Packers are what they eat

It's just one team but many diets

By LORI NICKEL lnickel@journalsentinel.com, Journal Sentinel

Monday, October 27, 2003

Green Bay -- In a game known for its 300-pound giants, the two lightest starters on the Green Bay Packers are cornerback Al Harris and wide receiver Donald Driver.

With long sinewy limbs, they have similar builds. The 6-foot-1, 185-pound Harris has just 3% body fat. The 6-0, 188-pound Driver is between 2% and 2.5%. There are numerous Internet sites that could calculate your own body fat percentage if you need an ego bust or boost, but the average healthy man is between 10% and 20%.

Harris sticks to a strict diet of chicken and fish, absolutely no pork or soda, and beef only for recovery. His locker is stuffed with vitamins and supplements, such as rhodiola for energy, bee pollen for stamina and glucosamine to repair and strengthen cartilage. He takes a dozen vitamins a day, following a timetable of when to take them.

Harris changed his lifestyle a few years ago when he felt too sluggish.

Across from Harris in the Green Bay locker room, Driver has bags of three types of chocolate candy bars stashed in his cubby. He has a soda machine in his house. A patron of greasy fast-food joints, he insists he doesn't even moderate his portion sizes.

"A lot of people are surprised that I go out and eat what I want to eat," Driver said.

Harris and Driver are a perfect example of the diet contrasts found on the Packers. Some are nutrition junkies, make every calorie count, even believing that what they eat could prevent injury and promote longevity.

Others indulge, letting their youth and their workouts as professional athletes burn away their excess.

Team strength and conditioning coach Barry Rubin says the digital scale reading ultimately is determined by genes, maybe proving once again that it's not what you eat but what your mother and father passed down to you. But if a 300-pound lineman can't even get away with cheese fries, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Wahle 'a fanatic'

Mike Wahle is the Packers' 307-pound starting left guard whose broad shoulders are black with vines of tattoos. At 6-6, the former Navy Midshipman looks exactly like the kind of guy you'd want to defend your country, or your quarterback.

The rest of Green Bay's offensive line members are mostly all solid as well, their physiques hardly matching the paunchy stereotype. But none of the other linemen take nutrition quite to the degree Wahle does.

He didn't like what he saw in a photograph of himself four years ago and decided the work in the weight room wasn't enough.

"I better start looking at what I eat," Wahle thought. "I was always into lifting, working out. Then when I started figuring things out, nutrition is such a big part of your overall health."

Wahle hired nutritionist David Ellis of Lincoln, Neb. In the off- season, and as best as he can during the season since he must eat some meals with the team, Wahle knows exactly the calorie and protein intake of each meal. He must consume 7,500 calories a day during the season (the average male should take about 2,500). In the off- season, and when it's cold, he cuts back to 7,000 a day.

Because he consumes so much protein in the form of chicken breasts, slabs of tuna, the occasional steak and protein supplements such as creatine, Wahle said his kidneys could get overworked with toxins. To help, he takes "a ton of" digestive enzymes, avoids caffeine (which is a diuretic) and drinks three gallons of water a day.

Wahle, like Harris, is on the Vitacube V3S, a shoebox full of a variety of vitamins, each pill double the size of a Tylenol caplet. There's a multivitamin, calcium and the amino acid AlGlutimene to help repair muscle tissue and help prevent it from breaking down.

"None of it is magic. It's a part of the puzzle," Rubin said. "It helps. It's an aid."

Wahle is getting the results he wanted.

"You feel a lot better. You can move better. I think it has helped me on the field a lot," he said. "Along with the weight program, it gives you such an edge over everyone else. I don't see why people don't do it."

Wahle must keep his body fat at 15.3% to stay above 300 pounds, a percentage calculated after he had his bones measured to determine his optimum body mass. His ideal weight is 270, he said.

Playing higher

Added weight is a common theme in the locker room. Everyone, it seems, is bigger than he should be in order to play in the NFL. Running back Tony Fisher is 222 when he should be 200, but he said he got that from the weight room, not the training table.

"I probably won't lift another weight when I'm done playing football," Fisher said.

Tight end Bubba Franks, 6-6, 263 pounds, plans to drop 50 pounds when he's finished with the NFL. He does pile on to maintain his weight, but he doesn't rely on protein shakes and doesn't do the vitamin deal. He's more old school: Seconds and thirds are OK, with a gallon of water a day and no desserts for the wrong kind of body spread.

"I'm really a skinny basketball player just playing football, to tell you the truth," Franks said.

Rubin said all of the Packers who brought up their weight do it the legal way, through eating and supplements. He is not concerned at all about steroid abuse with this team, or body-building androstenedione or weight-loss aid ephedra, for that matter. All are banned substances in the NFL.

"They'd be crazy for taking it. I could understand the reasoning why, because they just want to be better and bigger and all that, but you're playing Russian roulette with your health," Rubin said. "You should never compromise your health for something like that. I know none of our players take it. I don't see it being a problem. It's good that the NFL governs that. The NFL is the best, to me, the best sport, because they're on top of that."

Food police favorites

A few Packers besides Wahle and Harris have distinguished themselves as being more disciplined in their diet than the norm. Safety Darren Sharper, tight end Wesley Walls and quarterback Brett Favre are among them. Favre does the vitamin buffet and one or two protein drinks a day.

Receiver Javon Walker dropped the junk food and sweets from his rookie season and can't believe the difference.

"I was telling Sharp how much better I feel this year compared to last year, just by what I'm eating," Walker said. "Some days last year I would eat anything. I felt sluggish so many times. Now I'm staying on top of what I'm eating and I try to go through the week eating pretty healthy and then the day after the game, that's one day that I will shock my system, you know, whatever I want to eat that day."

For every one of them there's chiseled Ahman Green, who eats whatever he pleases. But even 340-pound Gilbert Brown, whose waistline has been debated more than Liz Taylor's, was given exemplary marks by Rubin for eating healthier. That's common too. The older guys get, the more aware they are that the metabolism is slowing down.

Rubin said the majority of the Packers took some type of mineral replacement supplement, but only a handful took vitamins because of the discipline involved. The team provides the vitamins as well as supplements from Australia, because Rubin said the government regulated supplements there and he knows what he's getting. He also will give players Life Time Fitness energy drinks and bars. The cost to the team is reasonable, $35 for a 20-serving can of protein. Wahle pays extra for taking it to another level.

Most every Packer has a food or group he won't touch and, usually, a favorite food he misses.

Alcohol is not forbidden.

"N-No . . . not totally," Wahle said with a laugh.

Harris will have a beer now and then, but only in the off-season. Maybe a glass of wine for Bubba Franks. It's in moderation, one after dinner on game day every other week. No binges here, the Packers say.

Linebacker Na'il Diggs will have a cold one with his steak but "I eat what every 'guy's guy' eats." He trimmed his body fat from 20% his first year to 12% now by cutting out sweets and empty carbohydrates and hitting the weights harder.

For the guys who watch it, there seems to be two universal no- nos. Pork (too fatty) and all things sugar. Wahle won't even drink Gatorade.

"Too much sugar," he said.

The players are half and half on caffeine. Diggs doesn't like the pick-me-up and crash, others see no difference in a soda.

Red meat is consumed sparingly by those who watch their diets. Harris gave it up for 2 1/2 years until the 100-degree game at Arizona left him dehydrated with painful cramps. He started with steaks again three times a week at the Texas Roadhouse near Lambeau.

"Actually, I forgot how good it was," Harris said.

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