TMC PULSE

June 2018

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T M C » P U L S E | J U N E 2 0 1 8 10 Spotlight BRIAN PETERS joined the Texans in 2015. The 6-foot-4-inch linebacker, #52, played football at Northwestern University and took a circu- itous route to Houston. He played for the Arena Football League, the United Football League and the Canadian Football League before reaching his ultimate goal: the National Football League. Peters, 29, spoke with Pulse about diet, mental discipline and giving back. Q | What do you eat over the course of a day when you're training? A | I'm 237 pounds, pretty close to my maintenance weight, give or take two pounds. My diet is pretty simple; I'm routine-based. I wake up, turn the oven on, and bake eight or nine pieces of bacon—uncured, so no nitrates or nitrites. I eat that, drink a cup of coffee and head in. Post workout is the only time I'll intake carbohydrates, so it's protein, vegetables, a little bit of fruit or a smoothie, and that's it. I eat a lot of red meat. I eat pork and salmon and cod. If it's a lower-fat fish, I'll cake a lot of ghee on it, which is a fattier butter. Q | Is there a name for this diet? A | It's kind of a few different diets—a ketogenic diet and a paleo diet kind of merged into one. To get into ketosis [a metabolic state in which the body does not have enough glucose for energy and begins to burn stored fats instead], you have to eliminate carbohydrates so your body starts to use the fat as energy. So I usually don't eat after 8 p.m. in order to slip into that in the morning. When I go full ketogenic, I don't do any carbohydrates. I have to increase my fat intake, add a few extra shots of extra virgin olive oil, whatever I can do to make up that fat deficit. On keto, I'm very high energy, but it's hard for me to maintain weight. Q | Is there a certain calorie intake you're shooting for each day? A | When I switched from safety to linebacker when I was transitioning from college through Canada and all those other leagues to get here, I counted calories. For me to gain weight, it's 5,500 calories and up, usually. There was a time when I had to get from 215 to 230-plus pounds in a span of six to eight weeks, so I was eating 7,200 calories a day. It was a chore, but it got me to where I wanted to be. Right now I probably sit between 3,800 and 4,400 calories a day. Q | What's your cheat food? A | My big cheat food in Houston is Tiny's Milk & Cookies. I'm a sucker for cookies. I'm not a candy guy, really. If I am, I go dark chocolate-covered almonds or something like that. Q | Can you talk about the breathing exercises you do to help with mental focus? Is this something all the Texans are doing? A | Not really. It's something I took up off-season more than anything. I've experienced it a little bit before with yoga and meditation. I used to work one-on-one with a yoga teacher who took me through guided meditation, and from there, I got intrigued and curious about it. I am part of a group up in Minneapolis called the MindStrong Project, where we develop optimal performance for kids and other individuals. The president is one of my friends from high school, Harvey Martin. He teaches professional pitchers. One of the main aspects of his coaching is basically tying your breath to your mental performance. The breath controls the body. You learn to do a lot of breath holds with oxygen in your lungs and without oxygen in your lungs. You start to learn that your body can work with- out actual oxygen in your lungs. The more you control your breath in a stressful state the more you can stay aware and perform optimally. Q | What kind of results are you seeing? A | I've seen some big jumps with it pretty quickly. I can hold my breath underwater for over three minutes now. My record is three minutes and nine seconds. Now, if anybody is reading this, don't try to do this alone. There's also performance breathing where you take longer inhales, shorter exhales, and you over-oxygenate your body. What you learn quickly with the breathing coaching is that it's the body and the tissue that need oxygen, not your lungs. So when you hear guys huffing and puffing, Brian Peters works out on the Houston Texans' practice field by NRG Stadium. MEN ' S HEALTH & FITNESS

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