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Olympian Michael Phelps' 12000 calorie a day diet
By Stone Martindale Aug 14, 2008, 2:35 GMT
Michael Phelps during the men\'s 200M individual medley heats at the National Aquatic Center, better known as the Water Cube in Beijing, China, 13 August 2008. EPA/DIEGO AZUBEL
Olympian swimmer Michael Phelps eats a whopping 12,000 calories a day.
"Eat, sleep and swim. That's all I can do," Phelps told NBC when asked what he needs to win medals. "Get some calories into my system and try to recover the best I can."
Phelps' relentless competition at the Beijing Games will mean that he will need all the calories he can muster to keep his energy levels high.
An average Phelps' meal consists of 4,000 calories.
He told NBC he begins the day by eating three fried-egg sandwiches with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise.
Phelps' washes it down with two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar and three chocolate-chip pancakes.
At lunch, Phelps gobbles up a pound of enriched pasta and two large ham and cheese sandwiches with lashings of mayo on white bread - and chasing the sammies with 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.
Then dinner is served, Phelps five-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week regimen is rewarded with a pound of pasta and an entire pizza.
Followed by 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks, again.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Actually, it is true. It was on television last night. The showed him eating his meals and listed everything he eats.
It's not possible, competitive road cyclists eat around 6000 calories a day.. double that, it's not possible, he would literally have to cut his sleep and eat all the time he's not in the pool or at gym, what he have said he spends time in gym and training in one day.. that's only possible if he munches burgers while swimming... sorry..
yeah, it was on tele, it must be true..
sorry about the english...
Olympic viewer, please don't tell me that because something is on TV, it's true! What kind of justification is that?! You could have just as easily said, 'since someone wrote a story about this, it must be true!' As Tozz just said (and what I wrote above) eating, processing, and burning 12000 calories per day CONSISTENTLY is just not possible for a human. There might have been a day where he ate this much (not likely, but possible), but I can guarantee he did eat much the next day (there are mathematical descriptions of this, but I won't get into that here (1st order ODE decay kinetics)). He might one of those enormous meals once or twice per week, but not every meal every day. No way, no how.
The amount of calories his body burns (not just while he's training) is such that he can eat what he wants. Of course I agree that a 12000 calorie diet is a tall-tale to say the least. I'm sure the correct info is probably that he burns about 12000 calories a day in working out and his basal not that he eats that much. And I'm sure he's smart enough to watch his cholesterol whether he admits it to us or not! (So all of those eggs.....yeah right)
who cares about how much he eats? he may not eat THAT much but he sure is a beast in the pool
You are so silly. I don't know where you come up with all of these numbers and such. 6000 calories is almost nothing for any athlete, who does not want to lose muscle mass. Swimming is a lot harder then biking, bikers are sitting down. fufu on you you. I am not surprised that he clears 12000 calories on a semi-regular basis. An extra value meal has more then 2000 calories, and normal everyday Americans will eat those 3 times a day.
yeah, extra value meals do have alot of calories. A 32 oz soft drink has 300 calories+.
cocomongo your comment is not based in any physical fact. Athletes are very conscious of the number of calories they consume, and 6000 calories is A LOT. The human body has a certain ability to make only so much energy per hour; it doesn't really matter if the energy comes out while sitting standing or running. On a sustained basis, elite athletes can only output something on the order of 1200 calories/hour for 6-7 hours per day and that can't be done every day. Most of the time, they are burning far less than this per hour because that's the way you let your body recover. A power athlete like a swimmer likely outputs less than that per hour because they train in 'spurts'; a very high output for a short period, then a rest, then do it again.
If you go an eat an extra value meal of 2000 calories 3 times a day, you WILL gain a couple of pounds per week. It is simple physics. Normal people eat 2000-3000 calories per day on average; don't quote to me what someone eats ONCE. It's the average that really matters.
I have HARD data to back up every claim made here, not just my own, anecdotal observations. It appears (from your posts and others) that most people don't have any clue as to how much is normal to consume and how much energy is burned by exercise (BTW, most exercise machines in the gym are horribly inaccurate in estimating calories burned).
everyone here is being homosexual. i have eaten with michael phelps and he has exactly 12000.000 calories a day
grendel, even as far as athletes go though, michael phelps is on a totally different level of training. Swimming uses the most muscles in the body out of any sport and can burn the most calories. Combine that with the fact that Phelps trains 5 hours a day 6 days a week and when he competes he has to swim in his prelims and qualifiers then swim and event then do the same thing AGAIN a few hours later. Phelps has to make sure he gets his calories in and trust me 6000 is nothing. Even for my highschool football season my reccomended calorie intake from my trainer was around 5000 to keep my energy up and make sure my body recovered from the work i was doing, which was NOTHING compared to the work phelps does. All that aside, the story is true. People have seen phelps eating, the story is backed up by the restaurant he always eats at and the owner just read his last bill. Phelps is insane
renegade, sorry but your numbers are wrong. Here's a website that gives reasonably accurate numbers for calories burned per hour for many different activities:
www.shapefit. com/ calories. html
It does not matter what exercise it is, your body metabolism can only breakdown glycogen and carbohydrates so fast. THis is the limiting factor in power output (therefore calories burned per hour) and not what the activity is. I, myself, am a physicist and a competitive cyclist. I can compare my own numbers to even the best elite cyclists (because that's the data I have) and they are not superhuman. Even Lance himself is still grounded in the realities of physics. His numbers are completely unattainable for me
Competitive swimming is more of a sprint sport; you don't train for it by swimming for long period in a burst. The overall caloric burn per hour for an elite level swimmer is on the order of 700 calories per hour when they're doing their workout. When doing warm downs, warm ups or other 'support' activities, they're not burning near that amount. Even if he were going at max (I'll give you 800 cal/hour which is very high for a swimmer), assuming his maintenance rate is about 2600 cal/day, he would need to swim for 9400/800 = 11.75 hours per day every day to support eating 12000 cal per day. If you've ever done any kind of training, you'll know this is not possible (even for M. Phelps).
Don't get me wrong, the guy rocks and is an amazing athlete. He is just still human.
its true. whoever doesnt believe it is obviously no type of athlete. he swims. thats much more exercise than biking. he is the best in the world. he is jacked. thats all.
vfam, insulting my athletic ability and just 'it's true' does not make it so. Did you look at the website I posted? Swimming doesn't have the highest caloric burn rate of all the sports listed. Running is probably one of the most energetically inefficient activities one can perform and that is listed at near the top (about 1200 cal/hour).
What kind of athlete are YOU?
grendal your a fool go post your reports in a lab and lay off everyone else I bet you don't even have nuts
It's over 9000!!!!1one11
Grendal you are the only intelligent poster here, ignore all of the fools. 12000 calories a day is B.S. People don't listen to reason.
5 hours a day. 6 days a week. 50 miles a week.
Grendel you should look at your facts about how many calories a person will burn when cycling is compared to swimming. You burn almost 100 calories more per hour when swimming.
grendel, you are a phony and you are full of shit. Maybe that's why you can't gulp down your own calories. Get off your ''it's all about me'' high horse. Kobe Bryant doesn't even like Phelps. Bryant has short changed Phelps twice on camera already. You are doing the same thing as Bryant. Shame on you grendel.
This guy goes to 11!!!!
BS. 12,000 is laughable. He wouldn't have time to train if he ate that much.
i have to agree with cocomongo, with the ratios, because everyon here is using biing as an example . The ratios between biking and running is about 4 to 1 meaning you have to bike about 4 miles for every mile of running. And swimming is even higher because you have to run more to be equivalent to the swim. Thats why bikers always think they can go out and do a 15 mile run an end up dying because its not the same. The ratios are way different.
Grendel,
Good sensible posting mate.
Dr Mike Stroud and Ran Fiennes when dragging 400 pnd sledges (each) across Antartica, for 12 hours a day where estimated (scientifically by Dr Mike as the expedition was part of a research project) at burning approximately 9,000 calories a day.
Bionic Olympian and allround star spangled awesome athlete that he is, any one day of olympic competition or training would not be (if he or his coach is at all intelligent) the calorific equivelant of 12 hours Antarctic sledge hauling. Athletically & talentwise superior yes (from a given point of view), but, unequivicolly, not a calorific match.
The most plausible counter argument to Grendel so far has been 'it must be true because it was on television.'
um actually 12,000 calories a day is very possible. my friend consumed over 10,000 calories a day just by eating a couple slices of deep dish pizza. yes i agree that the diet is an abnormal amount of food to consume in one day. but he's also won an abnormal amount of gold medals. i heard of his diet on the news and last time i checked, the news doesnt lie. especially about something as little as a diet (not that his diet is little). i dont see why he would exaggerate how much he eats. although, i would like to know who makes his food and how much he spends at the grocery store every week!
I believe that he ate 12000 calories in one day, once and the story has turned into he does it evey day.
Phelps said on tv flat out that his training includes 12000 calorie diets and they did show him eating all this junk during a typical day for him. The guy is a man beast. THIS IS HIS DIET.
He might get 12, 000 cals using supplements like shakes, but there is no way he could physically consume that much food nor could a champion like him be stupid enough to do so. This diet would place so much stress on his heart, pancreas and digestive system. This is a great story but its fiction!
Anybody seen Phelps in his recent interviews rubbishing this claim ? He say he doesn't know where this 12,000 stuff came from. The only relevant quote he could think of was a doctor telling him to eat up to 10,000 calories a day in order to try to put on weight given his seeming inability to do so. I would say his story about the 'doctor' sounds a little anecdotal in itself but it at least puts the above argument to bed.
Grendel, I'm sure all the letters of apology you'll receive will all be written on imaginary paper, however you deserve every one.
Good sensible posting mate.
washingtonpost. com /wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/05/AR2006080500900.html?referrer=delicious< br />
^ Takeru Kobayashi has 16,820 calories in 10 minutes like it's nothing, and if you havent seen Kobayashi's body it is in great condition. you may Google images for yourself.
www.beerbellyblog. com /wp-content/uploads/2007/07/kobayashi_six_pack_2006.JPG
Also you can just check out all of the reports and biographies, he does eat A LOT on a regular basis,(although I don't know his daily calorie intake, but I know for Kobayashi this is nothing, esp since its only 10 minutes) it is insane yet true.
Grendel or anyone else, can you please explain the reason as to why this is possible?
How about instead of relying on outside sources, and 'he said she said' and random internet people saying 'I saw him do it' or 'I saw it on tv' you go straight to the source. Jimmy Kimmel asked him directly about the 12,000 calorie diet, and the now famous 'Michael Phelps Breakfast'.
It won't let me post the link, but search 'Michael Phelps Jimmy Kimmel' on youtube, and you'll see.
Phelps clearly says he was 'maybe' at 10,000 calories tops. The michael phelps breakfast was something he used to do a few years before the olympics, but for whatever reason he didn't keep it up. Furthermore, he said the pasta and energy with ham sandwich lunch, and whatever the dinner one is were BS, he's never eaten those. The breakfast one he did, but not recently.
Don't take my word for it though, watch the video and see Micheal Phelps say it directly.
it is very possible for him to eat this much on a daily basis. Im weigh 130 lbs and am an elite runner in high school and have about 5500 calories per day, and that is pretty easy to do especially with two protein shakes per day.
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grendelAug 14th, 2008 - 05:19:19
I read this article and I felt compelled to write. There is no possible way this is true; these facts really need to verified before publishing. I'm not sure where you got this info, but it sounds like someone just made an exaggeration for effect. I have access to power output data for riders during the Tour de France, and during a 6hour 48min mountain stage (with nearly 4 hours of climbing ending on Alpe d'Huez) a rider in a breakaway burned about 6500 calories on the bike. This, plus about 2000-2500 for his basal rate, would put him around 9000 calories for the day. Keep in mind, this is not something that any human can do everyday for any extended period of time; even the professional cyclists' bodies become very broken down and fatigued after a day like that. A long training day (even in a high volume phase) would probably be about 4000-5000 calories with an average of probably 2000-3000 calories/day max.
If Michael Phelps' basal rate is 3000 calories (which it is surely less than this as he only weighs about 200lbs from the info I can find), he would need to burn an additional 9000 calories in exercise consistently per day to support an intake of 12000 calories. In addition, there are physiology studies that show the maximum amount of calories the body can process (I don't know how this scales with size or training) to be about 10000/day.
It is simply not possibly that he eats anywhere close to 12000 calories per day. My guess would be that his intake is somewhere between 4000-6000 calories depending on his phase of training.
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