Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers may still autograph a fan’s cheesehead.
But don’t expect him to share in the Wisconsin fashion icon’s inspiration.
Via Ryan Wood of the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Rodgers said that as part of an offseason emphasis on healthier eating, he’s eliminated dairy from his diet.
That’s right, he cut the cheese.
(We’ll give you a moment to recover from your fit of laughter this early in the morning, and clean the coffee you sprayed out of your nose off the screen. What, you’re not 11? Carry on.)
He was coming off a minor knee surgery and wanted to feel better, so he consulted with team nutritionist Adam Korzun, who helped him settle on a vegetable-heavy plan.
“I ate more of a vegan diet,” Rodgers said, “with some red meat at times and some chicken, but tried to stick to a lot of fruits and vegetables — but mostly vegetables.”
He said he’s played as heavy as 230, but is down to 218 now, as light as he’s been as a pro. The 32-year-old said he just wanted to get generally healthier, but had sport-specific needs.
“Through your eating, you can reduce inflammation,” he said. “Because if you do research, you learn the different foods you eat can actually increase the inflammation in your body — and especially in certain parts of your body.
“With a knee condition I’ve had for a long time, it really started after the surgery, thinking about exactly what I’m going to eat the first couple of weeks after surgery to kind of limit the amount of inflammation in my knee, and carried that around the rest of the offseason.”
As a result, he carried a little less of himself around, and stepped a bit away from the local delicacy that has come to represent his fan base.
