Dave Birkett | Detroit Free Press

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Kirthmon F. Dozier, Detroit Free Press

Theo Riddick was halfway through one of his thrice weekly sessions in a hyperbaric chamber when he came to a revelation this spring.

Riddick was scrolling through Netflix, as he often does while lying in his oxygen pod, when he stumbled upon the documentary, “What the Health.”

The fifth-year Lions running back flipped the movie on and watched the first 40 or so minutes before his hour-long hyperbaric session ended. When he got home, unable to shake what he just saw, he turned it on again.

“I was just like, ‘Oh my God,’ ” Riddick said. “I told all my boys about it.”

Among the friends Riddick texted was his Lions teammate, Ameer Abdullah.

About a week later, after Abdullah watched the movie, he texted Riddick back.

“He was like, ‘I’m done eating meat,’ just like that,” Riddick said. “Exclamation mark.”

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Abdullah rarely ate red meat anyway, a religious and lifestyle choice he made years ago. But for more than three months, the Lions running backs have followed near-vegetarian diets they say have helped them become better players on the field.

“It’s a huge transition, and that’s why I think some guys fear becoming a vegan or becoming a vegetarian in any sense, just from that sense of burning so many calories and not feeling the same,” Riddick said. “We’re still fighting with that right now. … (We’re) still in the process, so you have some good days and some bad days.”

Kirthmon F. Dozier, Detroit Free Press

Abdullah, technically, is a pescatarian, eating fish as his only meat, though he does cop to having a chicken cheat day once every few weeks.

For years, Abdullah, the Lions’ leading rusher heading into Monday night’s game against the New York Giants, has shunned red meat. He doesn’t eat pork for religious reasons, and he hasn’t had a steak, he guessed, since early last year.

“I kind of grew up this way,” Abdullah said. “My mom and dad are vegetarians, so I always grew up not really eating too, too much meat. I used to eat steak in high school, but over time, my taste buds kind of changed. I really don’t like the taste of red meat as much. I used to be a huge burger fan. Like every now and then I’ll have a burger, but even those I’ve cut out. I don’t even have burgers anymore.”

Instead, Abdullah said he eats a vegetable- and seafood-based diet that has helped him trim down to 7.1% body fat, lowest on the team.

“It used to be (Darius) Slay, but we got a new body-fat machine that’s a little bit more honest and I am the reigning champion in that category,” Abdullah said.

Neither Abdullah nor Riddick employs a personal chef, but both say they augment their diets with supplements provided by the Lions’ team performance dietitian, Sarah Snyder.

The Lions declined to make Snyder available for an interview for this story.

Riddick said he eats one large meal a day, typically whatever the team is serving in the cafeteria for lunch, and several other small meals or bigger snacks.

“What I do now is I have a lot of smoothies, so that’s how I kind of get all my nutrition,” Riddick said. “I won’t have one physical big meal. I try to space them out in little meals. That’s kind of what I do. I try not to put anything bad into the body, just in the sense of like toxins and stuff like that.”

Abdullah said he typically eats some type of pasta, usually topped with shrimp, the night before games, and this summer he forced himself to eat “a little bit more chicken because I haven’t been getting complete protein sources.”

“My taste buds are different,” Abdullah said. “It’s not that hard for me. Like in the off-season, I would do it without even thinking about it. Like when I go to Chipolte or something like that, just to put it in perspective for people, I get a bowl just all veggies cause I don’t trust the chicken and meat there. I kind of just lived that way, and then over time I just took a step back and looked at my diet.”

With a mother who’s vegetarian and father who’s pescatarian, Abdullah joked he ate “tree bark pretty much” growing up.

“For a long time, I thought everyone ate like that,” Abdullah said. “Like I didn’t even know white bread existed till I got to high school and I saw people eating white bread. I was like, ‘What is this?’ I was wheat or pumpernickel bread all the time, which was more natural grains for you.”

While Abdullah and Riddick are sticklers about their diets for health reasons, both say their nutritional regimen has helped them as football players.

Riddick played between 205 and 210 pounds as a rookie at the behest of the Lions. Now, he’s closer to 200 pounds and more trim.

“I feel definitely different,” he said. “Energy level’s obviously higher. It’s just sustaining it, that’s the thing. And that’s what we got to figure out. Cause again, we’re burning calories at a high rate, and to be able to have enough in me to have me keep going, that’s a challenge.”

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Abdullah said he eats bigger portions and more frequently now than he would if he had more chicken or red meat in his diet. But that helps him feel lean, he said, “and when I feel lean I feel faster, feel quicker.”

“It’s just like a car,” Abdullah said. “I drive an F-150 Raptor. That’s a big truck. If I’m putting regular gas in there, that thing’s going to be burning really fast cause it’s pulling a lot of weight, it’s a bigger motor. You’re going to be paying for a lot more gas.

"It’s the same thing. If you’re eating lighter, you’re going to be burning that stuff quicker, which means you’ve got to eat more. Or if you’re not eating the right stuff, it’s not going to burn to the right places, it’s not going to give you the right energy you need to exert for however long you need to do it.”

Eighteen NFL teams currently employ a full-time dietitian, according to the Collegiate and Professional Sports Dietitians Association, and anecdotally, players seem to be more conscious of what they put in their bodies now than ever before.

“Your body’s your business and you can’t put crap in your body and expect to get greatness out of it,” Lions defensive end Cornelius Washington said.

Washington follows a strict diet to maintain his playing weight between 275 and 280 pounds, though not nearly as restrictive as Abdullah and Riddick. He eats chicken, turkey and fish, with some bison occasionally mixed in, and he called fast food “poison” that he stays away from at all costs.

Across the NFL, some players like New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, have taken healthy eating to the extreme – Brady, who avoids dairy and most fruits in his diet, released a “nutrition manual” last year that included recipes for foods like avocado ice cream – while others have gone the vegan route with varying degrees of success.

Former NFL players Arian Foster and Griff Whalen were vegans for part of their careers, and Abdullah said he read up on Foster’s eating habits and even tried reaching out to the running back this summer.

“Back in the day, I used to be the guy that thinks I had to (eat) a steak, get a steak to be strong,” Abdullah said. “But there’s a lot of things actually that can help you feel better and be just as strong by eating than just steaks.”

Riddick said he found out the hard way what impact diet can have on football after a few sluggish practices his rookie year.

“I just remember that, especially cause not having an apartment when I first got here as a rookie and staying at the hotel, so like you order chicken fingers and fries and you’re wondering why you feel like (expletive) the next day," Riddick said. "I can definitely say I definitely felt it my rookie year.”

Now, Riddick said he definitely feels the effects of diet on his body, too, but in a good way.

“Your body is what’s making you money, so for you to overlook that, it’s kind of ignorant on your part,” Riddick said. “You’ve got to tighten every screw, dot every I cross every T, and if that’s going to make you a better person on the field and off the field, then why not?”

Contact Dave Birkett: dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

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