PAMELA LEBLANC: FIT CITY

High blood pressure doesn't slow Olympic swimmer

Garrett Weber-Gale wants to create low-sodium cookbook, line of food products

By Pamela LeBlanc
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, December 13, 2008

Austin swimmer Garrett Weber-Gale, one-fourth of the come-from-behind team that won the 4x100m freestyle relay at the Beijing Olympics, has high blood pressure.

Not something you'd expect from someone who spends several hours nearly every day churning across a swimming pool, is it?

But three years ago , during a routine physical at the start of his junior year, a blood pressure cuff wrapped around the arm of the 6-foot-2-inch swimmer revealed the surprising news.

It wasn't a temporary fluke, either. For nearly a month, the number stayed elevated, and that worried team doctors.

Weber-Gale saw a cardiologist, who did a battery of tests. He hadn't had high blood pressure before, but it ran on his mother's side of the family. And it was showing up in him at a much younger age.

At first, Weber-Gale tried to control it naturally, through a low-sodium diet. He didn't want to take medication because as an elite athlete he's frequently drug tested. He even consulted a sports psychologist for relaxation techniques, hoping to lower the numbers. It helped, but not enough.

Twice, team doctors turned him away from swim practice. His blood pressure was too high. The risk for stroke too great.

At the back of his mind were the words his coach, Eddie Reese, had always told him: "Every day you miss, you never get that day back."

"On days I couldn't work out, it was frustrating because I knew my competitors were working out," Weber-Gale says.

He didn't feel any different on days that his blood pressure was high. Knowing he was at risk for a stroke or heart attack, and that he could damage his veins, arteries and kidneys without treatment, Weber-Gale eventually started taking medication.

Today, he takes a white Benicar tablet each morning and evening. He'll probably take medication the rest of his life. He also sticks to a low-sodium diet. "Salt makes you retain water, and then your heart has to work harder," he says.

"We have worried about it since it was diagnosed," Reese says. "Through Garrett's trial and error and consistent investigation, he was able to get it under control. It was hard for both of us to accept the fact that a legitimate, every-day trainer could have this situation. Garrett accepted it and worked on it. He smiles a lot more now."

One of the biggest smiles came at the 2008 Olympics, where he earned two gold medals in relays.

He keeps those medals — heavy, solid discs as big as marshmallow moon pies — in a safe deposit box. When he pulls them out, like he did after swim practice two weeks ago, he goes right back to that moment in Beijing when he stood on deck with relay teammates Michael Phelps and Cullen Jones, watching Jason Lezak somehow make up a body length on the race leader to give the Americans the gold. He calls the race "a dream come true." It quickly became "the" moment of last summer's games.

The other gold came in the 4X100 medley relay. Weber-Gale swam the freestyle leg in the preliminary heat of the race.

Despite the two medals, though, Weber-Gale was disappointed in his individual performance in Beijing. He swam slower at the Olympics than he had at the Olympic Trials a few months earlier. As a result, he missed the finals in 50-meter and 100-meter freestyle.

But Weber-Gale, now 23, wants you to know that having high blood pressure hasn't stopped him from swimming at an elite level or doing anything else he's wanted to in life.

In a way, it's opened a new door. After learning to cook with less salt and scouring grocery stores for low-sodium products, the swimmer is slowly hatching a plan to create a cookbook designed for others like him who have high blood pressure. He's even dreaming about starting his own line of low-sodium products, from salad dressing to marinade, bread crumbs to spice mixes and rubs.

"It's difficult to find low-sodium products in stores," Weber-Gale says.

Because about 73 million Americans — one in three of us — have high blood pressure, according to the American Heart Association, Weber-Gale might have a ready-made customer base.

Growing up in Wisconsin, Weber-Gale left the cooking to his sister and parents. In college, he ate mostly in campus dining halls. About the time of his high blood pressure diagnosis, he started to cook for himself.

"It was absolutely terrible," he says.

Then he signed up for private cooking lessons with Chef Tim Kartiganer, founder of Mars Restaurant and Bar. "The thing that interests me about cooking is the instant gratification," Weber-Gale says. "In swimming, you work hard for weeks so maybe six or seven months down the road you can swim faster than you ever could."

Now he loves to cook and keeps it healthy by grilling, steaming and baking most of his food. When he does use salt in cooking, he uses a special type of sea salt. Like many athletes, he also eats a lot of whole grains and lean proteins like fish and chicken and not much red meat.

"The big thing with diet is you need to do little things, like don't salt at the table," he says. "You can get more flavor with higher acid content, sugar and spices. I think people are intimidated by having to make changes \u2026 but your palate adjusts."

The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute recommends no more than 2,300 milligrams of salt a day for a healthy adult (people with high blood pressure should get less), but most eat nearly twice that amount.

Soups and other prepared foods are notoriously high in sodium. A recent edition of Consumer Reports notes other surprising sources: A cup of Kellogg's Raisin Bran contains 350 milligrams, one Pepperidge Farm Whole Grain White Bagel has 440 milligrams, four strands of black licorice Twizzlers contain 200 milligrams, one cup of Heart Healthy V8 vegetable juice has 480 milligrams and a McDonald's Premium Caesar Salad with grilled chicken has 890 milligrams, even without dressing.

While in Beijing, Weber-Gale met French chef Daniel Boulud during an interview for the "Today Show." Boulud had just opened a restaurant in Beijing, and Weber-Gale later went there for a memorable five-hour, 14-course meal. He even got to hang out in the restaurant's kitchen with the famous chef, a highlight for the self-described "athletic foodie."

For a while, the Speedo-sponsored athlete wanted to become a chef himself. He's since reconsidered. "I don't want the lifestyle — always at the restaurant. I want a family, I want kids \u2026 but I want cooking to be a big part of my life."

Weber-Gale is back in the pool training again with Reese. He swims six days a week (sometimes twice a day) and lifts weights three times a week. He's planning to swim at the World Championships in July in Rome, but hasn't decided yet if he'll shoot for the 2012 Olympics.

"If I continue to love it, I will go on," he says.

Either way, he's got some long-term plans to keep him busy. He graduated in May 2008 with a degree in corporate communications and a minor in business — both of which could come in handy if he goes into the food business. He started a blog that focuses on swimming and cooking and has an instructional swimming video coming out.

"Some people think (high blood pressure) is debilitating, but I'm proof you can compete and perform at the highest level and enjoy everything in life. It's not the end of the world," he says.

pleblanc@statesman.com; 445-3994