Many of us assume that athletes are on strict diet, not until the Olympic gold medalist, Michael Phelps, revealed his diet in an interview. When in training, Michael approximately consumes 12,000 calories each day due to his trainings and exercises that used up much of his energy. With this amount of calorie intake, he can practically eat all he want and craved for. Michael Phelps diet has created a buzz of amazement to people and brought n sports trainers, nutritionists, and physicians to study and evaluate his routine.
By assessing Phelps’ breakfast menu, he has approximately takes 3,000 calories which is composed of about half of it is carbohydrates, less than half of fat, and about one fourth of protein. If we refer to the standard dietary recommendations, the distribution of nutrients and the amount of calories is good enough for an individual who is engaged rigorous activities like Phelps.
It is also a great deal for athletes like Phelps to include in their diets the energy drinks that would give them plenty of calories and even other fats needed. If an athlete would only depend on their meals and would need to stuff their stomachs with food, it would probably cause them to slow down during trainings and events and not to mention that it takes time to eat thousands of calories each day. Energy drinks plays a vital role on Michael Phelps diet because it helps him a lot to meet his caloric intake requirements and at the same time hydrate his body easily during trainings.
The health professional suggested for athletes that they need a diet rich in healthy carbohydrates and fats to provide the necessary energy to compete. Though, the athletes should select the proper and appropriate type of fat for their diet. For Phelps, his dieticians explained that he takes more calories because he has faster metabolism than the average man thus he burns calories faster. And due to his intense activities and trainings his metabolism was strained and resulted in speeding up.
Let’s start checking Michael Phelps diet.
For breakfast, he commonly eat three sandwiches with fried eggs and cheese, fresh tomato and lettuce salad, mayonnaise, fried onions, a 5-egg-omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of sugared French toast, and three chocolate-chip pancakes. As for his drinks, he also pairs his breakfast with two cups of coffee.
By assessing Phelps’ breakfast menu, he has approximately takes 3,000 calories which is composed of about half of it is carbohydrates, less than half of fat, and about one fourth of protein. If we refer to the standard dietary recommendations, the distribution of nutrients and the amount of calories is good enough for an individual who is engaged rigorous activities like Phelps.
The lunch menu for Phelps are one pound enriched pasta with tomato sauce, two large ham and cheese on white bread with mayo, and about 1,000 calories from the energy drinks. And for dinner time, he would have another one pound of pasta, a one whole pizza and more energy drinks packing 1,000 calories.
For an average person, these menus would be too much and would really fatten up a skinny person. And we wonder why Phelps keeps up his world champion record with this huge amount of calories he takes everyday! And it is easy to tell, by looking at his perfect athlete body, that he is not overeating and he is healthy.
It is evident that Michael Phelps diet is rich in carbohydrates. There is an explanation why should his menu rich in carbohydrates because it helps him avoid glycogen depletion that most athletes suffers. It is a deficiency caused by low carbohydrate intake that can result to weakening of muscles and paralysis of the nerves. Medical professionals justify Michael Phelps diet that it is good enough that it is consist plenty of calories for energy to fuel up his muscles and to enable his muscles to recover and repair after the stressful activities. An average person has approximately eight percent fat in the body, and if an athlete like Phelps will be engaging in activities and trainings and do not have regular intake of carbohydrates he would probably suffer from depletion of carbohydrate fuel or muscle glycogen and would begin burn the extra fats. It is said that by burning the extra fats instead of using the available carbohydrates it would require an extra work or stress for the body.
After Phelps revealed his diet, many nutritionists and dietitians raised their suggestion and point for his diet. They say it should be better for Michael Phelps diet if they would do more appropriate substitutes like whole wheat bread instead of white bread for his egg sandwiches, and more organic and fresh vegetables and fruits. There were also suggestions that it would be much better if he will have smaller meals and additional snacks for steady source of carbohydrate.
Nonetheless, Michael Phelps diet is just perfect for him and his activities because he made it with many gold medals and swimming records. Though, to strictly point out, his diet is not for everyone’s taking because our body and activities vary thus also our body’s required diet.
More information from wikipedia.
More information from wikipedia.