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By Dylan Ackermann
Cronkite News

TEMPE – Behind every athlete’s highlight-reel performance lies an unseen effort, where nutrition plays a starring role.

From carefully crafted meals to personalized fueling strategies, the journey to peak athletic performance starts long before game day – and it’s happening behind the scenes at Arizona State University.

Inside the 118,669-square-foot Butterfield Kent Furst Student-Athlete Facility, nestled at the north end of Mountain America Stadium, the magic unfolds through the seamless blending of science, personalization and collaboration among players, coaches, dietitians and chefs.

And it starts each day as early as 3 a.m.

“To do anything these athletes need to do – walking around campus, going to class, getting through weight training sessions or practice, attending film sessions, showing up in the training room for rehab, or simply doing anything they care about – all of it requires calories,” said Amber Yudell, an assistant athletic director at ASU who leads the sports nutrition program.

“Food is really the foundation of being able to perform as a human.”

Entering the nutrition field in 2010 and joining the ASU program a decade ago, Yudell recalls that sports nutrition was still relatively new, with no centralized meals or designated dining spaces.

Now, individual teams provide nutrition in locker rooms and team spaces, known as nutrition bars, offering smoothies, oatmeal, wraps, sandwiches, yogurt, parfaits, overnight oats and vegetables alongside the abundant offerings at food lounges, fueling stations and the dining hall.

It’s a dream for athletes, but providing such a wide variety of food choices for athletes with different needs is not a simple task. And athletes need a lot of calories – up to 8,000 a day for football players, according to Gabriella Donnelly, the director of football nutrition at ASU.

That’s about four times the calories an average person needs, according to Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which is provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Health and Human Services.

Lots of cooks in the kitchen

So, what goes into feeding Arizona State’s more than 600 athletes?

“It’s really important to have a great relationship with food and to offer variety,” said Anna Clear, a sports dietitian at ASU. “All the different foods provide different nutrients, but my team and I always promote a balanced approach to eating while honoring what the athletes crave.

“It takes a lot, not just for us to feed the athletes, but for the athletes to actually eat what we provide them.”

The process begins with Yudell, Donnelly and Melanie Clark, who is the director of Olympic sports nutrition, collaborating with executive chef Lisa Buzzeo to create high-quality menus that meet the athletes’ performance and nutritional needs.

From there, Buzzeo brings the menus to life, offering buffet-style options daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner with meals that won’t repeat for weeks.

“We make the food good to taste and fun,” Clark said. “Then, it will always have a nutritional benefit. Our team, in partnership with the chefs, help come up with the recipes and by making the menu fun, players will enjoy eating.”

Buzzeo added, “I think it’s all in the menus we create to make eating fun and eliminate flavor fatigue. It’s healthy, tastes good and provides everything your body needs.”

Providing variety and personalization from quality sources helps athletes feel like they aren’t “missing out,” which is a common misconception among newcomers who don’t fully grasp how different their dietary needs are at the collegiate level.

If the menu can make an athlete genuinely enjoy eating healthy, he or she won’t feel deprived of options that don’t benefit performance.

What’s on the menu?

One item that stands out to Clark is a sugar cookie smoothie. Despite containing cinnamon, ginger, antioxidants, chia seeds and flaxseed, the smoothie still tasted like a sugar cookie, according to her athletes.

Other notable favorites include chicken wings, Loco Moco burgers and birria (a marinated meat) tacos.

“I absolutely love seeing them succeed and seeing them just enjoy what they do and just helping to be able to put them in a position to do well,” Buzzeo said.

Breakfast in the dining hall features the usual staples: eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, an omelet station and a waffle station. Though slightly different, both lunch and dinner feature a hot line, cold line and an action station – stations at which a chef prepares food right there.

Inside the dining hall, the first station athletes encounter is the cold line and a salad bar with fresh ingredients and pre-made tossed salads.

As they continue down the line, the hot bar offers a variety of options, including a hot or mixed vegetable combination, two proteins – such as steak and salmon – and two carbs, like pasta with marinara or roasted garlic mashed potatoes.

Taking a slight left, athletes come face to face with the grill, which offers two protein choices, including a vegan option, such as a veggie burger. These are served with the corresponding carb – such as a bun – and topped with an assortment of vegetables and other toppings.

At the end of the line, the action station offers a more interactive dining experience, featuring carved protein options with a variety of toppings. For example, athletes can make tacos with three different types of meat and one vegan choice.

“These athletes have to eat eight to 10 times per day, and that can’t be fun,” Yudell said. “Flavor fatigue can set in, and food can feel like a chore like, ‘I have to eat again or have to eat enough at this meal.’ It can really be a challenge. That’s why variety is so important in our menus. There also need to be options that remind them of home and are culturally connected to where they grew up.

“Personalization is key.”

Balance also key

A key part of making eating enjoyable is creating an environment that reminds athletes of family dynamics and home-cooked meals.

When an athlete walks into the facility, tired from their day of school, workouts and practice, the staff wants them to feel a sense of camaraderie and to look forward to the dining environment.

“I think even just the mindset of knowing that at the end of the day, I’m going to have an all-you-can-eat, family-style meal to relax, enjoy, and refuel,” Clark said. “I’ll be in the elevator, and you can just hear and sense the excitement. Knowing that they have a good meal coming, it tastes good, it’s healthy and they can enjoy it with their friends means so much to them.”

The building is equipped with food lounges and fueling stations that offer protein bars, snacks, microwavable items and other convenient choices to supplement regular meals.

Clark has spent three years at Arizona State, managing nutrition for a diverse range of sports, including swimming, diving, water polo, triathlon, wrestling, baseball, lacrosse, tennis and beach volleyball.

While macronutrient requirements vary by sport, from the moment an athlete first steps foot into the facility at ASU, Clark emphasizes the importance of a “balanced meal.” It’s part of her and the staff’s job – ensuring athletes understand their nutritional foundation and know how to apply it effectively – and it starts with one-on-one conversations.

If their carbohydrates, protein, hydration or sleep are off, it creates “a crack in the foundation,” Clark said.

Even the smallest imbalance can directly affect performance.

“Food is really like their fuel source,” Clark said. “Timing and getting the right amount of what they need throughout the day supports recovery, muscle maintenance, muscle building, energy and so much more.”

Assessing each player’s needs for tailored nutrition recommendations begins with examining their weight, hydration status and body composition.

Nutritionists have one-on-one conversations with athletes daily or weekly throughout the offseason, workouts, training camp and regular season. These sessions provide specific guidelines on what to include in each meal, considering the time of year and the events scheduled for that day.

They also inquire about the athlete’s daily eating habits, appetite and energy levels, and whether they have met with a doctor, had lab work done or are taking vitamins or supplements to address any nutritional deficiencies, while checking in on any gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms the athlete may be experiencing.

“Just sitting with the athlete, estimating their expenditure through sport and throughout their daily life and then utilizing research-based recommendations,” Clear said of the process. “Everything we like to do here is evidence-based. So just making sure we’re looking at the athlete as a whole picture.”

Each sport has its specific dietary needs, but generally, ASU athletes require high amounts of carbohydrates and protein, regardless of the season.

Still, there are certainly outliers for certain positions and specific sports.

“Someone like a skill player (in football), because they’re running so much more than a lineman, their fuel is going to look different as far as managing their weight and keeping it on because they’re just up and down the field every practice and game,” Donnelly said. “Your linemen are a little more confined in their play as far as the yardage they’re covering.”

Wrestling, as a weight-class sport, stands out as a unique outlier among all the sports Clark supports.

“They have a match on Saturday and then another match the following Friday,” Clark said. “For example, that Sunday before that Friday match, they have to cut weight and somehow have time to recover after their match.”

Endurance sports, such as distance swimming or running or triathlon, similar to wrestling, also require higher carbohydrate intake compared to sports such as diving.

Aside from this, most sports, according to Clark, share similar nutritional needs that can vary based on the time of year – offseason, workouts, training camp and regular season – and intensity.

That’s when the intake of these macronutrients fluctuates, and the adjustments are most necessary.

On game day, while carbohydrate intake needs to be increased, meal choices are tailored to each athlete’s preferences and what they believe will help them perform best.

Donnelly said it is important for athletes to have a good base of complex carbs such as potatoes, pasta or rice, which will provide energy immediately but also fuel them throughout the competition.

“Then you always want a little bit of protein to just help rebuild their muscles and help them recover,” she said. “It also helps their digestion as far as the carbs. The digestion slows a little bit when you have protein, which makes that energy last for a little bit longer which is positive for our guys on game day.

“When they are typically playing a three to four hour game, they need that energy for the first quarter, but they also really need it for the fourth quarter.”

Before a game athletes concentrate less on calorie count and more on portion sizes, while postgame the emphasis shifts to consuming richer, fattier foods.

“Pregame nutrition is going to be really focused on what we need in-game, with that being carbs and protein,” Donnelly said. “Usually, you’re going to look for a lot more leaner options like chicken breast, rotisserie chicken and steak.

“Postgame, because they’ve just exerted a really high volume of energy, we’re looking for foods that they’re going to be really excited to eat after having played football for four hours – more of your fried foods and your little bit fattier foods to help them regain those calories back after the game. Pizza, chicken tenders, and maybe some sort of food that is unique to the area if we’re on the road.”

If an athlete is injured, their protein needs are significantly higher because their body is in recovery mode. If they’re feeling tired, their carbohydrate intake and overall calorie consumption must be adjusted if they’re under-fueled.

Depending on the time of year, football players can consume up to 8,000 calories a day, eating meals and snacks as many as 10 times daily and every three hours, according to Donnelly. Various factors influence their caloric intake, including whether they are trying to gain weight, lean out or maintain their current weight while managing their practice volume. Regardless, they are ingesting substantial amounts of food.

Food for thought

Due to their busy schedules, the team assists each player in finding ways to incorporate this surplus of meals into their daily routine, which typically includes practice, weight training and school. Yet, the work for a nutritionist doesn’t stop there.

Yudell recalls that eight years ago, football players were confused by foods like baby zucchini, purple potatoes and multi-colored carrots, asking, “What is this?” These same foods, still offered at the buffet, are just one way ASU nutritionists demonstrate that their top priority is education.

“We’ll bring in whole food examples,” Clark said. “For instance, when educating the team on antioxidants, I’ll set up a table with colorful fruits and vegetables and explain why purple, blue and orange ones are higher in antioxidants than the non-color ones. Through team education, we incorporate games to make learning more engaging.”

The reason: Athletes are often exposed to misconceptions – partly due to social media – about what is considered healthy, how much to eat and the role of calories in an athlete’s diet.

“Ultimately, the athlete or anybody is really kind of on their own for the majority of their food choices throughout their entire day from start to finish,” Yudell said. “An athlete can just show up at practice, walk through and be told by coaches what to do in that moment to get the most out of training and the same goes for games. But with nutrition, they have to make a lot of those choices on their own. What we do here is help, but it’s really up to them.

“That’s why educating them is everything since not every meal is provided.”

One of the key focuses, especially during the offseason, is developing life skills that athletes can use while in school but also in their lives after college and sports.

“Here, we do a lot of cooking demos helping them learn some basic cooking skills,” Donnelly said. “Some of them are really good cooks, and they come in and they know how to kind of do everything. Others come in who, it’s their first time in the kitchen. Teaching them how to make breakfast burritos, the differences between greek yogurt and regular yogurt, we’ve done a pasta one where we’ve made Chicken Alfredo.

“We just want to help them learn some of those life skills that they can use forever.”

The staff even goes as far as working with athletes to understand their food preferences, grocery stores, budget and whether they have access to a kitchen. If athletes have a kitchen, they assess the setup and the athletes’ available cooking time, even promoting the use of a lunchbox for added convenience. Surprisingly, despite these efforts, counting calories is never the primary focus.

This approach ensures that athletes with rigid training schedules, who sometimes need to eat up to eight times a day, find that eating is both enjoyable and sustainable.

“Putting a number to it (calories) is something we try not to do,” Clark said. “We want them to eat the food and enjoy it. More than calories, we’re focusing on macronutrients. Are they getting enough carbohydrates, protein and fat? That’s the real question.”

Particularly among incoming freshmen, though not limited to them, when training volume and strength training increase, athletes often continue eating the same way they did in high school, which can lead to being under-fueled.

Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) can seriously impact an athlete’s health and performance. Yudell said RED-S describes the “syndrome of symptoms that can occur when the body is not taking in enough calories to keep up with the amount of calories it needs to sustain function in life and to sustain all the extra calories that are needed for training, exercise and adaptation.

“What’s been great is since arriving in Tempe 10 years ago, the conversation around mental health and its connection to food, eating and appetite has become more widely accepted, thanks to increased awareness and discussion,” Yudell added.

For international athletes, it even extends to a lack of awareness that food is processed differently in the U.S. compared to other countries.

“Coming from different backgrounds, most freshman athletes don’t have any nutrition knowledge,” Clark said. “This is another opportunity for us to focus on education, teaching them how to fuel properly in the dining hall or dorm and ensuring they meet their energy needs with this new training program.”

Another misconception, and possibly the biggest, stems from social media’s ever-growing presence. Amid fad diets such as the Carnivore Diet and Keto and trends such as consuming powdered Greens, intermittent fasting and consuming energy drinks, further education often starts with a simple question: Is the athlete interested in the trend, and if so, why?

“It’s just really sitting with the athlete to figure out why they want to try this supplement or this trend and just seeing if it’s the most optimal diet for them,” Clear said. “Then obviously making sure all their supplements are third-party tested for sport and that they’re safe and that there’s a purpose behind it.”

As important as it is for the nutrition team to foster an environment where athletes understand the importance of fueling their bodies, their work wouldn’t be possible without athletes, coaches and trainers reciprocating by applying what they learn, asking questions and following the guidance.

The ASU nutrition staff believes this is what sets them apart.

“I think the athletes are just wonderful to work with,” Clark said. “Athletes and coaches really appreciate learning about sports nutrition and value the resources we provide. They view nutrition as a key component of their performance, training, and success.

“That mindset trickles down from the coaches, who are grateful, to the athletes. The collaborative relationships we have with our multidisciplinary team, including strength coaches and physicians, are also crucial. We work great together, and the athletes respond well to the team’s support.

“Overall, it creates a fantastic work environment.”

For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.