizing the quality there and you’re seeing, he’s choosing the alkaline foods that are gonna be lower in sugar ways–which is great and he’s also emphasizing getting his desserts from healthy places like the avocado-chocolate-cacao ice cream which I’m gonna actually make tonight based on, you know, our talk here.
Evan Brand: That sounds good. So what does it–he’s just blending those two together I guess, maybe in a bowl or food processor?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so basically–I’m gonna just google that right now, chocolate-avocado ice cream. I’ve seen some things of him actually making it but it’s just basically avocado and then you’re mixing in, you know, high quality cacao and just getting like a handheld blender or like maybe a Vitamix and just blending it all up.
Evan Brand: Sounds like it’d be good to have like some collagen powder to that, too, or for him like some CollaGelatin or something like that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that’s amazing and again, he’s mixing that up and he’s putting that together and again, low sugar, so much good fat, anti-inflammatory. People forget this but avocado actually has twice the amount of potassium that bananas have. So anytime someone thinks about potassium or like, “Oh, I’m cramping.” They’re like, “Have a banana, right? Well, actually, have an avocado.
Evan Brand: That’s very true.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right?
Evan Brand: That’s very true.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: People totally forget that.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So like this recipe right here, they talk about doing some coconut milk. They talk about an avocado. They talk about some cacao powder. Now in this recipe they talk about adding in maple syrup. I just wouldn’t even go there. I will just do maybe a couple of drops of Stevia if you want the sweetness and then they talk about adding just a little bit of vanilla extract. So if I were doing it right now, for the listeners, I would just do one avocado, 12 or 13 ounces of full fat coconut milk unsweetened, some good organic cacao powder, tablespoon of vanilla, and maybe a couple of drops of Stevia to sweeten it up and that should be exactly what you need to make it work.
Evan Brand: That sounds delicious.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like that’s an anti-inflammatory dessert there. Like last night, I had organic Granny Smith apple covered in cinnamon, and then a little bit of almond butter. So that was my dessert. So I have desserts all the time and I try to make it, if you can even call it a dessert. I try to make it as anti-inflammatory and nutrient-dense as possible. I want the mouth-feel. I want that satisfaction, but I want to be able to know that my health is kicking butt. I’m gonna wake up feeling great and energized and with great focus for my patients.
Evan Brand: Yeah, that’s such a great concept to bring up as your treat should still serve you and should still benefit you and a lot of people think that they have to completely derail themselves for a treat, but I mean, if I’ll go get like a Hail Mary Miracle Tart for example, if I don’t have time to make something, that’s 30 grams of fat mostly from raw almond butter and coconut oil. It’s like that is incredible. You could almost use it as a meal replacement if you’re out hiking and you had to, and you’re helping yourself. So a treat doesn’t have to hurt yourself and I think if people are listening and sometimes we would deal with people that are struggling with sticking to their diet, if they were coming from something more conventional, just realizing that you can treat yourself and we just use the word diet just because that’s what humans do, we all have a diet, but it’s a matter of not feeling like you’re restricting yourself. Focus on the things you can eat, not the things that you shouldn’t eat because they’re not gonna help you.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Now a couple of things with the whole Tom Brady issue. A lot of people are conflating Tom Brady and a plant-based vegan diet because his main chef there, Allen Campbell actually has taken a class from T. Colin Campbell, the writer or the researcher on The China Study, which isn’t really a study from, you know, it’s a–empirical or I should say, it is a study that’s survey-based. It’s an epidemiological study, not a study that’s actually a laboratory-based, clinical trial-based study. It’s a epidemiological, meaning surveys were filled out. So a lot of people are conflating this T. Colin Campbell study with people actually dying of cancer in certain areas because of, you know, this research. But it’s really not the case. It’s epidemiological and anyone that knows epidemiological research, you can’t form a conclusion off of it, only a hypothesis. So that’s really important. So Allen Campbell, Brady’s cook is a big follower of a plant-based diet. So he talks about being plant-based a lot of times in some of these interviews but he is not making that for Brady. He even says that 20% of Brady’s diet is pure good quality meat. So if you–anyone’s getting confused out there, that’s probably where some of that confusion comes from is Brady’s chef is a follower of a plant-based diet but not necessarily Tom. So just kinda keep that in mind there.
Evan Brand: Good point, yeah. I’m sure that some vegan podcasters out there are like, “Yes!”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: We–we finally have the–the golden ticket to make this thing reality. That’s not gonna help you and he would not survive in sports if he was not–if he was omitting the grass-fed beefs and–and wild salmon in–in my opinion.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah. It’s totally impossible. Now just to touch upon T. Colin Campbell. He’s a nutrition researcher out of–I think it’s up in Ithaca there, Ivy League school, Cornell. And he talks about The China Study which he went back into China and did this epidemiological research like I said, and did these various surveys and came up with kind of rationale that people that ate more meat, based on the surveys–surveys had more cancer. Now Denise Minger broke a lot of these down and found out that those statistics that he, you know, collected via these surveys weren’t necessarily all it’s cracked to up to be and found some other correlations such as people that ate more grains have more cancer. So if you wanna dig into some of that, look at Denise Minger’s blog on The China Study. Also T. Colin Campbell did a clinical trial, did a laboratory-based trial on rats. And what he found with the rats is that if you took the protein down from 20% to 5%, and they were–they were giving a casein and protein which is extracted from milk. Anyone that knows about milk, milk has two kinds of proteins, casein and whey. So what he did is he extracted casein from the milk, again kind of unnatural. One, rats don’t typically eat milk, right? Unnatural diet. Scenario number two, is they’re not typically not, just getting exposed casein–they be getting exposed to casein and whey and whey is shown to be an anti-inflammatory and a great precursor for glutathione. So we know that it’s kind of a scenario that’s kinda utopian, doesn’t really happen in the real world. And what he found was when he took the protein down from 20% to 5%, that cancer stopped. Now that’s something to keep in mind but he was giving them a whole bunch of aflatoxins or mold toxins as well to kind of stimulate this cancer growth. But he found 20% cancer was on, 5% cancer was off. So he kinda created this book called The China Study, not based off of the epidemiological studies, just basically his idea of what a diet should be and called it The China Study which is the same name of the study he did over in China and they’re not the same thing. But people think they’re the same thing. So just kinda keep in mind, there’s The China Study book and the actual China Study. They are both totally different things, yet everyone thinks they’re the same thing. It drives me nuts and Brady’s cook is kinda conflating the two here as well with Brady’s diet. So I want people to realize two different things, kinda T. Colin Campbell’s school of thought on protein and animal products being bad and what Brady is actually doing and applying are two different things. So just kinda keep that separate there.
Evan Brand: Now let me jump back to this diet piece. I didn’t see anything and maybe you did. Does he talk about taking any type of like protein shakes? Is he doing some grass-fed whey or anything like that? Did you see?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now, again I think there’s gonna be some level of secretness here.
Evan Brand: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A secretivity, if that’s a word, because, you know, you’re not gonna let out the exact secret sauce of what’s going on. But I’ve read in multiple articles. I’ve studied Tom Brady because I always try to study successful people. You can learn a lot about their routines and their habits, but he has talked about Alex Guerrero helping him and talking about utilizing many of his supplements and supplementation.
Evan Brand: Uh-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And how supplementation has been a really important part with the diet. So he has mentioned supplementation. He has not gone into specifics which kinda makes sense for obvious reasons. His competitors would probably be checking it out, too. So there is definitely some supplementation there. If I were to go out on a limb, I know he’s a big fan of Guerrero’s supplement, Supreme Greens, which does have MSM and a lot of organic green vegetables in there, so there’s the green vegetable MSM piece. I would imagine there’s some kinda protein support, whether it’s whey protein, probably some collagen in there, probably some anti-inflammatory fish oil, probably some branched amino acids, preimposed exercise and exertion, potentially even some creatine in there, too. There’s probably a lot of different nutrients for muscles, for joints. I would be shocked if there wasn’t collagen in there.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I will be absolutely shocked.
Evan Brand: Yup. And if he’s–if he’s this dialed in, it would be a mistake not to so I bet he does.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think probably some glucosamine sulfate and/or chondroitin in there, a fish oil, definitely some extra protein support like I mentioned, and who even knows what else? I mean, obviously high quality multivitamin. This guy is probably getting micronutrient testing.
Evan Brand: Uh-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So his nutrients are just 100% dialed in. He’s probably doing all of the functional medicine stuff. Probably working with functional medicine practitioners, too. I know he sees good chiropractors all the time, so he’s getting really good chiropractic support as well. So this guy is totally dialed in and he’s really advocating for natural health.
Evan Brand: That’s neat.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Any comments on that, Evan?
Evan Brand: Well, I think–I think that was a–a really cool little piece of–of news. I mean, I don’t have much to add to it except that it’s exciting and it’s helping us to turn the tide a little bit more. We used to have a long way to go for this to be commonly accepted practices, but I think this is really gonna help us to jump start this thing. Maybe–maybe this story will live for a week or two in the–in the news headlines and we’ll see an–an influx of new listeners. Who knows?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. So kinda just summarizing this here. What a–one of the best NFL players is doing to stay healthy is diet is almost everything. He attributes so much to diet which is gonna be gluten-free. Nearly grain-free from what I can see. The only thing I see him talking about is a little bit of brown rice. That’s it and it doesn’t seem like that’s that frequent. Majority vegetables. He kinda even shuns fruit which I kinda like. The only fruit I like to do is the lower sugar fruit in general. Good quality meats, organic, pasture-fed. Avoiding the GMOs, avoiding the junk, and lots and lots of vegetables and supplementations, but it’s kinda discrete, and then really emphasizing the sleep portion. Getting to bed by 9 o’clock, up around 6, getting about I would say 10 hours a night or 9 hours a night which is essential. And then also, you know, just making sure you’re aware of the acid alkaline piece and that Brady is choosing foods on more on the alkaline side, but he’s avoiding the ones that are higher in sugar which I think people that talk about the acid alkaline really make a mistake on that. And they also make a mistake making meat is bad because of the acid balance, but again much more alkaline than grains.
Evan Brand: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So today was a pretty good talk. That’s the general take home if anyone’s tuning in late, or you got that glazed over look. That’s the general take home there and again, just emphasizing how important diet is, right? We all wanna be–we all wanna perform like a professional athlete does in our lives, whether we’re an accountant, a teacher, a–a homemaker, a doctor or lawyer. We all wanna perform at our optimal and diet and lifestyle is gonna be the way because when we perform at our optimal, well, we’re just gonna do better at everything. But we’re also gonna be able to give more to other people around us, because if we’re on empty, if our cup isn’t running over if you will, right? We’re just not gonna have much to give and people that get tired and fatigued, get sick and get disease, and then become part of this conventional medical establishment where they’re running more on drugs and more on surgery. So really get the diet and lifestyle piece in and that will help you in so many other areas in your life.
Evan Brand: Exactly and I know this is very common and similar to you. There’s so many people that we work with. They are these type A go-getters. Even if they’re not professional athletes specifically, but just go-getters in their business or their IT executives or attorneys, or whoever it is that are trying to perform at their best. If you’re that rock and you’re whole family, which I’ve always been this way for–for my family, your whole family leans on you and you’re that rock, you have to keep all these things dialed in, so that you keep yourself healthy because if you burn out, then the whole system kind of collapses. And maybe your extended family, maybe that’s not like your highest priority but for me, I wanna be able to be there and–and be able to provide for everybody and be the energetic person that’s there and feeling good and sleeping good and inspiring people, and that’s why I stay so dedicated to this whole thing is to be able to help others. You know, it is with myself at some level, but it’s mostly that I am up on top of my game so I can spread the, you know, spread the health around and–and not be so focused on, you know, sick care of my–of my own self. That’s why so many people can’t–can’t help others, I think. This is a–a rant here, but if you don’t have yourself fueled up and you don’t have yourself dialed in, how in the world are you gonna have any energy to provide for others? You’re not gonna be able to. You’re not gonna want to, say volunteer or do a podcast, or write a blog. You–you don’t have it. You’re battery is on 10%. It’s like you’re operating throughout your whole business with 10% on your smartphone. That’s–that’s guaranteed to fail eventually.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, if I would summarize everything we’re doing on this podcast is helping people write essentially deposits in their health account, right? In their health energy or if we use the health savings account term, right? We’re trying to have them write deposits into that account so that when it takes time, when it comes time to pull money out or pull energy out because of stress or because of obligations or family or life, that we have a surplus of energy there and we can just utilize it and not ever go into health or energy crisis or debt, i.e. disease.
Evan Brand: Yup and health is wealth. It really is. A lot of people listening, maybe they’re practitioners listening out there, and you are wanting to increase your–your business revenue and all that stuff, you have to still prioritize yourself and it’s easy to get so wrapped up in the day-to-day of working with people and you can put your own self to the back burner and it’s not selfish, it’s just self first, and if you keep that mind, you’re gonna have a long, healthy and–and happy successful life.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Great job, Evan. Well, any last comments here?
Evan Brand: No, I think that was it. This was a good coverage and kind of a different topic than usual but–but really fun.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it. Well, anyone listening that enjoys it. Give us a review over on iTunes. Again, feel free. Speak your mind and let us know some topics you want us to go into even if we can just tangentially connect it to health, we’d love to go over it and connect with different listener bases so we can grab a hold of more people’s ears and help get their health better.
Evan Brand: Uh-hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thanks, Evan.
Evan Brand: Take care.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Bye.
Evan Brand: Buh-bye.
References:
http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/tom-bradys-crazy-diet
http://jessicainthekitchen.com/vegan-creamy-chocolate-avocado-ice-cream/