Five-time Olympic gold medalist Ryan Lochte raised a few eyebrows Monday when he tweeted a picture of himself “diving into” a 10,000 calorie meal.
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Lochte’s tweet included a photo of himself in front of a meal of grilled chicken, asparagus, and macaroni and cheese that adds up to an estimated caloric count four times the recommended daily allowance for an adult male.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Lochte’s photo had more than 860 retweets and more than 2,000 favorites.
"It's quite a lot of food!" Lewis James, a lecturer in nutrition at the UK's Loughborough University,
told CNN. "I would expect someone like Ryan Lochte to have 10,000 calories in a day but in one meal it sounds like quite a lot."
James said the intense training schedules of swimmers require them to consume many more calories than most other top athletes, and added that swimmers who have larger bodies need more calories and have to consume them in shorter periods of time because they can’t eat while they are training in the pool.
Currently, Lochte is training with SwimMAC Carolina's Team Elite program in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Michael Phelps, Lochte’s former USA Olympic teammate, once said he consumed more than 12,000 calories a day but later admitted it wasn’t true.
"I never ate that much,"
Phelps said in 2012, according to USA Today. "It's all a myth. I've never eaten that many calories."
Regardless of your sport, James told CNN, maintaining the proper nutrition through your food intake is important for peak performance.
"Everyone should be working hard to make sure they have got the appropriate diet for their sport or their event, making sure they are well fed and have consumed the right nutrients at the right times so that we can really maximize performance," James said. "Messing your diet up or not eating properly in a lot of events can really impair your performance."
Lochte’s request for other people's poses got a few humorous tweets as well, including Larry Richman’s photo of a giant ice cream dessert that got more than 2,700 favorites and nearly 2,000 retweets.
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