Why/how does michael phelps eat so much?

Question

my local news station did a coverage on phelps stating that he eats about 12,000 calories a day. average american 2000 calorie a day meaning he eats 6 days worth of food in just one day. why does he need to eat so much? i know hes an athlete but i get super super full at probably 4000 calories super super full as in can't walk hardly breathe and probably an inch close to a heart attack. how does his body take all that food in one day without feeling totally bloated or about to throw up?

Answer 1

He won gold medals for the U.S. He can do what he wants!

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 2

Because he is an athlete and athletes burn calories faster and he is tall.....

Answer 3

it's because michael phelps burns 4000 calories every workout, and being him, he probably trains every single day. when you burn this much in just a workout, you get really hungry. thats my answer, not 100% sure.

Answer 4

He eats that much because his full time job is working out. He not only needs to be able to maintain his muscle mass, but needs to be able to have enough energy to swim the rigorous amounts that he does (hence the huge amount of carbs,  carbs=energy). His metabolism is sped up (which may naturally already be fast) by his constant exercise as well as he swims in a cold pool which exhausts more calories than a heated pool because your body is working extra hard to keep it warm. Not to mention a human body is burning calories not only when in action, but just sitting or laying down as well, his caloric burn is no dobt higher than an average persons. So there you have it, high caloric & carbohydrate intake to maintain stamina,energy, & strength.

Answer 5

Because he has the tolerance. He isn't the only person on the planet.

Answer 6

Swimming 5 hours a day will burn thousands and thousands of calories.

I saw something on either History or discovery channel about this guy who was swimming the English channel.  They showed him before he started and he looked all fat and flabby.  But at the end he got out of the water and he was ripped!!  He burned off all the fat and they said he had burned almost 30,000 calories!!!

Answer 7

if you already have muscle, the muscle eats fat.  if you plan your meals properly, you are also building your metabolism, which means that your body is efficiently using the food that you eat.  this means that it quickly extracts all of the vitamins that it needs, and discards more of the useless calories and fat.  this means that you need to eat more because your body is, unbeknownst to you, kicking a lot of it out and using it up quickly.

Answer 8

I use to be a serious athlete.  I once had Olympic ambitions.  And I am about the same size as Phelps.  

Figure Phelps burns 1,000 per hour of workout.  With 5 hours of workout, that's 5000 calories.  His baseline metabolism is probably 3,000 calories per day, and he'll need an additional 1,000 -2,000 to just digest his food.  That gets him up to 10,000 calories per day!

It is really easy to eat that amount.  Why? Because you are hungry!

A box of cereal with a quart of milk for breakfast.  A couple of sandwiches for lunch and a large pizza for dinner with a milkshake, plus a couple of snack.  You are there.

********

Pound for pound, what the Tour de France riders eat would make Phelps an also ran.

Answer 9

He can eat so much because he works it off in training, also he trains so much that he needs to eat alot to keep up with the work out. Answer mine?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?...

Answer 10

TRUST ME I KNOW

some years ago I asked myself this very question.

How do ppl who are visibly fit eat so much that would seemingly damage their physical fitness.

Based on my own experiences I knew that "working it off" was utter bullspit and I need not to attribute it to that.

So I studied these very subjects and ovbserved the differences between myself and the them.

I concluded that it all boils down to one thing.

I chewed my food no more than 11 times max. Generally somewhere between the vecinity of 6-8 times per bite.

The subjects on the other hand Chewed AT LEAST 30 times per bite. Many times exceeding 40 per bite.

And none of this by the way was conscious. They would chew without any mental focus or determination. It was 2nd nature to them. Like blinking. They gave it absolutely no thought when chewing.

If you were to have lunch with michael phelps. He would most definitely chew each bite at least 40 times.

that is how he does it. Whereas someone like myself would be overwhelingly frustrated after 28 bites, phelphs wouldn't even know it was in his mouth by then.

Answer 11

He can eat that much and not gain any weight because of how frequently and how intense he works out that his metabolism is so hight that he has to eat that much just to pretty much maintain his weight that he is at right now.

Answer 12

I think he swims about 10 miles a day.  So he has to eat that much.  He burns off all those calories swimming and weight training.  

Answer 13

his metabolism is different with his training.

Your body eats what it needs and he definitely needs to eat that much to sustain it because he burns so much during training and swims.  

Answer 14

you get super full after 4,000 calories because you dont exercises as much as he does...he swims at least a couple miles a day. and you, well i dont know and i cant judge...because i eat less than you. but the point is he burns it off so fast that he NEEDS to eat that much to keep it up, or else he would be under-nourished.  

Answer 15

well he is an athlete and when you think of it tired=food

                                                                 food=calories

he probably eats energy foods or something

Answer 16

hes an athlete, he excercises so much that if he didn't eat that much he'd probably faint. he needs the energy that badly

Answer 17

cause he hibernates. and wakes up to go to the olympics.

Answer 18

He's a swimmer. He exercises a lot, he burn a lot of calories.

If he ate waht an average person would eat and swim as much he would probably look like an anorexic or die.

Answer 19

Your only mistake is that you are comparing Michael Phelps to a human being.  The guy is a freak of nature.  He's more like a superhero or something.  And, to put it the way the foreign exchange student from sweden put it, "he must sh*t like a king!"

Answer 20

His body needs it to stay healthy - it's because he burns so many calories from swimming.

Answer 21

Phelps burns off so many calories from swimming and working out that he needs to consume this much to maintain weight and muscle. it is heavily skewed towards carbohydrates and fats, which most diets avoid. The combination of quick energy carbs and slow-burning fats keeps him fueled up for hours, and the huge amounts of protein help his body quickly repair muscle damage

A sample of his  daily menu can be found here

http://www.slashfood.com/2008/08/14/mich...

Answer 22

His body burns off more calories then a normal person with a normal daily routine.  

Answer 23

because his level of cardiovascular exercise burns 12000 calories a day. he eats a small snack loaded with high glycemic carbs every hour or so. it's a typical athlete's diet.

when i was a cyclist i ate over 10000. i started my day with 5 eggs (three yolks removed) and a bagel and a coffee. an hour later a couple clif bars, an hour later something carby like pretzels, then lunch, then powerbars, then a sandwich, then some veggie pizza, then some chicken b*****s. it adds up fast.

Answer 24

He exercises so much therefore he burns a lot of calories and fat.

He needs all that food so he can be strong. it takes a lot of muscles to be able to row fast which is exactly whats needed of him to be 1st place.  each row is difficult to make in the water and out of the water therefore he needs strong muscles which are built by eating carbs and exercising about an hour after.  

Answer 25

In the one week and one day that he won those 8 Gold medals commentators say he swam an average of 37 miles from racing, warming up and warming down.

Go figure.

Answer 26

For breakfast alone he has to have about 8,000 calories because he burns that off in almost just 1 race and his warm ups.

Answer 27

because he burns 4000 calories a RACE!!! Thats crazzy he has to eat a lot of food but it has to be protein not junk food!!and he burns it off every race and when hes not racing hes burning calories!!

Answer 28

he doesn't eat it all at one time.

Also, he is probably eating higher calorie foods than you are, like he drinks a milkshake where you would eat a diet coke.

More calories don't have to mean greater volume of food.

Answer 29

Because he probably swims like eight hours a day.  

Answer 30

he is tall and so that he could have more energy and he always burns the calories by swimming and exercising

Answer 31

First of all he's a big guy (6' 4") so he needs more calories to satisfy his whole body and get ready for swimming. THEN he swims, which is the best exercise to burn calories, in my opinion. So then he loses some of those calories and is able to fill up again.