Michael Phelps’ Calorie Intake – What would YOU have to eat?

August, 2008 by Antonia

In his epic bid to become the greatest Olympian of all time, and to re-write the record books, Michael Phelps needs some turbo-charged nutrition. He’s fuelling his punishing Olympics race schedule by taking in 12,000 calories per day, a staggering 5,000 calories more than a typical heavyweight rowing male will consume, and 2,000 – 4,000 more than cyclists on the Tour de France.

So, what is a typical day for Phelps? According to the New York Post – if he can find time in between heats, semis and finals – a normal daily menu might look like this:

Breakfast: Three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise. Two cups of coffee. One five-egg omelet. One bowl of grits. Three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar. Three chocolate-chip pancakes.

Lunch: One pound of enriched pasta. Two large ham and cheese sandwiches with mayo on white bread. Energy drinks packing 1,000 calories.

Dinner: One pound of pasta. An entire pizza. More energy drinks.

Now, this might not seem like prime sporting fuel. Heaps of saturated fat from cheese and mayo and lots of sugar from sports drinks and chocolates pancakes is a dietician’s idea of hell, however for someone burning so many calories in a single day, it would seem that you need to pack in the calories any way you can – I’m sure that eating bowl upon bowl of bran or porridge or tofu isn’t particularly appealing!.

It is important to remember that an athlete such as Phelps needs to keep his energy levels up and not lose weight and therefore strength. He will need a certain number of calories each day just to keep alive, called the Basal Metabolic Rate. We calculated that at 83kg and 193 cm (185 lbs and 6’ 4”), Phelps needs 2,030 calories before he even gets up for training in the morning. This is the same as a typical woman’s entire calorific requirement for one day!

So what would you need to eat to eat 12,000 calories?

We did some simple calculations using our calories in food counters (Link in DFT page) to find out what 12,000 calories will equate to:

69 Cadbury’s Creme Eggs
41 Mars Bars
22 Big Macs
23 7 Layer Taco Bell Burritos
11 tubs of Ben and Jerry’s Baked Alaska Ice Cream

Sounds tempting, but no.

Conversely, how much exercise would a 75kg man need to do to burn off 12,000 calories? Our useful calories burned calculators were on hand once again:

About 950 minutes (15.5 hours)of vigorous freestyle swimming
About 14 00 minutes (23.5 hours) of competitive badminton
About 580 minutes (9.6 hours) of 6 minute mile running
1300 minutes (21.5 hours) high impact aerobics

Clearly Phelps is a phenomenon and his training regime and nutrition will be closely monitored and adjusted according to training type, time of year and so on. For us mere mortals, the simple formula will remain – if you expend more calories than you take in, you will lose weight. Too much chow with not enough exercise will end up with a bigger waistline. Maintain a healthy weight by eating the right thing and most importantly, GET ACTIVE!

Posted in diet, fitness