Unless you live under a rock, you surely have caught some of the Olympics either in the news or even some of the “Live” coverage on tv. My favorite events are the triathlon and swimming. But even if I wasn't a fan of watching the swimming competitions I would have watched them this year. Micheal Phelps is an amazing athlete. He just might help encourage people to hit the pools in their areas (not me of course as I'm allergic to Chlorine alas). So in someways you could definitely say he is a role model but not in the realm of healthy eating. Several news agencies have gotten an interview from him describing his training diet.
Now... I suspect that in his off time (when he is only in the pool like 4 hours a day instead of the 12 or so hes in the pool when training) he doesn't eat like this (if he did he would weigh a 1000 pounds!). But here is a typical days worth of food for America's Midas Touch swimmer:
Breakfast: Three fried egg sandwiches; cheese; tomatoes; lettuce; fried onions; mayonnaise; three chocolate-chip pancakes; five-egg omelette; three sugar-coated slices of French toast; bowl of grits; two cups of coffee
Lunch: One pound of enriched pasta; two large ham and cheese sandwiches with mayonnaise on white bread; energy drinks
Dinner: One Pound of pasta, with carbonara sauce; large pizza; energy drinks
The caloric estimate tips the scales at over 10,000 calories!! More than 5 times what the average person should eat in a day!!!
Not to mention the cholesterol and saturated fat he is ingesting. Who ever his nutritionist is, I hope they know what they are doing. It would be a real shame for him to keel over of a heart attack from clogged arteries.
Don't eat like a champion if this is the champ you intend to emulate.
