This is not a Jenny Craig ad, but former Vikings center and Cretin-Derham standout Matt Birk is on a mission to shed his NFL playing weight to become a model.
And, yes, he’s slimmed down and muscled up quite a bit.
As USA Today reports, the 37-year-old called it quits in February after winning a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens in his 15th NFL season and got to work a month later whittling his 310-pound frame down to a more reasonable weight for a retired father of six.
Here’s s before and after, courtesy of the Baltimore Ravens web site:
Birk is in the running to be the next Vi Model, which would feature him on the cover of The Challenge Magazine 2014 and turn him into the poster boy for Body By Visalus, a company that has the ultimate mission of ending obesity, reports the Ravens web site.
“I don’t really think of myself as a model. Maybe a glove model,” Birk jokes on the Ravens site.
“I never thought I would pose for a picture with my shirt off. But I wanted to show people that it can be done and that we’re all in this together.”
Birk was relegated to the life of a lineman at a young age. He was obese as a kid and playing football in the trenches was a good excuse for him to stay big, says USA today.
So Birk is clearly in the running to be the cover boy, an honor which would have to find room alongside his 2012 NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year award on his mantle. And he is most certainly hustling votes for it, appearing on radio talk shows and the like. Here’s one of his tweets:
During the next commercial of @seahawks @cardinals game, put the remote down and please vote for me for Vi Model! http://t.co/w9gb10LAHM
— Matt Birk (@BirkMatt) October 18, 2013
