During the NFL combine in February, there was a lot of buzz surrounding an offensive lineman named Ben Bartch. Media outlets all over the world did stories about him. It was an unusual amount of attention for any offensive lineman—a position group that tends to get overlooked or outright ignored when the cameras are on and the microphones are out—and particularly for one who went to Division III St. John’s in tiny Collegeville, Minnesota.

Part of what made Bartch so compelling was the fact that during his college career he transitioned from a 230-pound freshman playing tight end to an offensive lineman trying to make it in the NFL at well north of 300 pounds. That kind of metamorphosis alone could have been worthy of some gawking coverage, but it was the method Bartch employed to gain some of that weight that really thrust him into the spotlight.

Bartch is a big guy, 6-foot-6 with a flowing mane of auburn-colored locks, but by his admission he was “never a tubby kid” growing up. Packing on that much weight to pursue his dream job was an arduous process; his days were full of rigorous workouts and endless eating sessions, so Bartch devised a hack. The summer after his sophomore year, he streamlined his breakfast. Instead of eating a giant meal with a host of individual items, Bartch combined them into a smoothie consisting of seven scrambled eggs, a tub of cottage cheese, grits, peanut butter, a banana, and Gatorade. He drank that four days a week, and it helped him grow from 250 pounds to 276 by the time school started again. The way he saw it, it was just a way to cut down on all that chewing. When this year’s combine rolled around, it had been years since he’d consumed the shake, and he hadn’t thought much about it.

[Read John Gonzalez's piece about NFL linemen's relationship with food after their playing days are over.]