The New York Post reported his 4,000 calorie training breakfast consisted of:
*…three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise.
He follows that up with two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar and three chocolate-chip pancakes.*
I get that Phelps would eat that many calories in a sitting. What I don’t get is the capacity for his stomach to hold the sheer volume of all of that food. I wouldn’t even be able to roll over to the couch, let alone train following a meal like that. How can this be explained?
So, if sugar does not cause diabetes, please explain why the Saudis have a huge problem with diabetes now, since they started consuming large amounts of sugar, and did not before.
I worked there, so don’t tell me it isn’t so.
Presumably, they also have a problem with obesity, right? And also presumably we are talking about Type 2 diabetes. The problem isn’t sugar, it’s excess calories. They’re eating too much and moving too little, which greatly increases the risk of diabetes.
That, and a lot more diabetes is being diagnosed than it was 100 years ago. In the past people would go blind or develop non-healing wounds and never realize they had sky-high blood sugar because either testing just wasn’t available, or it was too expensive/difficult to do without really serious symptoms,
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disorder and has jack to do with what you were eating when you came down with it.
Again, there is some solid research that suggests that added sugar per se (BMI for BMI and activity level for activity level) is a contributing factor, just not the major one. (Speaking as a proximate cause - as an indirect cause, added sugar resulting in extra calories and thus greater obestity, it is a major factor.)
Saudis as a population right now have horrible lifestyles from a health perspective. Most Saudis are famously inactive and added sugar is not the only nutritional problem they have. Obesity rate in SA is now 70%. The population may also be at greater genetic predisposition to develop diabetes under those circumstances.
He’s spreading that out over the course of a day in separate meals. Though you can adapt to larger quantities, 12,000 is a lot to consume in one sitting, solid and/or liquid.
Herschel Walker is one of few people I know who looks incredible, while consuming one relatively low calorie meal per day (though some of that has got to be genetics). If anything, I’m more impressed by this.
I think Hazle is wondering how it is physically possible to consume the breakfast as described in a sitting. That list is not spread out over the day – its what he eats at his breakfast meal. I’m pretty sure the answer is that the stomach is an enormously stretchy and flexible organ, and also, that you have to work up to it.
And it makes kids hyperactive, too. 
Yes.
Thank you for your reply.
Yes, many Saudis are obese.
However, when I saw them pouring at least 6 or more teaspoons of sugar into a coffee, I was astounded.
Whether or not sugar causes diabetes, they have an epidemic of rotten teeth, and I’m pretty sure that can be caused by sugar.
So, is it OK for me to continue consuming a very large quantity of sugar then? I am not obese, and get lots of exercise.
I had been cutting down on my intake as concerned about becoming diabetic, but if you are correct, I can continue shovelling it in.
While I am fairly sure you are being facetious (it is hard to tell around here sometimes) I will offer up a serious response:
The major issue is getting in enough high nutritional value food (quality protein, fiber of various sorts, antioxidants and other healthy phytochemicals, vitamins, minerals, etc.) while keeping total caloric intake no greater than what you need. Obesity in specific is most associated with the latter; long term health probably more so with the former, but of course with the latter as well.
Large amounts of added sugar does not serve meeting that goal well. Unless you are exercising like Michael Phelps in training of course. If you are not exercising to that level then eating “a very large quantity of sugar … shovelling it in” will either come in as replacement of high nutritional density per calorie foods, or in addition to - either causing less than ideal nutritional intake or obesity or both.
Thanks for that. I had not heard that correction.
No, not being facetious at all. I just love sugar- always have.
Been a bit put off recently as my mother died of diabetes related health problems.
sugar is poison. No one should consume any amount of sugar. It damages the brain and the entire body. I’ve been on a mostly modern keytogenic diet for a long time and am in super good shape, no constipation either.
Folks are saying that sugar does not contribute much if any to the development of diabetes, so it seems strange that Keytogenic diets, that essentially eliminate sugar, are shown to reverse type 2 diabetes.
That said, if you replace your coke with water, you will lose tons more weight.
I did the Potato Diet. I got down to my goal weight in about 3 months then I just make one meal a day from potatoes now and enjoy the other meals. It’s so easy I don’t know why more people don’t try it. Forget about counting calories, just eat as many as you can each day and never be hungry. It does not get any easier.
If you were consuming fewer calories than you used, you would lose weight no matter what you ate. Whether you would be adequately nourished is another story.
A lot of McDonald’s sandwiches are between 300 and 400 calories, so if you eat an Egg McMuffin for breakfast, a Fish Filet for lunch and a Buffalo Ranch McChicken for dinner, with no fries or drinks, that’d be less than 1200 calories!