By Bob Condor
Sunday, July 13, 2008

Olympic Weightlifter Melanie Roach.

When Melanie Roach of Sumner steps up to the platform for the weightlifting competition at next month's Olympic Games in Beijing, she will be working hard to clear her mind and focus directly on what's at hand.

Given the many things going on in her life, she has had plenty of practice learning
to focus.

Roach is the mother of three children, and one is autistic, which is demanding on Roach and her husband, Dan.

She owns a gymnastics studio and moved its location this month.

And, of course, she has that Olympic dream thing running through her 33-year-old mind. She battled a significant back injury to even be in a spot to make it to Beijing.

"I make it a point to focus on whatever I am doing at the moment," said Roach, talking by phone as she headed to the doctor's office for a routine blood test. "I wasn't so good at it in my 20s, but now if I am working out, then I am lifting and thinking of nothing. If I am relocating the gym, that's my focus. And if I am celebrating the Fourth of July with my family, I am enjoying that."

Well, Roach did admit to leaving Fourth of July party a bit early to get some uninterrupted sleep. The kids were on a sleepover, so Roach saw the chance to get the rest she knows her body needs.

Roach is fixed on getting eight hours of rest every night between now and Beijing, waking up between 7 and 8 a.m. with the distinct luxury of her mom living with the family right now and Dan handling their autistic son's awakenings between 1 and 4 a.m. Her mother helps with the kids early in the morning and also proves a valuable assist during Roach's ritual afternoon nap.

"She won't let me sleep any more than 40 minutes," Roach said. "Sometimes I feel
like I could sleep a lot longer, but, she says, 'No, it's over, let's go.' It's like being a teenager again.

Roach sports a teenlike weight. Standing just 5 feet tall, she trains at 122 pounds and gets down to 117 for competition ("usually just for a few hours").

The Olympian weightlifter has to work at maintaining her 122 pounds. And you
can argue that her nutrition plan is a calming factor in her hectic pre-Olympics
life at the moment.

"I started seeing my nutritionist about a year and half ago," Roach recalled. "She told me I wasn't eating enough calories. She upped my calories and added more variety.
I eat a lot more fruits and vegetables than I ever did. I always thought as a weightlifter you need lots of protein."

Roach does limit her carbohydrate grains to oatmeal, brown rice and brown rice tortillas that are at the center of her standard chicken or fish quesadillas -- with all the fixings -- for lunch.

"I eat six or seven meals and snacks every day," Roach said. "I don't go more than two hours without eating."

Roach's nutritional day starts with a protein shake when she wakes up. It includes 8 ounces of orange juice (she drinks water when she's cutting weight for competition), 1/2 cup to 1 cup of frozen berries, a full banana, and flax seed and lecithin granules in the blender. She tries to eat organic whenever possible.

Mid-morning, Roach will eat an apple (or a half on weight-cutting days) with a slice of cheese. "I always eat a balance of protein, carbs and fats," Roach said. "I try to eat the healthy fats, including cooking with coconut oil."

Roach started eating the brown rice tortillas at lunchtime because Drew, her son, doesn't eat gluten products. It turns out the gluten-free tortillas have helped Roach clear up a chronic case of psoriasis, a skin condition.

Before her afternoon nap, Roach has a Larabar energy bar (a sponsor's bar she calls yummy and praises for being all-natural with "four or five ingredients") and salmon jerky. After her mom rouses Roach from her nap, she has a craving for oranges, meat (more poultry, less red meat) and hard-boiled eggs. "We always have hard-boiled eggs; the kids love them too."

Before Roach says goodbye to her kids and heads to a late-afternoon workout, she has a half-cup of oatmeal with honey. She adds a big spoonful of peanut butter if she needs more calories or her weight is dropping below 122.

As Roach walks into the gym to hit the weights, she has the same flavor PowerBar every time.

"I have peanut butter," she said. "It's chewy and kind of hard to eat, but it works for me."

After the workout, Roach has more salmon jerky: "My nutritionist wants me to eat plenty of fish." When she gets home, she says she is eager to make "a humongous salad with everything in it," including lots of poultry or meat.

Before bed, Roach pulls out her Jack LaLanne juicer.

"My weightlifting friends make fun of me," she said, laughing. "But I can get really tired and the bedtime juice makes me feel less tired the next day. I juice a whole orange (peel and all), a whole lime, one big carrot, a whole beet, a celery stalk and I ball up some wheat grass inside the citrus so it runs through the juicer slowly and I get all of the wheatgrass nutrients. I'm looking to help myself every way I can."