Seafood was always my favorite food. I mean, fried lobster? Come on. Once I found out shrimp, scallops and lobster were my allergic triggers, I had to change my diet.
My favorite food was seafood, and that's all I used to eat. And then there I was, 27 years old, and bam, I have this allergic reaction - and it's life-threatening. So it's very important to spread the word and spread awareness so people can be better prepared in case anaphylaxis occurs in their life.
No matter how many flaws we have, our God is so forgiving and understanding. He'll never leave you or forsake you. So that brings peace to me.
With trials, you become wiser. You learn more about yourself and the people surrounding you. Me personally, I've never been the type of person to judge anyone over wrongdoing, no matter what it is. I'm just not a judgmental person.
A guy like Bruce Lee, I've always been a fan. How he used to be able to move and be so quick. You look at some of the exercises that he did, and it was all majority free weight, like standing on your hands. That works every muscle. Everything is firing.
It brings hope and peace of mind knowing that God gave His only begotten Son for us. I'm able to look back and know that on this day Jesus was born and gave us the opportunity to have eternal life.
I thought I was Superman until I experienced that life-changing anaphylactic shock. I was eating lunch and gobbled down a couple of bowls of gumbo. Then, 15 minutes later, I'm in my dorm room resting up. My eyes started itching and my throat was swelling up. I could barely breathe.
My dad would always tell me, 'When you meet a man, look him in his eye and shake his hand,' and that's just something I've been doing for a long time.
Jesus Christ - He means the world to me. So many different situations I've been through, through my childhood and now my adulthood; I lost my brother at a young age. He got hit by a car right in front of me. I had to be strong for my mom.
Thankfully, I'm lucky enough to be able to eat ice cream. I've got to have my cookies and cream! But I work out a lot, so I burn a lot of calories.
When I'm out, maybe I'm looking at the fried chicken, but I know I need to order the grilled. But I'm still from the country. I love my fried food and my neck bones and all that, too.
When you think about little league football, high school, and even on to college even more so, you're dealing with a lot of guys that are prideful, that think they're the best - a lot of alpha males. So, typically, you've got to have a guy that can control those guys, and, when he talks, they know he means business. He's a serious guy.
I came back from my ACL injury and won MVP. So, what's a groin? What's an adductor? That's how I look at things. I feel like if you just continue to take care of your body, working out, making sure you're in shape and you stay on top of your game, you can play as long as you want.
I get Tweets every day from people telling me that 'Hey, I'm going to overcome my injury or my illness. Cancer. Different diseases. I can beat it because Adrian Peterson showed me the determination and the willpower to be able to prosper and get through adversity whenever it comes.'
I take football as an avenue to different opportunities. Football is not using me; I'm using football.
I'll get out and do Pilates. I'll get in the ring and do some rounds of kickboxing and grappling and MMA conditioning. There's a lot of unique stuff that I do, too, that a lot of people wouldn't imagine or think about doing, like box jumps. You get a 42-inch box and dumbbells and practice working on your explosion jumping up on those boxes.
I'm always aware of trying to put my body in different positions to test it and strengthen muscles that you don't get when you do dumbbell press or pulls or weight-type exercises.
I was always fast; I was always racing guys that were older than me and beating them, so I always had speed. I was able to make good cuts at a young age, on the side of the house with my dad, going through different plays, working on cuts and stuff like that.
I try to eat a lot of baked foods, fish, chicken, potatoes, stuff like that. Grab me a Muscle Milk. That helps.
It feels good when guys reach out to be inspired - and you have shown people an example of how you can come back and be better than you were before when adversity strikes; and when the world predicts the opposite, you show them you not only can be successful but be great.
