As Ben Roethlisberger gets ready for his age-39 season at Pittsburgh Steelers training camp, many have taken notice that the burly quarterback looks a little thinner this year.
Perhaps Roethlisberger has taken a page out of the TB12 diet so he can play as long as Tom Brady?
Not quite.
“Nothing against Tom, but I’m not eating avocado ice cream,” Roethlisberger recently told the Washington Post. “Yeah, you have a chef and you try and eat healthy. But you’re eating healthy because you want to be and feel good.”
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So, what is Roethlisberger’s secret? Well, there actually does not seem to be one.
The veteran quarterback insisted that he actually has not really changed anything in his offseason training or diet at all.
“I just wear tighter shirts,” he joked.
“So much was made a week or two [ago],” he continued. “I mean, listen, as you get older — for the last four or five years, I’ve really focused on having a trainer, my body. Part of it’s football. But part of it’s life. I’m not getting any younger. I’m almost 40 years old. So you’ve got to take care of yourself.”
Roethlisberger’s health will go a long way in determining how the Steelers’ season pans out. The team is coming off a season in which it went 12-4 but was knocked out in the first round of the playoffs by the Cleveland Browns in a game in which Roethlisberger threw four interceptions.
Roethlisberger, who played the 2020 season a year removed from elbow surgery, acknowledged to the Washington Post his arm may not have been as strong as he thought it was.
“I think last year I said this a few times: My arm felt great,” he said. “It felt really good coming off that surgery. But feeling it now and comparing it to last year, maybe it wasn’t as good as it feels now. I was only a year removed from a pretty major surgery on a part of the body that I make my living off of.”
Whatever the case may be, Roethlisberger will be doing everything he can this season to add a third Super Bowl to his résumé, he just won’t be eating any avocado ice cream.
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