Lifestyle Food Dolphins Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick Jokes He's in 'Peak Offseason Form' Because of Birthday Cake Ryan Fitzpatrick said he was eating so much cake during the offseason because his seven children all have birthdays near each other By Helen Murphy Helen Murphy Helen Murphy is a former news writer at PEOPLE. She left PEOPLE in 2020. People Editorial Guidelines Published on April 17, 2019 11:57AM EDT Ryan Fitzpatrick is having his cake and eating it too. The 36-year-old quarterback for the Miami Dolphins responded to questions about his noticeable weight gain this week, joking that he was in “peak offseason form.” Reporter Omar Kelly with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel posted a clip of the interview on Twitter on Tuesday. “The thing with me is I have seven kids,” Fitzpatrick explained in the video. “In January we have three birthdays. So we’ve got the family birthday party which includes cake, we’ve got the friends’ birthday party which includes cake, so that’s six times in January.” Miami Dolphins Players Become First to Take a Knee During New NFL Season “We’ve got three birthdays in March — March 1, March 6, March 11 — which again, that’s a tough stretch,” he continued. “That’s cake six out of 10 or 11 days. Then we’ve got an April birthday, so it doesn’t slow down.” (Fitzpatrick shares his children with wife Liza Barber.) “But now that the birthdays are behind me, I think I’m going to try and go from peak offseason form to peak in-season form,” he joked. Christian Petersen/Getty Luckily for Fitzpatrick, the official NFL season doesn’t begin until September, with the preseason starting in August. This will be the football player’s first season with the Dolphins, who signed him to a two-year contract in March. Rob Gronkowski’s ‘Broke Habit’: How Patriots Star Never Spent His NFL Paychecks Before Retirement Fitzpatrick’s weight gain was first noticed when he stepped out for a workout at the Dolphins’ training facility, according to the Washington Post, and a photo of him running went viral. “When you find out there are donuts in the breakroom,” one Twitter user captioned the snap, while another wrote, “Feeling an instant kinship with Ryan Fitzpatrick.”