Olympic golden boy Michael Phelps recently revealed that during training he eats up to 12,000 calories a day to fuel his body. He gets to indulge in fried egg sandwiches, chocolate chip pancakes and french toast while his fellow Olympic athletes eat like rabbits to keep to their weight down.

Gold medal gymnast Nastia Liukin says she eats closer to 1200 calories day when she is training.

“Gymnasts eat totally different,” A typical breakfast is “eggs or yogurt or oatmeal,” said Liukin, who took the gold for the individual all-around in Beijing. “Then for lunch I’ll have a salad with chicken or fish or some sort of protein and then for dinner I keep it really light with probably just a piece of fish and vegetables. That lean combo is just enough “to keep me energized,” she said, “but I do have a few power bars before my practices.”

Not that this sounds particularly unhealthy for a petite 18 year-old girl, but it does sound like a miniscule amount of food for an Olympic athlete. Eating disorders run rampant through a lot of female dominated sports, gymnastics and ballet being the worst. The morale of this story is to put your 5 year in old daughter in swimming lessons and not tumble class.

nastia liukin

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