Mobile menu

Olympic Swimmer Lives On Gluten-Free Pizza

December 21, 2011

Olympic Swimmer Lives On Gluten-Free Pizza

Dana Vollmer says diet is the key to her swimming success!

With the incredible amount of calories that top swimmers must consume to stay at the top of their game, Dana Vollmer faces a mighty big challenge. The 2009 NCAA Swimmer of the Year, who also won a gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, can only fuel up on gluten-free and egg-free foods.

Fortunately, Vollmer has found a delicious partner to help her maintain her diet, gluten-free pizza!

From NBCSports:

“Vollmer, who this year discovered she has food allergies, survives on a gluten- and egg-free diet. That means no bread and the all-American breakfast at her local Denny’s (eggs, of course).

She lives in California with her husband and recently they found a solution in the form of gluten- and egg-free pizza crust. Venice Bakery in Los Angeles sent her some samples to try.

They were a rising success.

‘I swear it tastes like normal pizza,’ said Vollmer, who we spoke with at the Speedo Fastskin3 launch in New York. ‘So basically I’m living on pizza, which I never thought that I would.’”

After a disappointing finish at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games trials, Vollmer is eyeing a bid to the 2012 Olympic Games to be held in London, England this summer. Her quest for spot on the U.S team is already off to a fantastic start. At the 2011 FINA World Championships, she took gold in the 100m butterfly, gold in the 4x100m medley relay, and earned a silver medal in the 400m freestyle relay.

As Vollmer is constantly traveling to compete against the world’s best, the jetsetter admits that managing her diet is often difficult.

“The biggest problem Vollmer has is when she travels, since there aren’t a lot of gluten- and egg-free options when you’re talking about on-the-go foods.

‘It’s not like you can grab something at the airport,’ she said. ‘Even here [in New York], we brought food in for me. A lot of times teams will go to sandwich shops and different things. So it’s hard like that … but I have a bag of food and I just travel with food.’”

To read this article in full, click here.

You can also learn more about Dana Vollmer on her official website. You can also send her words of encouragement as she aims to represent our country on the 2012 U.S. Olympic Swimming Team by visiting her Facebook and Twitter pages.

Related Stories:

Sprinting Past Celiac Disease

Think you may have celiac disease?

Symptoms Checklist
OUR PARTNERS