Burgers get boot at Redskins’ training table

It was an effective, if not sensible, diet: The Washington Redskins won three Super Bowls while dining at a training table of double cheeseburgers and fries.

The Redskins team that yesterday began five weeks of limited on-field workouts is better fed, at least, than its more successful, championship-winning predecessors were.

These days, the Redskins, like 20 of their National Football League rivals, employ a nutritionist who not only helps select the food for every meal the team serves, but also arranges for prepared dinners that players can take home, teaches them how to cook nutritious meals and takes them grocery shopping in a quest to make the players healthier and more productive.

“We have absolutely the best nutrition we’ve had in my 35 years here,” said director of sports medicine Bubba Tyer, who joined the Redskins as an assistant trainer in 1971. “We’re in line, if not doing better, than a lot of teams when it comes to eating right.”

That wasn’t always the case.

John Riggins, Darrell Green and Co. would chow down on McDonald’s double cheeseburgers (with fixings bought in bulk down the street at Giant Food) before every practice in the 1980s. These days, Clinton Portis, Shawn Springs and the Redskins are offered more healthy fare.

The players generally are given breakfast and lunch during the season and three meals a day during training camp. The team spends hundreds of thousands of dollars feeding its players every year, Mr. Tyer said.

And that is where Ann Litt comes in.

“It makes sense for teams to put an emphasis on their players’ whole bodies,” said Mrs. Litt, an area nutritionist who has been on retainer with the Redskins for three years. “Once we can give them the right information on improving their diet, they can perform a lot better.”

Mrs. Litt recently took snapper Ethan Albright and his wife, Kathy, on a nutrition tour of the mammoth Wegmans grocery store near Redskin Park in Ashburn, Va.

The 6-foot-5 Albright’s weight has fluctuated over the years. At 35, he’s focusing on eating food healthier than the ham, sausage and eggs he ate growing up on a North Carolina farm.

“Kathy and I are from that ‘Eat what’s on your plate; there are starving children in China’ generation,” Albright said. “Before we got married, Kathy was looking at my checkbook, and there were checks for Domino’s, Papa John’s and Pizza Hut. I said, ‘See, I’m getting variety.’

“I put on a lot of weight when I was bucking to be a lineman, but when they told me to focus on snapping, I had to drop a bunch. My portion sizes are so messed up that I would put a huge amount of food in front of my kids.”

And when they didn’t finish their food, Albright would eat it for them. Mrs. Litt advised the Albrights on the proper ratio of meat, vegetables and carbohydrates to consume, assuring them that even junk food has its place in a balanced diet.

“I look at those 3-ounce vacuum-packed [steaks], and I’m like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’” said Albright, who, at 260 pounds is halfway between what he weighed as a high-school senior and what he weighed as a second-year pro. “I want enough to satisfy me.”

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