The first rule of being J.J. Watt: work out. The second rule of being J.J. Watt? Eat.
The Texans defensive lineman and reigning Defensive Player of the Year had his diet profiled recently by Tania Ganguli of ESPN and revealed he basically does two things during the offseason.
"It's literally, if I'm not working out, I eat the whole time I'm not working out," Watt said. "It's exhausting. You have to force feed. You have to force yourself to eat food."
The whole idea with force-feeding comes from Watt learning he needs to eat frequently or else he starts to lose energy. He works out so freaking much that dieting actually causes him to get tired.
"My body was grabbing for something that wasn't there," Watt said. "It was trying to fuel itself with no fuel."
So Watt started adding fatty things. His trainer Brad Arnett told him if he ate eight chicken breasts (!) for a meal he should wrap three (!!) in bacon (!!!). Watt started eating pastas, sweet potatoes, more fish and healthy fats.
"I started crushing avocados," Watt said.
All told Watt began eating between 6,000 and 9,000 calories a day. (I started figuring out how many bacon-wrapped chicken breasts he'd need to get 9,000 calories but got really hungry, gave up writing and made some avocado toast. Which, by the way, is the best trend of all time.)
Watt and I also have something in common aside from our love of bacon and avocados. BRUNCH.
"I love brunch," Watt said. "Brunch is my favorite meal. I went there, had brunch, had a massive potato pancake omelet, which is an omelet inside a potato pancake. Then I had stuffed French toast with berries and stuff. My cheat meals aren't even that exciting. That was my cheat meal. The omelet is still pretty darn healthy. The stuffed French toast was the cheat meal, but that was delicious."
Cheat meals are basically caloric binges to get your head in a good spot when it comes to eating. Makes living on less fun food the rest of the time a lot easier.
Or as some of us call them, "dinner."
