Colin Kaepernick confirmed he has been a vegan for approximately nine months.

Kaepernick has lost noticeable mass in the offseason while rehabbing from three surgeries and is not back to his previous playing weight.

Kaepernick said he made the decision because of ethics and he feels much healthier because of it.

Kaepernick’s girlfriend, MTV “Code Girl” star Nessa Diab, host of a nationally syndicated radio show, recently discussed their choices of a vegan lifestyle.

“He's also a vegan with me,” Diab said of Kaepernick on a video posted to the MTV2 Facebook page in June. “We did it together. Because we feel like, it's true that, I guess, the more animal products you eat and stuff like that, your body becomes more acidic, which allows more diseases to basically breed within you.

“So the more alkaline state that your body is in, the less likely you are to get some type of diseases. The more alkaline, the better you are health-wise, supposedly.”

Kaepernick underwent surgeries to his left shoulder, right thumb and left knee that kept him unable to resume his usual work in the weight room during the offseason. Kelly said Kaepernick is not back to his playing weight of previous seasons.

“He’s not and obviously you understand that because he did have three surgeries, so he’s limited in the type of lifting he does,” Kelly said. “So he’s not the same size he was when he played. I don’t know the exact playing weight he was at, because I wasn’t here before. But, he’ll be the first to tell you that, that’s he’s not where he was before.”