Good fortune may serve as the spark that starts the fire of unparalleled athletic performance, but cause and effect sustains the blaze. To a large degree, what has fanned New England Patriot quarterback Tom Brady's inferno late in his career is a drastic dieting.

According to the NFL Players Association, the average quarterback's career lasts 4.44 years. Brady has played well past that - and well enough to win four Super Bowls, three Super Bowl MVP trophies, two league MVP trophies, and earn 11 invitations to the Pro Bowl.His ongoing high level of play as he ages, however, may be even more impressive than those awards. For instance, Brady has finished with a top-10 Passer Rating in 13 of his 16 full seasons - and five of those have occurred in his last six seasons. During this preseason, USA Today ranked him as the best current NFL quarterback - just about the time he turned 39.His drastic diet has helped achieve all this.And having you learn more about it supports two points made repeatedly in this column: that everything you eat either helps or hinders your health and that the diet that works for me - or Tom Brady - may not work for you.While Brady's millions allow him to afford a personal chef, wealth plays no part in the food philosophy that he and chef Allen Campbell share. Both know that what Brady eats affects how he feels, performs, and recovers, so Campbell prepares meals for Brady of "80 percent vegetables" and "20 percent lean meats: grass-fed organic steak, duck every now and then, and chicken." Brady also eats wild salmon, according to a January 2016 Boston Globe article.What really earns Brady's diet the "drastic" designation, however, is what he doesn't eat: processed sugar, white flour, nightshade vegetables, (such as peppers, eggplant, tomatoes), fruit (except for an occasional banana in smoothies), and dairy products.Talk about hard-core. Based on his diet, Brady should play for a team called the Spartans. But since he does love ice cream, he will treat himself to a vegan version made mostly of avocados that he considers "pretty good."When asked if he really enjoys foods like avocado ice cream in a May 2016 USA Today article, Brady said, "Nothing is going to be like a chocolate sundae. . . . But there are things that you can enjoy that can curb what you're looking for, that can be a lot healthier for you, that can bring down the inflammation in your body so that you're not hurting and you're going out there and doing the things you want to do."But many experts argue that Brady's diet is more than drastic, that it's nutritional voodoo and far more restrictive than it needs to be.In a Men's Health article last January, Mike Roussell, a nutritionist with a Ph.D., points out that Brady's avoidance of tomatoes - a nightshade vegetable - in an attempt to avoid inflammation "makes literally no sense." Roussell then cites a 2012 study published in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research that found meals containing tomatoes actually reduced levels of inflammation and oxidation. Roussell also feels there's no need for Brady to avoid fruit, that the belief that fructose is bad for you stems from "an outdated understanding of how fructose works in your body."That comment leads to the second contention to this column: the need for an individualized diet for optimal health.Like Brady, I feel and function best by abstaining from processed sugars, white flour, and fruit (including bananas). But unlike Brady, I eat no meat and therefore rely heavily on fat free dairy products to provide much of the protein I ingest.Proof that my body handles fat-free dairy products well: in a typical week, I consume six 24-ounce containers of cottage cheese and seven 32-ounce containers of plain Greek yogurt. Furthermore, during the late summer, I consume a few pounds of tomatoes each week. I continue to ride and work out as intensely as usual during this time, and I have never noticed increased inflammation or any other ill effect from tomatoes.But I don't dismiss or demean Tom Brady's diet because of our dietary differences. Why? It certainly works for him.Brady was drafted after 198 players in the 1999 NFL draft for god's sake. By his own admission, he didn't have the body to play in the league. Most experts didn't think he'd last one year.Yet now, 17 years later, you can make a rather strong case that he's the best quarterback of all time. And while it would be foolish to believe that his diet alone allowed him to attain such greatness, it would be just as foolhardy to feel it played no part.One thing is has certainly allowed him to do is perform at a ridiculously high level well past what is considered a quarterback's prime.Brady's diet serves is just one more example of why I urge you to continually experiment with yours. Who knows, you may even develop a liking for avocado ice cream.