Ryan Giggs says he used to "punish" himself by taking away some of his favourite treats if he wasn't on form for Manchester United.
The current Wales boss is United's all-time record appearance holder having racked up an astonishing 963 games for the club across 24 years around the first-team, and he says one of the keys to his longevity is cutting out things that were bad for him, but only when he was playing badly.
“I love chocolate and loads of butter on my toast. When I wasn’t playing well or felt a bit sluggish, I cut them out completely," Giggs told the UTD podcast.
“If I was playing well and having loads of butter, I’d carry on.
"It wasn’t physical, it was mental. It was punishing yourself. I had Dairy Milk in the cupboard until I scored.”
Giggs' claims back up those made by his former United teammate Gary Neville last month.
When discussing the managerial career of Glenn Hoddle and how the former England boss was ahead of his time, Neville said that Giggs was aware of the little tricks he could do to stay on top of his game.
“With Glenn you weren't allowed butter on your toast, weren't allowed milk with your cereal in the morning, things like that," Neville told Sky Sports.
“I remember Giggsy later in his career, when we were starting to learn about nutrition, and I asked him, 'what would you do if you were in bad form?'
“He said, 'I'd take the butter off my toast to get that extra 0.01 per cent.'
“Glenn was doing that in 1997 and 1998, he was prescribing what we would eat, how we would train. It was really, really detailed. He was prescribing every detail.”
