Story highlights
Consumes 3.6K calories a day in training
Breakfast includes 5 poached eggs
Nearly double average intake for age group
Swimmer Phelps ate 12K calories per day
It’s no secret that it takes a tremendous work ethic to become a boxing champion, but having a tremendous appetite is just as vital.
Just ask IBF heavyweight belt-holder Anthony Joshua.
The 6-foot 6-inch, 234-pounder from Watford, England puts away nearly 3,600 calories daily – almost double the 2,000-calorie FDA recommended intake for adults – while in training.
His breakfast alone features five poached eggs over brown toast to accompany a bowl of porridge, a bowl of fruit, two cups of yogurt, and one cup of hot water, honey, lemon and ginger. He washes it all down with a liter of water.
Joshua’s breakfast of champions consists of 1,095 calories, 42.8 grams of fat, 110.6 grams of carbohydrates and 54.7 grams of protein.
Lunch for the 26-year-old Olympic gold medalist includes two jacket potatoes with canned tuna and a plate of beetroot (a relatively modest 754 calories), while Joshua ends his day with a mound of chicken and rice plus sides of avocado and hummus (1,741 calories).
Joshua’s biggest indulgence, however, would appear fairly innocuous to most: The traditionally British dessert of apple crumble, with a side of ice cream.
“I think you have to throw in a bit of guilty pleasure just to keep it sane,” he admits, adding that he has the ability to get even larger – though that would be detrimental to his performance in the ring.
“Yeah, (I can get bigger) mass-wise if I wanted to, easy. But, this is boxing, this isn’t a bodybuilding competition, so I try to use my frame to be a good boxer, not to be as big as possible,” he says.
Joshua – who has a record of 17-0 with 17 knockouts – acknowledges that his diet is large, but recoils at the idea of eating anything close to amount of food digested by his friend, former pro wrestler and now Hollywood action hero Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
