It's no secret that athletes such as gold-medal swimmer Michael Phelps have to eat a high number of calories to get through a day's training.

These athletes can burn about 15 to 20 calories a minute. After four to five hours of intense strength and endurance training, they have to put most of those calories back if they want to keep up that pace. Their menus, however, consist of more than wheat germ and oatmeal, according to a report in The New York Times.

The newspaper did a quick survey of some Olympic trainers to find out the foods they force down their athletes' throats on a daily basis. In general, these athletes have to get 4,000 to 6,000 calories in their bodies a day, and some trainers believe the best way to hit that mark is from foods that have lots of fat and sugar and less nutritional value.

Some of these diet staples include a pound of pasta with olive oil, cheese pizza, Ben & Jerry's cheesecake-brownie ice cream, Snickers candy bars, Pop-Tarts, a dozen eggs, and even beer.

Now I'm starting to understand why the International Olympic Committee still considers marijuana to be a performance-enhancing drug, even without hot dog eating as an Olympic event.

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