The Utah football team has athletes of many shapes and sizes, and the teams’ nutrition plan shows just that.
There are three different categories that each player can fall into: maintain weight, lose weight and gain weight.
Offensive lineman Junior Salt is happily in the maintain weight group.
“They kind of let you eat whatever,” Salt said.
And for Salt that means a little bit of, well actually, a lot of everything.
“Tell you the truth, man, I love food,” Salt said. “I eat anything and everything. Anything from protein to a lot of carbs, a lot of chicken, a lot of rice and a lot of Tongan food. My mom’s a really good cook so I eat a lot of her food.”
The one thing that Salt has restrained himself from is soda, but for the most part everything else is on the table, even if he knows that some of it isn’t always the best.
Salt was born in Utah, but comes from Tongan heritage. Polynesian food contains a lot of starch, and Salt realizes that is not the healthiest for his body, but sometimes can’t help himself.
“It’s not a good thing to consume that much [starch], but it’s very delicious and it’s hard not to eat, especially Sunday,” Salt said.
Salt explained that in Polynesia, Sunday meals were always the biggest feasts and the meals that everyone looked forward. His family keeps that tradition and when Sunday rolls around, Salt is eating.
The senior lineman does try to keep on the healthy side during the week though. Salt will often eat a big salad in hopes of filling himself up.
“When I’m [at school] I try to at least throw in some greens on my plate, try to get a salad or something,” Salt said. “Me, I love to eat and if I tell you I love to eat, I clean out the house, man, so by getting a big salad in my system it helps me feel a little full. Then you know, I’ll have a little bit on the side, like a chicken breast or some fish.”
Not all the Utes have as lenient a diet as Salt does, as they are asked to either lose or gain weight. To help the players accomplish their goals the Utes have a nutrition team to help plan and cook meals and set up diets for the team.
“The nutrition team does a great job in picking out the best foods for us,” Salt said. “We’ll have guys complaining about the food they make here, but you know it’s for the best. It’s the healthy stuff for us and it’s what we need. And you can definitely tell it transfers over to how we play on Saturdays.”
Even with the nutrition team’s help, some Utes still struggle to reach the proper weight, and according Salt, the players who struggle the most are the ones being asked to gain weight.
“There are a lot of guys that struggle to gain weight,” Salt said. “I don’t know how that’s a struggle, man. Some guys have to gain like five or eight pounds. But for me, man, I can gain that in two or three days.”
Based on his love of food, Salt probably wouldn’t mind proving just that.
@millerjryan