While watching the Olympics, you may have wondered how Olympians manage to land such high jumps and run so many miles. The answer lies within their diets. An Olympian consumes between 3500 and 7000 calories a day, which is almost triple the amount consumed by the average person, a mere 1600 to 1800 calories. However, if Olympians were to eat the same amount of calories as the average person, they wouldn’t have enough energy for their vigorous training.
Olympians start out their day with a large breakfast because they need fuel to start their day. Army Captain Chris Fogt, a member of the American bobsled team said that a typical breakfast for him consists of three or four eggs, two pancakes, oatmeal, yogurt, and orange juice. To someone who is not an olympian, this sounds like a huge breakfast, but for him it is necessary. He needs to be able to a push a bobsled, which weighs 500 pounds, at a quick speed. If he were just to have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, those calories could not sustain him with enough energy to perform such intense exercise.
During the day, Olympians try to eat balanced meals of fruits, vegetables, proteins, and carbohydrates because their bodies need to be able to endure during their long hours of training. One might think that Olympians can eat whatever they want to reach their high calorie intake, but this is the opposite of the turth. Mr. Weber-Gale, a swimmer who won two gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics said, “While training to compete at high levels of sport can sometimes include infrequent fast food and junk, it generally does not.”
Olympians also avoid eating junk food because it can cause them to gain unnecessary weight, which could interfere with their training. Michelle Kwan’s coach, Frank Carrol, said that most Asian skater’s diet consists mainly of rice, vegetables, and fish because these foods makes them less vulnerable to weight gain. They avoid eating beef and fats to prevent from gaining unwanted extra weight.
Even though Olympians consume many more calories than the average person on a given day, an average person can still learn aspects from an Olympian’s diet in order to eat healthfully. One lesson is to always make sure that we eat breakfast in order to start the day off energized. We also learn from Olympians that the more we exert ourselves during the day, the more we need to eat. However, the foods we eat should be healthy foods that are energy yielding such as vegetables, fruits, proteins, and carbohydrates. An Olympian diet can also teach us to severely limit our junk food intake because junk food doesn’t give us necessary energy, rather unwanted fat. An average person who follows these Olympic guidelines, is sure to yield Olympic levels of success in their own diet!