Rumor has it that swimmer extraordinaire Michael Phelps eats 12,000 calories a day. As my client, a petite figure skater, commented, "That's what I eat in five days. Do some athletes really eat that much?"
Whether or not 10,000 calories a day is accurate is beyond my knowledge base, but for someone who swims five hours a day and also does dry-land training, Michael could indeed require close to that many calories. (So do some triathletes and others who do exorbitant amounts of exercise.) And it looks like he does a good job of choosing an effective sports diet. He enjoys carbs as the foundation of each meal (grits, pancakes, bread, pasta) with protein as the accompaniment (eggs, cheese, meat, along with a little bit of fat for flavor, calories and satiety – as well as endurance performance).
It also looks like Michael believes in the 90-10 rule: 90 percent quality foods and 10 percent treats (as in the chocolate chips in his pancakes). For a hungry athlete to eat 100-percent "clean foods" would be too time consuming and needless. No one needs to eat a "perfect diet" to have a good diet.
How does a hungry athlete find time to eat 10,000 calories? One trick is to eat compact foods, like a bowl of granola instead of a bowl of Cheerios, or a milk shake instead of a glass of milk. The other trick is to drink beverages with calories in place of calorie-free plain water. That is, quenching your thirst a quart of Gatorade instead of a quart of water adds 200 calories. A quart of orange juice would offer 400 calories. Replace the Gatorade or OJ with a recovery shake made with milk, powered milk, peanut butter, banana, and some honey, and you can guzzle 800 to 1,000 calories down the hatch.
An important key to consuming high amounts of calories is to have the foods readily available, so when you stop training, you can start fueling. At the Olympics and Olympic training center, food is abundant 24/7. At other times, a personal chef (a.k.a. a mom) could be very handy!
Whatever Michael is eating, it's working for him. Good genetics + hard training + a strong mind + good nutrition is indeed a winning combination. Go for it, Michael. We're proud of you!
Nancy Clark, R.D., FACSM
it seems a bit extraordinary to consume 12,000 cal/day and not gain body fat. if we simply base an hour of hard training on the approximate caloric value of a mile run, and credit a high level athlete at 10 miles/hr, it would require about 12 hours of straight running at that pace, or the equivalent of running 120 miles/day, to compensate for the intake. now, even if we include a bmr of 3000 cal/day, that takes his workouts down to about 9 hours of cardio at the intensity of 10 mph of running. and swimming tends to burn fewer calories/hr. according to a table in the ACSM H/FI textbook (an older version), elite male swimmers burn about 280 cal/mile. even given an enormous capacity to swim, to consistently swim >3 mph at an elite pace for 9 hours is beyond michael phelps.
Posted by: irv rubenstein | August 28, 2008 at 09:07 AM