College Football Brady - Spring 2011

My athletic background goes back to childhood. I was always one of the best athletes in my grade. Whether it was Basketball, Football or Baseball I was one of the best. My senior year of High School I was the captain of my Varsity Football and Basketball teams at one of the largest high schools in Minnesota. My peers voted me "Most Athletic" in a graduating class of 800 kids. I was an All-State Safety on the Football team and had many offers to play DII college football. I decided to walk-on at Iowa State University and test my skills in D1 and the Big12 Conference. After two tough years I transferred to a D3 college and continued playing football and also joined the basketball team. I was a rare college two-sport athlete in two very physical sports. I was an All-American on the football team and helped the basketball team win its first National Championship.

November 2011 - Maintaining a healthy relationship with food

Needless to say, I was athletically and physically gifted. At Iowa State, everyone on the football team had their body fat tested via a BodPod. I had the lowest body fat on the team at 4.5%. And I was 205lbs so an impressive combination of being muscular but lean. My coaches called me "Mr. Lean" and my teammates would nickname me "Brady The Body." 

After college I tried to play professional football but it didn't work out. I then decided to try professional modeling and moved to Miami the fall of 2011. Modeling agents told me I looked like a bodybuilder and I needed to lose weight. They told me to stop eating carbs and lifting weights and to run. This is when I first started seeing food as "good" and "bad" which led to my toxic relationship with food.

January 2012 - Starting to get noticeably thinner. Miami modeling agents happy.

New York Summer 2012 - binge eating, not lifting weights, lots of running (about 180-185 lbs)

Fall and Winter in Miami that first year wasn't terrible. I still maintained a healthy weight of around 195lbs. It wasn't until it was time to go to New York where things got worst. I was told by modeling agents in New York I was still too big and needed to lose more weight. This is when things took a turn for the worst. I was in New York by myself and was struggling mentally with feeling like I couldn't eat foods I enjoyed. I limited myself to fruits, vegetables, lean meats and felt deprived. I wasn't eating bread or any "bad carbs." This is when binge eating really started to occur on a regular basis. I was hungry all the time and just wanted to destroy an all-you-can-eat buffet like the good ol' college days. I remember specifically one day walking around New York and passing numerous bakeries. I would walk into them and just look, fantasizing about eating everything I set my eyes on. After tempting myself all day, I finally caved and bought the biggest loaf of bread I could find - a walnut sourdough loaf. The thing was huge and I would continue walking around New York eating this massive loaf of bread with my hands. Extreme guilt set in as soon as I finished it and I felt I needed to punish myself. So the next two days I didn't eat anything. I fasted thinking I would offset all the extra calories from that loaf of bread. This led to more hunger and more binge eating episodes. I was stuck in a viscous cycle.

I finally found some balance when I discovered flexible dieting and IIFYM (If It Fits Your Macros). This helped me to break through the notion that I needed to eliminate all unhealthy food from my diet. I learned to track my nutrition and weigh out my food and enter it into MyFitnessPal. Despite using this strategy, I still struggled with yo-yo dieting. I would track my macros all week and be in a calorie deficit for 6 days, and then one day either Saturday or Sunday I would have a "cheat day" and go crazy. Overeating by thousands of calories. Some days eating two pints of Ben & Jerry's. So all the weight I lost during the week would just come back by Monday. I could never get to having good balance with food. From 2012-2019 my body took on many shapes. I was either skinny or soft and out of shape. I could never stay consistent enough to see the results I always wanted to; I was never happy with my body.

November 2017 - working as a cook in a restaurant. Binge eating donuts and cereal after getting home working 3pm-11pm in the kitchen (about 205-210lbs).

Enter the Daily Donut. I've always loved donuts. But they were something I would only enjoy on the weekends, often eating several at a time. It was end of January 2020 and I was living in LA. Coming off the typical 5-10lb weight gain around the Holidays, I was focused on getting into really good shape. My friend wanted to start working out at 6am because it was the only time he could stay consistent with. 6am was way earlier than I was used to, BUT my favorite donut shop in LA was just outside my apartment and on my way to the gym. So I told myself if I got up at 5am to workout, I would stop at SK's (the donut shop) on my way to the gym and get that 6am fresh out the fryer donut that I've always dreamed about getting. Having a high quality donut that fresh changed my life. I was hooked on this new routine. I began eating a donut everyday. Something I never thought I could do while trying to get into crazy good shape. But something amazing happened. Because I was eating a donut everyday, I lost the urge to binge eat them on the weekends. Also, knowing I was going to be eating a donut first thing in the morning, I stopped wanting to eat ice cream or cake after dinner. I woke up, ate my donut, and when on with my day, loving my new diet. I no longer felt deprived and eliminated the weekend cheat day. I finally was able to stay consistent enough week after week to lose the weight I wanted. I was lifting heavy at the time and the combination of heavy lifting and a consistent calorie deficit got me into the best shape I've ever been in. I remember being in the changing room at Banana Republic and being like "dang, I look good" so I snapped a photo. I finally reached my ideal physique. I was lean but STRONG. I good healthy balance. Still muscular and strong but could fit into fashionable clothes.

That end of February I went back to Miami feeling great. I was lifting heavy weights and felt like a man again. Testosterone levels were good, and I was confident.

However, Covid would send me home to Minnesota in April. Unfortunately, if I'm home it's only a matter of time until I eat too much and lose all the progress I've made. Being home that whole summer I lost a majority of the success I found in LA in Miami. I also stopped eating a donut everyday and going to the gym since the donut shops and gyms were closed. I began overeating on a consistent basis, just being bored and depressed. I gained bout 20lbs that summer. You'll find very few photos of me shirtless that summer because I hated how I looked. Fall was approaching and I knew I had to get out of Minnesota before it got cold so I took a job managing a small organic, raw vegan cafe and juice bar in LA on Melrose Ave. I finally took a photo of myself to document how out of shape I got.

It was tough because just 5 month earlier I had my dream body and I let it slip through my fingers. Without eating my donut everyday and I the structure of tracking my nutrition. I fell victim to bing eating again. Thankfully I found a gym in LA that was open despite COVID. This helped me offset some of my binge eating episodes. With my lifting program back in place, October 2020 I started it was time to get serious again and I began eating a donut everyday again. I wasn't in the shape I wanted to be in, so eating a donut everyday was counterintuitive, but I knew the donut everyday would give me the mental edge I needed to get back into really good shape. So with a donut everyday, and staying consistent lifting weights in the gym, I got my body and life back.