Last night I was watching the Olympics and saw a segment they did about Michael Phelps. During it they said Michael needs about 8,000-10,000 calories per day when training. Since I am a bacon lover I tried to think about that in terms of bacon. How much bacon could Michel eat and still be less than 10,000 calories?
I did a little bit of research and found out that the average full slice of bacon is about 40-50 calories. So I divide 10,000 by 50 and got 200 slices of bacon. A pound of bacon usually contains 16-20 slices. That means Micheal can eat 10 lbs (precooked) of bacon every day.
Realistically, I don’t think anyone would just eat 10 pounds of bacon in one day. I could see someone eating a lot of BLTs, though. Then I did some research to find out how many BLT’s Micheal could eat.
We already know that bacon is about 50 calories per slice. I use 5 slices per BLT, so that’s 250 calories from bacon. Now for everything else, two slices of white bread are 140, the lettuce and tomato are about 10, and the mayo is 90 (1 TBSP), that makes the rest of the sandwich around 240 calories. If my rough math is correct, that means an average BLT is about 490 calories. If I was a bigger fan of mayo it would probably be more.
Anyway, that means that Michael Phelps could eat 20 BLTs in one day and still be under the 10,000 calorie mark. I am not saying that would be the healthiest choice, but I think if I was in Michael’s position I would at least try to do it for one day.
If you come up with other calculations for how much food Michael can eat, please share via comments.
Jason Mosley (aka Mr. Baconpants) is the king of all bacon. He started this blog in 2004 to share his love of bacon and beer. 
Sean Brett (aka Bacon Knight) is the amazing co-host of Bacon Live, the weekly audio/video podcast about bacon and more.
Beth Mosley (aka Mrs. Baconpants) is a lover of good food and beer. She enjoys cooking and trying new recipes (with bacon).
Brilliant calculations. I would like to challenge myself to this one day.
5 slices per BLT.Back in the day,one slice would make 1 BLT. Must be nice living high on the hog like that.
GO Mike, GO for the gold
Dug,
When you’re Mr.Baconpants you use 5 per BLT.
Mike is breaking records, I wonder if bacon has something to do with it?
Will,
I want to do the same thing one day.
and this is how you spend your day. Doing math problems about bacon..
Does anyone know the square root of bacon to the 2nd power.
[...] Contact « How many BLTs could Michael Phelps eat? [...]
[...] seems that the bacon community is represented well at the 2008 Olympics. I first reported that Michael Phelps could eat 20 BLTs in one day. The bacon community cheered. Well this weekend I was watching the track and field [...]
@Matt if you cant do math problems involving Bacon then what CAN you do math problems for??? Haha
That’s a lot of bacon to consume in one day. I would think that he would have to work twice as hard to de clog his arteries after the blt mahem.
bacon is good source of energy but this is ridiculous
Inspired. I went out and ate 6 Jr. Whoppers for lunch. Then fell asleep.
It’s funny when you write that out as a function (that’s not a function by definition).
Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?
Your blog is so informative. Keep up the good work!
The square root of bacon squared (to the second power) is bacon. Which equals deliciousness.
[...] I was going to try and figure out how many BLT’s Shaun White could eat. I did the same thing for Michel Phelps back in 2008. Sadly there is no information to be found on Shaun’s diet. Even if there was, I can’t see him [...]