Anchorage Daily News

Anthony Orot had a tendency to spill the contents of his belly on the trail while competing in cross-country running last year. He came up with a simple solution.

"I hate puking, and I puked during all the races last year," he said after practice last week at East High School. "So I stopped eating."

Sure enough, the puking stopped. And so did his progress. His 5-kilometer times got worse.

Now the 16-year-old eats cups of noodles.

It's a start.

"He just hasn't figured it out yet," said his coach, Lisa Keller.

"I've worked with him since he was a freshman. We've been going through a number of things to figure out what keeps him fueled."

Getting teenagers to eat usually isn't that much of a task. The task for Keller and all high school coaches is making the athletes understand what to eat and, maybe as important, when to eat.

Karol Fink, public health nutritionist for the state, stated the obvious: "Teens don't eat well. They eat too much sugar and fill up on empty calories. Fast food isn't a great option. But with athletes, you have a captured audience."

Keller takes advantage of that audience by addressing eating habits during the team's first meeting of the year and in printed information she gives them. She also reminds them before each meet.

"I don't think it's that they don't listen, it's that they don't hear. They definitely want to do what's right. Cross-country runners are really aware of how different things are going to affect their performance."

Christina Knapp, 15, knows how eating right helps. She gets the facts right at home.

"My mom was a ski racer in (East) high school, and she would always have her best races after she ate fish the night before. So before a big race I'll have some fish."

To their credit, five East High runners interviewed last week all professed that they rarely, if ever, eat at fast-food places.

Keller credits parents for that unusual teenage dedication, saying her athletes come from families that are more clued in to nutrition and a healthy lifestyle and were exposed to that life early on.

"If you're not in the habit of doing that (eating junk food), you're not going to do it as a teenager either."

Fink, also a registered dietitian, said economics should play into it as well.

"Burger King is not cheaper. My meals at home are much less expensive. Parents just need to do some planning to provide healthy food. They (athletes) need to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables and lean meats."

While some coaches worry about their kids not eating enough, Keller need not have that concern with Knapp.

"I don't have just one big meal. I eat a lot. Breakfast isn't big," she said recently at school. "Just a bowl of cereal before I work out, but it's a really big bowl of cereal. At lunch I eat a lot. At dinner I eat a lot. I have a lot of snacks in between. I usually try to have a little salad when I eat, but it's basically meat at every meal other than breakfast. And a lot of potatoes."

Susan Kundrat, sports nutritionist for Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., backs up Keller's and Fink's concerns about food.

In an e-mail she wrote: "I like my athletes to take their plate and divide it into fourths, then eat one-fourth protein; one-fourth pasta or rice or corn or peas or potatoes or bread or another grain; one-fourth fruit; and one-fourth veggies.

"Then they should drink milk or soy milk and add on whatever else they like from there. That way, we've covered the bases nutrition-wise, plus it's easy to do. They need to remember that if their fuel tank is low, that's trouble. Missing meals means they won't be able to train effectively and risk injury."

That's the mantra at East High.

"I'm very honest with these guys about the dangers of not having enough food," Keller said. "I don't want a little stick-thin runner girl. I have a tradition of very strong, healthy runner girls. I'm proud of that, and I'm hoping the message is getting out there."

Jaime Bronga, 16, gets the message.

"I eat a lot, all day. I eat one big meal a day, dinner." Other than the one big meal, she said, she likes to eat fruit and bread. The night before a race, she also likes fish -- salmon or halibut. And she eats vegetables.

"In terms of being fueled for your event or fueled for practice, there's no excuse anymore because there are so many options," Keller said.

"We're living in a great time right now because there's all kinds of sports nutrition like gels and blocks and drinks and bars. Jelly Belly is putting out a sports jelly bean that you can eat so you can get that little extra oomph before you work out."

She's not kidding. They're called Sport Beans. According to jellybelly. com, they come in four flavors -- lemon-lime, orange, fruit punch and berry blue -- and are "formulated with carbohydrates, electrolytes and vitamins B and C."

Keller has a saying: "Fat burns in a carbohydrate fire. So if you don't have those available carbohydrates circulating in your bloodstream, you can't access fat as a fuel source."

For Ceylon Mitchell, 16, and Tyler Andersen, 15, it's all about the carbs.

"Usually, the night before, I eat spaghetti, sometimes pizza, but not too much" Mitchell said. "I'm just carbo-loading."

Andersen likes his pasta too. "I eat spaghetti all the time." And he means that, admitting that sometimes he has some for breakfast.

Even with all the carbo-loading hours before the meet, Keller tells her charges they still need a snack right before the race to see them though.

"One hundred calories right before practice keeps that little pilot light burning so you can access that fat."

But the competitive diet isn't just about food.

Staying hydrated during workouts and events is also critical, wrote Kundrat. "Athletes should start drinking fluids early in the day (at least 20 ounces right when they get up because they wake up dehydrated) and keep drinking all day. By the time workouts come, they should have gone to the bathroom several times and have plenty of lightly colored urine. Then it's a matter of rehydrating throughout workouts, about 6 to 8 ounces every 20 minutes when training hard."

Keller, a 1982 graduate of East, ran cross country while there.

"We didn't talk much about food then."

The nutrition tide changed for athletes, she thinks, when triathlons became popular.

"You're out there 10, 12, 15 hours. You have to have something to eat. Triathletes call it the fourth sport -- figuring out your food plan."

T.C. Mitchell can be reached at tcmitchell@adn. com.

Three Fuels for Athletes

High school athletes -- endurance runners, sprinters, football and soccer players -- need the same basics when it comes to fueling up for their best performance.

CARBOHYDRATES -- Primary fuel for most types of excercise. Most important nutrient for athletic performance.

Foods with a high concentration of carbohydrates include: Fruit, cereals, rice, pasta, potatoes, and other vegetables and some dairy.

PROTEIN -- Builds and repairs muscles, tissues.

Good protein sources include: Lean beef, poultry, fish, yogurt, eggs, milk, beans and nuts.

FAT -- Helps sustain prolonged exercise.

Tapping into the body's fat stores for energy during prolonged exercise requires carbohydrates to utilize the energy.

Everybody needs some fat in their diet to help support the nervous system and membranes of every cell in the body.

Healthier fat sources: nuts; olive and canola oils; seeds; cold-water fish such as salmon, mackerel, sardines and albacore tuna; avocados; and olives.

-- Andrew Gamble, coach Lebanon (Pa.) High School

Food needs for athletes

Here's what "typical" high school athletes in training need to maintain their weight:

• 120-pound cross-country runner training 1.5 hours per day

Calorie needs: 2,300 to 2,500 daily

Protein needs: 80 to 100 grams daily

• 150-pound swimmer training 1.5 hours per day

Calorie needs: 2,800 to 3,000 daily

Protein needs: 100 to 120 grams daily

• 180-pound football player training 1.5 hours per day

Calorie needs: 3,600 to 3,800 daily

Protein needs: 140 to 160 grams daily

-- Susan Kundrat, sports nutritionist for Northwestern University and owner of Nutrition on the Move in Urbana, Ill. (www.eatnmove.com)