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Comment by southphillyman | Hacker News Reader

Basically. "Abs get created in the kitchen not in the gym" I wasted dozens of hours of my life trying to jog off a horrible diet.

I have heard some anecdotes of professional athletes who have horrible diets. I believe Chad Johnson survived off of multiple Mcdonald meals a day during his career. Those are unique cases of individuals having the required genetics and being able to spend hours a day with elite trainers

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> The amount that Olympic swimmers eat is legendary... Michael Phelps —- he of 21 gold medals and counting -— made headlines when he boasted of his 12,000-calorie-a-day diet:

> > Breakfast: Three fried-egg sandwiches with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise. Two cups of coffee. One five-egg omelette. One bowl of grain. Three slices of French toast topped. Three chocolate-chip pancakes.

> > Lunch: One pound of pasta. Two large ham and cheese sandwiches with mayonnaise on white bread, plus energy drinks.

> > Dinner: One pound of pasta, an entire pizza, and even more energy drinks.

Honestly none of that looks all that bad considering he probably burned 9000 calories a day with exercise.

You don't need special genetics. All it takes is a continuous sink for calories (sustained aerobic exercise) that can be freely replaced with extra food. That means doing something other than sitting all day, driving home, and watching TV for four hours before bed. Also not going to happen with one hour a week on a treadmill or any of the low intensity fad exercise trends.

Rugby players eat huge meals, because playing Rugby genuinely burns that many calories. The problem they face is that once they stop playing Rugby, they tend to put on weight due to being used to the large meals.

McDonalds isn't implicitly a horrible diet. Burgers are made of meat.

The important corollary to that is if you want to look good with your shirt off you should probably spend some time in the gym as well.

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