Maybe I Could Be An Olympian ...

From the NY Post

Swimming sensation Michael Phelps has an Olympic recipe for success - and it involves eating a staggering 12,000 calories a day.

"Eat, sleep and swim. That's all I can do," Phelps, who won two more gold medals today, told NBC when asked what he needs to win medals. "Get some calories into my system and try to recover the best I can."

By comparison, the average man of the same age needs to ingest about 2,000 calories a day.

Phelps, 23, will swim 17 times over nine days of competition at the Beijing Games - meaning that he will need all the calories he can shovel in his mouth in order to keep his energy levels high.

Phelps' diet - which involves ingesting 4,000 calories every time he sits down for a meal - resembles that of a reckless overeater rather than an Olympian.

Phelps lends a new spin to the phrase "Breakfast of Champions" by starting off his day by eating three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise.

He follows that up 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 slathered with mayo on white bread - capping off the meal by chugging about 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

For dinner, Phelps really loads up on the carbs - what he needs to give him plenty of energy for his five-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week regimen - with a pound of pasta and an entire pizza.

He washes all that down with another 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

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Published:
at 8:05 AM on Wednesday, August 13, 2008
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8 comments:

  1. KHM 10:05 AM

    That is just crazy.

    So we've fallen into one of the things I find irksome about jock culture, Olympics in particular: it seems we've become more of a society that produces athletic machines rather than humans who engage in athletics. Phelps, and he's only one example, has no other life besides preparing and using his body for swimming. Really. And I wonder if that's really where we want to go with this whole thing or not? I mean---what for?

    Do you all remember the movie "Hoop Dreams"? It really pointed up the use, and subsequent disposal, of young African American mens' bodies for the NBA machine... the same kinds of questions emerged there.

    So what are we proving by producing these athletes? What is the value in it? I sometimes wonder about folks who spend hours each week in the gym maintaining, or working for, fitness. Before the industrial revolution, fitness and strength were the consequence of living and life's work. Strength and fitness were required for productive life. In the post-industrial world, bulging biceps don't really get called upon to do much more than ripple for appearance in the course of daily life.

    The evolutionist in me wonders if the work-out culture we live in isn't actually counter-productive to adaptation for the world we live in today. I am going to do my part to ensure that doesn't happen....you'll find me sitting on the couch knitting, demonstrating for my genome just exactly what physical requirements are for life in the 21st century. You'll all thank me some day.

     
  2. Lyman 10:34 AM

    I see what you're saying but I don't agree. I see sport as an art. Phelps is working to be perfect physical expression of man in water, I think that's admirable. Like Sonny Rollins practicing 12 hrs. a day I don't see Phelps' workouts as simply a means to "win", I see it as pushing the limits of what a human can do which is truly fascinating.

     
  3. Shamrock 11:00 AM

    Hmm... Sport as an art... That's something I've never considered before... I guess with my brother being the person he is I just assumed... Still, all that food? Really? I mean, really really? He could literally clean out a fridge in a day. That makes me shudder in disgust.

     
  4. KHM 12:50 PM

    hmmm. I guess you have something there, Lyman, with the comparison to music but for me it falls apart a bit that its all wrapped around competition. But I'll think about it. Thanks for that.

     
  5. kbmulder 2:10 PM

    That can't be good for his body. Does he eat any veggies? All that white bread would make me constipated. And what about cholesterol from all those eggs?

    I guess he doesn't do that all the time, maybe just when he has a bunch of competitions in a row? Still, he is a bean pole.

     
  6. Lyman 4:36 PM

    His metabolism is so high and his body is operating so efficiently I really don't think digestion is a problem for him.

     
  7. Special K 6:35 PM

    Oh, I get it, so, they're saying if you eat a lot, you also have to work out a lot?

     
  8. KHM 6:45 PM

    Not really, K; rest easy. They're saying if you work out a lot you need to eat a lot. We're cool.

     

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