Perry Lefko

Perry Lefko keeps you connected to all the news in the CFL on Sportsnet.ca.

While his teammates dived into the food available as part of a media luncheon on Thursday, Montreal Alouettes quarterback Anthony Calvillo resisted the urge to munch on the fixins. He had a meal ordered especially for him.

It sat covered up while Calvillo talked about his Alouettes team, who are playing the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Grey Cup this Sunday at McMahon Stadium in Calgary. As the Als quarterback, Calvillo is routinely in demand for interviews and he is unfailingly obliging. Whether it's talking about the team, himself or his wife, who battled cancer a couple years ago, Calvillo is available and honest.

But on this day, his plate of food sat there waiting and he needed to eat. He removed the cloth napkin sitting on top of the lid, which he then lifted, revealing a plate of chicken and cooked vegetables.

This, folks, is part of the reason Anthony Calvillo decided after 15 seasons in the Canadian Football League and at the age of 36, he had to make a change to take his game to a new level -- a higher level.

He talked to the team's training staff and subsequently took a blood test to determine what his body couldn't tolerate. It basically showed dairy products, sugar and glutens are the three things that needed to be eliminated from his system. It became a challenge, he said, to determine what he could and couldn't eat, and a commitment to stick to the diet. It took only a couple weeks for Calvillo to notice a change.

"From the get-go, I felt the difference in my energy level," he said in between taking stabs at his chicken and vegetables. "It was like night and day."

His diet has consisted of sweet potatoes, a type of race pasta and other similar nutrients and a virtual elimination of red meat.

His wife, who became a vegetarian as part of a program to beat cancer and keep it in remission, had already been shopping at health-food stores, so she merely had to add some items on her list for her husband's new diet.

"The kids are a bit different, they're not eating no rice-pasta, but for us it was a whole lifestyle change," he said.

He acknowledges that every once in a while he will cheat a little and indulge in a steak, albeit one with a lesser portion that he had in the past, and some orange juice.

"Overall, it's been amazing," he said of the transformation.

He just completed a regular season in which he equaled the second-highest quarterback percentage of his career, a mark of 108.4. The percentage takes into account various categories, and the higher the number, the better. He last had a similar percentage in 1999, back when he was a spry 27.

"As you get older you're looking for ways to improve and I think I've been able to do that over the years, but I wanted to take it to another level," he said. "And the only way you're going to do that is really having guys you trust that will create a program for you and then dive into it. I don't care how young or old you are, you've got to continue to look at ways to improve because if you don't you're only going to be at the same level. You've got to look at ways to improve."

Calvillo has a career total of 63,322 passing yards, slightly more than 9,000 behind Damon Allen's professional football record of 72,381 yards. He accomplished it over 23 years, seven more than Calvillo to this point in his career.

"I remember last year, thinking to myself, if I can stay consistent and do this for another three years, there's a chance I might be able to get it," he said. "And it's something I never even thought about until last year as I started to get closer to it.

"I always tell people I'm taking it year to year, which I am, but I feel very strong mentally and physically at this point like I've never felt before, so that's an exciting point. To reach this goal, it's not a major goal of mine like I'm going to play until I reach this, but I am shooting for it. It is in the back of my mind now. It would be just an amazing accomplishment to be part of football history."

This is a player who came into the CFL in 1994 with the now-defunct Las Vegas Posse and started as a 21-year-old. Two years later, following the demise of the CFL's American invasion, he joined the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He fumbled and stumbled his way through two seasons before deciding to sign with Montreal and become a backup to Tracy Ham. Nothing at that time suggested he might someday be in a position to set a record for career passing yards.

"I remember when I first came into the league and I saw the 50,000 yards put up by Ron Lancaster, and I said, 'Man, what an amazing feat and career that would have been for him to do that. It was a difficult first four years of my career."

He now looks back on the move to Montreal and how it important it became to reprogram and resurrect his career.

"It really showed, I think, a lot of maturity to really take a step back and learn from a great quarterback, but never, never, in my mind did I think I would be close to what Ron Lancaster did."

Let alone Allen.

If and when he breaks Allen's mark, he'll likely chalk it up to a change in diet and an appetite to be the best.