What was unusual about Phelps is a couple of things: 1) The few folks who eat his purported 12,000 calories a day are massive guys doing huge weights, then supporting so much weight & muscle when lifting so intensely (almost certainly aided by PEDs) is plausibe. 2) I recall he at it all in only 3 meals a day. 3) Later in his career I saw an article claiming he ate a bit over 3500 calories a day, a massive difference. he likely trained way less later; still that is a big difference.
It's really not too crazy. Young athletes can eat a lot, especially if they have high metabolism. When I was 17, I was competing in karate, BJJ, and messed around at the Y occasionally lifting weights or playing games of basketball. Got invited to this all night sporting event and only had a light breakfast. After 4 hours they announced food in the break room. I demolished nearly 2 entire large pizzas, a bag of chips, two fried pieces of fish, half a 2 liter, and 2 water bottles. When I was in college I did Karate and boxing and had been doing lots of lifting. When I graduated I treated myself to an entire 10 piece bucket of chicken, 4 biscuits, mashed potatoes with gravy, and several glasses of lemonade. I have multiple friends that had crazy eat feats, but few of them could match my appetite.
I heard somebody here saw this in real life: they watched Dan Rafael order food at a McDonald's at Vegas. The person said he thought it was for a company of people more than one, but nope it was disgustingly all for himself that he ordered. I couldn't remember who said it... Also somebody I heard saw James Toney throwing down getting his day on! Bundled
On a serious note, chewing raw steaks made the jaw muscles stronger and also just chewing them and spitting it out caused saliva or nutrients to absorb without eating too much meat , I may be wrong but I think that is the reason they did it. Also I would have loved to have seen will Smith's training and diet for the movie Ali.
Is it fair to say that it was an abnormally large meal for the time, or were top athletes always consuming large quantities of food, even back then?
Looking at the diets of other heavyweight champions, many of them had notoriously big appetites. When he wasn't in training camp, Rocky ate like he was at buffet and chowed down on his mother's delicious Italian foods. Foreman and Liston devoured food like starving lions. (Foreman's trainers even had him cutting weight via dehydration because he would get way too big). Riddick Bowe's horrible habits are well documented. I believe he even had a fridge installed right by his bed and that's what led to him ballooning up to 300 lbs. His rival Lewis used to be fairly lean early in his career but got much bigger and chunkier towards the end. Douglas became a land whale as soon as he won the title and was in horrible shape when he had to defend it. Holmes was in fairly good shape during the 80's, but after his first retirement he developed the grandpa pot belly and flabs. Fury is probably the worst offender of them all, but is blessed with good fighting instinct and skill to be able to function despite carrying an absurd amount of weight (almost any other fighter would be helpless at his size). He's what they call "acrofatic". Its actually unusual if a heavyweight champion has self control and DOESN'T have an absurd appetite. Fighters like Norton, Weaver, Joshua, Wladmir etc are actually the exception in this case.
Cassius Clay as he was called at the the time was in process of gaining weight so perhaps Clay was a trencherman at the time.
One crazy meal a day is possible, but I highly doubt his habits were as bad as the others. Norton said he "starved himself" to get down to the 206-214 range not only to maintain his impressive physique but also so he could fire on all cylinders for 15 rounds with a good gas tank. Sometimes he didn't have a choice due to poverty. At one point, prior to gaining world wide fame for facing Ali, Norton was so poor him and his son split a hot dog for dinner.
Yeah, remember that one. He startved himself even when he got cash? I wonder what size he would have been if he had eaten a lot, but the right stuff; i e lean meat and veggies etc.
I don't see Ali's appetite as something out of the world. Several reasons have been already mentioned to explain his eating habits and I agree with all that. When you do a massive physical effort your body will demand you more food intake. That is natural when you are training or doing heavy work (just ask any construction dude) or any other physically demanding effort. Just ask any army vet how it felt after running a full combat course and chances he was ready to eat a whole cow.
I don't remember the exact time stamp, but Norton says that he has to starve himself to make his ideal fighting weight. Could be an exaggeration. Maybe he simply means eating the minimum amount to stay healthy so he can stay in shape and maintain his cardio. This content is protected
I know he cut weight for their second fight, which was around the time for that interview, something he regretted later. EDIT: He says his walking around weight was 225-230 and that he worked off (and starved off) ca 20 lbs in camp. I wonder how he looked at 230.