No, Celebrities Don’t Need to Eat 8,000 Calories to Gain Weight.
Hugh Jackman recently posted a photo of an 8,000 calorie packaged meal with the caption, “Get mass. A day in the life.” Gossip headlines ran the number, reporting that Jackman was “eating 8,300 calories” to prepare for his role as Wolverine. But is that really the case? Does anyone do that?
While it certainly takes a lot of food to train hard and build muscle, the specific number given here is probably an exaggeration – just like when Michael Phelps reportedly ate 12,000 calories to prepare for the Olympics. (He later said he definitely wasn’t .)
But, man, it’s certainly dramatic to talk about such a large number. Most of us only talk about calories in the context of restrictions: we want to stay below 2000 calories, or we are thinking about a 1200 calorie diet, even though most people need more than 2000 calories , and 1200 is essentially a starvation diet . When we see such a large number, we are horrified that it is so large, but we also do not have a frame of reference that would make us not believe it.
What is the purpose of such a high-calorie diet?
If you spend most of your time dieting (or thinking about dieting), you may have to step out of your comfort zone to read this, but often, in order to stay healthy or pursue an athletic goal, a person must eat more than they would otherwise. case. . Sometimes they have to eat even if they are not really hungry.
For example, a high-level marathon runner who runs 100 miles every week in training needs to fuel up every step of that mile, which can mean snacking on the run and large meals after the workout is over. If they don’t meet their body’s nutritional needs, they can lose weight and even muscle and bone mass in the process. Malnutrition is a major problem for the health and performance of athletes . And yes, sometimes the amount of calories an athlete needs can be overwhelming.
Another reason to eat more is to gain weight. Jackman is trying to build muscle for his role as Wolverine in Deadpool 3, and he needs a lot of food both to fuel the workouts he does and to provide the raw materials, like protein, to build muscle tissue itself.
It’s not just actors who bulk up: bodybuilders typically spend most of their off-season bulking up to build muscle, and strength athletes of all kinds (like weightlifters) bulk up from time to time to build more muscle and get stronger. No matter how much energy you expend in daily life and in training, you need to eat more to give your body enough surplus to be able to gain weight.
How many calories do people actually consume when gaining mass?
To get an estimate of the number of calories a person can eat while gaining mass, go to a calculator like tdeecalculator.net and enter your height and weight. Knowing your body fat percentage will help too, as it tells the calculator how much of your weight is muscle. (The more muscle mass you have, the more energy your body needs.)
For example, in a short woman, the calculator calculated that my basal metabolic rate is 1421, and with moderate exercise, I probably burn a total of 2200 calories per day. At the “athletic” level of exercise, which is probably closer to the truth, my total calorie expenditure is 2700. I happen to be currently gaining mass (probably the only thing I have in common with Hugh Jackman), and I know from experience that I need to consume about 3,000 calories if I want to continue gaining weight.
I calculated Hugh Jackman’s height and weight as I found it on a celebrity gossip site (6ft 2in and 185lbs, but please take this as a completely unverified estimate) and we got a BMR of 1800 and an “athletic” calorie burn of about 3500 So in order to gain mass, he will likely need something like 4,000 calories per day if he exercises a lot. This is not a ceiling, perhaps he is training harder than the calculator suggests. slightly higher for fidelity, so even if he skips a meal, sometimes he will still be in excess.
I can’t tell exactly how many calories Hugh Jackman actually eats, but the rivalry he has with his co-star Ryan Reynolds could have something to do with the fact that his Day in the Life post contains about double more calories. the number of calories someone of his size should eat for body weight. I find it interesting that there are two boxes of each color in the picture. What if his food is cooked to provide about 4,000 calories a day, with some extra snacks and desserts?
Jackman previously said that his trainer made him eat 4,500 calories a day when he performed on The Music Man . He also said that sticking to that number was “ugly” and said he’s been “just eating and exercising” since January. It sounds like he’s feeling better now, not that he’s eating almost twice as much.
For another data point, let’s compare him to Michael Phelps. The Olympic swimmer reportedly ate 12,000 calories a day, but as far as I can tell, he never actually said he ate that – that number was calculated by reporters. He has since said he has eaten between 8,000 and 10,000 , which is still a lot . Studies on athletes have shown that no matter how much they eat, the human digestive system can’t handle eating more than 2.5 times our BMR in the long run . For Phelps, that would be about 5,500 calories, although it’s probably safe to assume that Olympic athletes are not like the rest of us and that he was quite able to use more calories than that for short periods of time at the peak of his training. (It’s also possible that he was aiming for 8,000 or more, but he actually didn’t manage to eat that much every day.)
A review of research on the eating habits of bodybuilders found that the average calorie intake during mass gain is about 3,800 calories per day for men and 3,300 for women. So, if you want to know what people who are trying to gain muscle usually eat, here you go.