Michael Phelps' 12,000 Calorie Diet: One Man Attempts To Consume It

I am going to see what it is like to eat what Michael Phelps eats in a day.

"It just smells so horrible," says the photographer, helpfully, as we survey the table before us. On it are a large bowl of porridge; three doorstep-sized sandwiches of white bread, butter, fried egg, fried onion, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise; a five-egg omelette tastefully garnished with parsley; three slices of French toast liberally sprinkled with sugar; three pancakes topped with chocolate chips; and two large cups of coffee. That's breakfast. Yummy.

Next to it is lunch, which consists of 1lb (that's a very large bowl) of pasta with tomato sauce; two large ham-and-cheese sandwiches with more lettuce, tomato and don't forget the mayo; plus four bottles of a proprietary high-energy sports drink that always makes me burp. For dinner, it's another pound of pasta, a large cheese-and-tomato pizza, and another four bottles of the same proprietary high-energy sports drink that always makes me burp. "You poor thing," says the photographer, generously. "I so don't envy you."

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Read more about Michael Phelps' diet here.

Comments

[Aesthete]

As far as I'm concerned, only Michael Phelps knows or can know the impact of a 12,000-calorie diet on his body. Everyone is different.

[gahoggafugga]

12,000 calories . . no problem. i eat that in a day anyway. but i'm not a swimmer either . . .lol

[clearthinker2008]

Why didn't he break it up into 5 or 6 meals?

[Voltage]

I hope he doesn't eat all that less than an hour before he goes into the pool.

[LisaMarieC]

I understand the need for protein and carbs, but where are the fruits and vegetables? Yikes!

[Raymondf]

A camera man on Fox News at the breakfast part on Fox and Friends 3 days ago. 5-egg omelet, 5-pancakes 6slices of bacon 3 scrambled eggs, with no trouble.

[ShamusNYC]

Or, as Limbaugh calls it, an appetizer.

[BrettnCalgary]

lol, that one made me giggle.

His breakfast reminded me of the first time I ordered breakfast while visiting Georgia, everything was so cheap I assumed they were small so I ordered some combo that was priced similar to what I was used to.

It consisted of essentially everything you could possibly consider eating for breakfast, all in one shot, plates full. It was also my introduction to grits, the most vile thing I have ever tasted.

[mooph]

Good lord ... I hope you used natural, organic -- non-chemically modified -- foods. Putting that many chemicals and additives into your body when it's not used to it ... that'll do you in faster than the calories.

[javaman]

Meh, when I was a marathoner, this was a pretty common intake.

[lenski]

I like riding my bike and running up and down a set of steps next to a local dam. 14 laps on the steps and a few tens of miles on the bike, and my friends and I become eating machines. It's wonderful. The effect lasts for about two days, then we return to normal.

That's the value of regular aerobic exercise: Freedom to eat just about anything in just about any quantity without ballooning to excessive weight.

[RumiSouth]

Dang skippy. When I was in training, my daily intake was well over ten thousand calories. When I fell out of training due to job demands, my weight ballooned even though I was active on my feet twelve hours a day and I made every effort to eat dietetic snacks because I was hungry ALL. THE. TIME.

Phelps's stomach must be stretched to basketball-size by now -- if he ever gets out of his training regimen, he's going to need a gastric bypass just to avoid weight gain.

[Paprikapink]

This article lists exactly the same foods as the first link huffpost gave us about Phelp's diet, but neither one gives the merest clue where they got this list. No "his trainer tells us" or "we heard from michael himself" or "our reporter observed" -- nothing like that. Just a list of (typically american) foods that probably adds up to about 12,000 calories. Is there any evidence beyond this one "source" that this is actually what he eats?

[HC4BO]

Phelps has almost completely metamorphosed into an amphibian at this point ...

[ScandalousCandice]

This guy is a wuss. Throw him in a pool and tell him he can't get out for 2 hours. Then the Breakfast will go down like nobody's business. Then throw him back in the pool for another 2 hours, and Lunch will be easy too.

Don't think you can eat like Phelps without at least attempting to swim in the pool for as many hours as he does.

[MzTexas]

Phelps is a great athlete and I'm really proud of his accomplishments. I know that NBC has made him their "focus" story of this Olympics, but I'm really getting tired of hearing what and how much he eats every day. I'm tired of hearing how Phelps won another gold in a relay . . . the TEAMS win the relay, not Phelps. In fact, if the team had relied on Phelps leg of the 4 x 100 freestyle, they would have gotten the silver instead of the gold. He started them off in second and that's where they stayed until Lezak kicked some serious butt and swam the fastest leg ever recorded in that race.

Again, Phelps is a great athlete and I'm very proud of his accomplishments, but please, please, please, no more digitalized, computer graphic laden diagrams of Phelps' body telling us why he's such a good swimmer. And no more disgusting descriptions of the total amount of food he shoves down his face every day. Oh, and tell him to pull up that speed suit . . . we're getting to see way more of Michael Phelps than most of us want to see.

[ZimboChick]

ditto!

[spithole]

The suit could be lower, actually. Now *that's* what some of us wish to see.

[Johnnyboy9793]

if you were actually annoyed to the point where you were sick of the computer graphics of michael phelps body, you obviously would know his upperbody is extremelly elongated compared to his legs, his suit isnt low, thats just where his hips are.