Former PGA Champion Jason Dufner is singing the praise of a gluten-free diet after shedding 20 pounds over the festive season.
Dufner becomes the latest high-profile athlete and joining the likes of Phil Mickelson and NBA superstar Lebron James saying ‘No’ to gluten.
The 37-year old is returning to competition at this week’s Humana Challenge and competing for a first time since sharing 10th place two months ago in the WGC – HSBC Champions event in Shanghai.
Injury had forced Dufner out of last September’s Ryder Cup but the Cleveland-born golfer will tee up slimmer and eager to capture a fourth PGA Tour title.
He explained his weight loss ahead of teeing up this week at La Quinta in California.
“I went on the weight loss program because I could not play golf,” he said.
“So it was pretty simple for me. I didn’t really have a choice. So, not really ready to give the game of golf up yet. And I needed to make some change, so I did.
Jason Dufner sheds 20 pounds heading into 2015. (Photo – www.pgatour.com)
“The program I am on is about 80/20 diet. The weight loss is from diet, a hundred percent. I’ve still got, I’ve got a workout plan that I do that helps me with the mobility and strength in my shoulder, in my T spine. I’ve got some mobility and strength programs I do for my lower body and my legs. I do some cardio.
“So most of it is diet and the diet is based around getting inflammation out of my body. A lot of the weight that I had that I was carrying was inflammation. Inflammation in my symptom being. Inflammation in my shoulder and my joints. It’s pretty much gluten free. No sugar. No processed foods. Natural sugars. You find that in fruits and stuff like that. No alcohol. No soda. All those things that you like to eat I pretty much don’t eat.”
He added: “If you put those things in your body you’re generally ‐‐ I didn’t know, I didn’t know that I felt bad, because I became used to it.
“The toughest things to give up was fast food. Processed food that we, that’s pretty regularly available. Being what we do, we travel a lot, fast food, quick food, easy food, is easy. It’s easy. You grab it, you go. So, that’s probably the hardest thing. I really like chocolate and peanut butter for whatever reason. That doesn’t, that isn’t consumed very often anymore. I want clean 11 straight weeks. I didn’t touch anything that wasn’t ‐‐ I had a list of stuff that I can eat, can’t eat. I didn’t touch anything that was on my red or yellow list.
“That sucked. But I had to do it. Now occasionally I’ll go and I shouldn’t really, if you get off it, you’re almost resetting, to be honest with you, from the people that I’ve talked to. So, I’ll have meals here and there, like in California, In & Out Burger.
“So there’s allowances here and there. But I’ve been clean since that In & Out Burger Sunday, I’ve been clean since then. (Laughter.)
“So four days.”
Dufner is making his first appearance in the Humana since 2012 and having been resting from the game for some eight weeks he’s naturally itching to get going.
“I haven’t felt anything but good with my golf game. I’m not really in golf shape right now. I haven’t played a lot of golf. I went overseas for a month. I played over there. I came back, shut it down for eight weeks again and haven’t touched a club until Christmas.
“So, I’ve been practicing a little bit. I’m a little bit limited on how many balls I can hit, how much I can play. Tournament weeks, I’m going to have to find a good median between how much I practice, practice rounds and being able to compete. Because the most important thing is competing on Thursday through Sunday.
“So, I don’t really know where my game’s at. That’s why I’m here playing this week. That’s why I’m playing next week. That will give me a good assessment of where I’m at, what I can do, what I can’t do, what I need to get better at.”
