Michael eats

Swimming the butterfly stroke like Michael Phelps did Wednesday burns around 900 calories per hour for a man his size. Of course, probably not even he can do it for a whole hour but it reflects the fact that swimming competitively takes a lot of energy.

In 2008 while training for the Beijing Olympics, he was said to eat a whopping 12,000 calories a day. It's hard to picture what that looks like, so here's what he had for breakfast:

3 fried egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayo,
2 cups of coffee, 1 five-egg omelette, 1 bowl of grits, 3 slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar, 3 chocolate chip pancakes

Today he's 31, eight years older, and doesn't need the same amount of food. So his diet is down to about 3500 calories per day.