Olympic swimmer cooks to help health

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Former UT swimmer and two-time Olympic gold medalist Garrett Weber-Gale is working toward the July 7 U.S. Nationals and a run at the World Championships.

"It's really exciting to come back this year and try to reproduce and do better than I did last year," Weber-Gale said.

His vigorous training has continued past Beijing and brought him back to the pool at the University of Texas.

"At this level there is no room for error, and that's just simply how it is," said Weber-Gale.

But his hard work in the pool is no match for how hard he works in the kitchen. Weber-Gale is also known as The Athletic Foodie.

He was diagnosed with high blood pressure at 19 and was forced to take medicine and drastically change his diet, cutting out almost all sodium, in order to keep his swimming career alive.

"At first I didn't know how it would affect my training, whether I could keep training or keep swimming, and I didn't know what the long term effects would be," he said.

Weber-Gale's Web site has low-sodium recipes and instructional videos emphasizing healthy, yet gourmet, cooking.

"It's done tremendous things for me in the pool," he said. "First, it's made me realize nutrition can have a huge impact on your performance, and made me realize how much better life you can have by eating well, and that's something I want to help other people realize."

Watch below as Weber-Gale teaches you how to make a great summer sandwich:

Weber-Gale has not only mastered simple recipes, but complicated things too. Below he demonstrates his favorite Southern recipe, shrimp etouffee: