12,000 Calories!

With all the excitement around the Olympics lately, all I seem to hear about is this Michael Phelps guy. I hear it on the radio, the TV, at work, at boot camp, and on the Internet. And even though he has name been deemed the greatest Olympian of all time, the most fascinating thing about him to me is his diet! I have heard the rumors of what this one person consumes a day... but, today they had an article on Yahoo! about it...go read: Michael Phelps eats 12,000 calories per day
It will blow your mind! The article talks about how this man consumes around 12,000 calories per day... 12,000! Did you read that? 12,000! Holy smokes Batman! That is crap-load of food I tell you! He goes on to talk about how he has to keep his intake up in order to compensate for all the calories he burns during the 30 hours of work-outs he spends training... My question is: Who pays for all his food? If this guy is swimming 30 hours per week and his daily activities besides swimming are eating and sleeping.. how does one have time for a JOB? You know, like a real JOB? A segment about his meals on TV the other night said that the local restaurant Owners in Ann Arbor have a time keeping him full! An example he offered to NBC of an average day's menu looked something like this:

Breakfast: 3 fried egg sandwiches, 2 cups coffee, 5-egg omlette, bowl of grits, 3 pieces of french toast, 3 chocolate chip pancakes

Lunch: 1 pound pasta, 2 ham and cheese sandwiches, energy drink (1,000 calorie)

Dinner: 1 pound pasta, 1 large pizza, energy drink (1,000 calorie)

Unbelievable! Again, who pays for this menu? This lifestyle is practically non-human in my humble opinion. I would hate to have to take him out to eat for his birthday... I would go broke! And yet the guy is lean... and he STILL has a "hard time keeping weight ON"... Unbelievable. Period.