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Nastia Liukin says gymnasts can't eat like Michael Phelps

Posted on Sep 17th 2008 12:00PM by Kristen Seymour

Filed Under: Diet & Weight Loss, Fitness, Celebs & Entertainment

Michael Phelps might have consumed 12,000 calories a day while training for the Beijing Olympics, but gymnast Nastia Liukin wants to make sure the world knows that not all athletes get to eat like that.

The gold medalist said that she takes in close to 1200 calories, starting with "eggs or yogurt or oatmeal" for breakfast. "Then for lunch I'll have a salad with chicken or fish or some sort of protein and then for dinner I keep it really light with probably just a piece of fish and vegetables."

Nastia Liukin(click thumbnails to view gallery)

Liukin says that it's "just enough to keep [her] energized," which is a good reminder to those of us trying to drop some pounds. Even if you're putting in serious time at the gym, as she and her Olympic teammates undoubtedly do, you still have to be careful about your diet. She might not be taking in a ton of calories, but she's making sure they're healthy ones!

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Tags: athlete, calories, diet, eat, food, meals, michael phelps, MichaelPhelps, nastia liukin, NastiaLiukin, olympics

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Kam Wilson 9-17-2008 @ 1:02PM

Do you realize how little food 1200 calories is! That's amazing she can even operate on that little bit of food. One piece of bread is over 100 calories alone, the peanut butter on that bread is 100+ calories, and the apple is 60. Wow...that's like eating barely anything!

Some diets are a whole lot easier to do than only eating 1200 calories a day!

http://www.squidoo.com/calorieshiftingdiets

Natalie 9-17-2008 @ 4:11PM

I'm amazed too, but gymnasts *are* really small. Still, I feel like they should be eating a lot more for that level of activity.

susan 9-17-2008 @ 5:07PM

Yeah 1200 seems really low for someone who expends so many calories daily. That’s the minimum a normal person who is lucky enough to go to the gym 3 times a week and is attempting to actually lose weight...not maintain it, should be consuming. I honestly don’t believe that number at all...for the amount of calories she burns daily....there's just no way 1200 is enough to sustain her. These are kids who are first off teenagers, thus naturally require more calories and then on top of that they spend minimum of 4 hours in the gym daily. There is no dietician out there that would ever tell someone with that profile to only maintain a diet of only 1200 calories. Plus only eating a bowl of oatmeal for the total daily amount of carbs is completely off as well. I never believe these types of article from magazines, especially celeb based magazines, they just make things up.

Kristin 9-18-2008 @ 2:03PM

Yes, but keep in mind that most of these girls are about 4' 11" so they need less calories that most of us anyways. the smaller your frame is, the fewer calories you need to sustain it.