McDonald's -- Official Restaurant of the Olympic Games

I know, right? It's crazy. What's even crazier is when you see Olympic athletes endorsing them for money... we all know they don't eat there, except for maybe a coffee here and there.

LOL.

you would be surprised.

once you're actually in shape, not trying to lose weight... with enough muscle that your daily calorie requirements are decently high.. a McDs meal every once in awhile doesnt mean much.
I know some high level athletes that eat fast food 2 or 3 times a week... should they? thats debatable. can they? yeah.

Exactly. Once your in shape and exercise regularly, a fast food meal won't hurt because your workout will cover it!

dont kid yourselves. elite athletes eat fast food.

wrong they eat gazelles. That they chase down and kill with their bare hands

Here's an example of Michael Phelps daily 12,000 Calorie diet from a Wall Street Journal article. Not at all uncommon for elite athletes. You aren't going to get the kind of Calories you need from a bowl of parsley, a chicken breast, and a glass of water when you're at that level.

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/08/13/the-michael-phelps-diet-dont-try-it-at-home/

This is why I wish I had more time to train :laugh: . More cals burned, more calories earned... Sitting behind a desk is not ideal. Thank goodness for IF at least!

APPLES! The Official Sponsor or the Olympic Games.

Doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

I worked at McDonald's last summer and the salads are actually very popular.

Too bad many people believe that bc is a salad is healthy... wrong!!.. what's in it is what it makes it healthy.. and fresh.. many salads of restaurant chains and others are rather poor (high cal/poor content)... better go with some steak somewhere..

That is true, people can make the salads crazy high in calories if they want to with the croutons/dressing/meat options.

However, I was surprised by the choices people made. Most people opted out of croutons and chose the vinaigrette or low fat Italian. And if meat was ordered, it was usually the grilled chicken, which, yes, is high in sodium, but not too bad as far as calories go. McDonald's salads include 3 servings of veggies, so if you make the right choices, as most people seemed to do, it's not bad.

Got to give my lovely customers some credit

It's funny how all these people are commenting on Olympic athletes when they really have NO IDEA on their diets. Well let me give you some accurate info.
Many of the athletes use up energy well into 6,000+ calories per day. They train an average of 5 hours (some even more) per day at their sport and then there's physical training (lifting, plyo work, flexibility, etc.) for another couple of hours. It would be difficult to eat "clean" an support an 6,000 calorie daily expenditure with 7-10 hours of it training hard. So guess where they get a lot of their calories from? Junk food. Yep. You heard it right.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
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This is true... A friend of mine is a University of Oregon Cheerleader, and she's always eating junk food, but I know how hardcore her training is during the season. It May not be healthy, but when you need calories, McDonald's has plenty! lol

i think all the athletes are better off promoting subway then mcdonalds. just because of the obesity problem in this country in the kids since the kids look up to these athletes as role models.

so crap food that APPEARS healthy is better then crap food thats honest about being crap?

next you're going to tell me their whole wheat bread is best, because it contains caramel color (the main diff between their whole wheat and white is nothing more then the dye...)

I must be doing something wrong because McDonalds in my mind is the BEST CHOICE to get a decent lunch that isn't a belly buster.

A 250cal grilled honey mustard snack wrap and a unsweatened Iced tea with 3 pack of equal.
Even TWO of these and your lunch ends up at about 508 cals.

Article in today's Wall Street Journal: "Olympic Alchemy: Turning Junk Food Into Gold"

U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte ate McDonald's food for nearly every meal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and won four medals, including gold in the 200-meter backstroke. He's since turned over a new leaf, cutting out fast food and winning gold last weekend in 400-meter individual relay. But, really, why bother?

The Olympic workouts of elite swimmers burn up thousands of calories and trigger training table menus that sound like the wish list for a kid's birthday party: Big Macs, Mountain Dew, Skittles, chocolate milk.

"I love fatty desserts," said Nathan Adrian, who swam on the silver-medal-winning 4-by-100-meter freestyle relay. He can't resist milk with warm "Funfetti," a home-baked white cake stuffed and topped with rainbow sprinkles.

"I live with two girls, my housemates, and for the longest time I was like, 'Dude, I'm training for the Olympics and the Olympic trials. You can't make me these stupid Funfetti cakes,' " he said. "But if they're just sitting there, I can't not eat them."

Adrian's ripped 6-foot-6, 220-pound physique hasn't suffered.

Olympic butterfly swimmer Kathleen Hersey's name echoes her indulgence. "Dark, white, milk—I can't find a chocolate I don't get along with," she said.

American breaststroker Scott Weltz isn't big on dessert—he's lactose-intolerant so ice cream is out. But he is a "greasy cheeseburger kind of guy," he said, "cheeseburgers, grease, anything like that, I'm a big fan of."

Few doctors would recommend a fast-food or high-sugar diet, but Olympians don't play by normal rules.

Breaststroker Breeja Larson eats about 7,000 to 9,000 calories a day during peak training, said Diana Harbourt, assistant director of performance nutrition at Texas A&M. The 6-foot Larson doesn't show it. She has 11% body fat. "It's not recommended for women to go below 12%," Harbourt said. "But each individual is different, and she's just exceptional."

Distance swimmer Conor Dwyer likes brownie sundaes. Gold medalist Missy Franklin prefers regular sundaes topped with Gummi bears.

"I cringe when I see these reports about refined sugars being bad for people," said Joel Stager, a physiologist and the director of the Counsilman Center for the Science of Swimming at Indiana University. "That may be true. But athletes, that's about the only way they can get the stuff in. You certainly wouldn't recommend that to the general population, but when you're training five, 5½ hours a day in the water, it's tough to make that up with bagels and cornflakes."

Stager and his associates discovered several years ago that the sugar and nutrients in chocolate milk made it the optimal after-swim food. Allison Schmitt was swigging some after her 200-meter freestyle semifinal Monday.

Michael Phelps told Details magazine he eats what he wants, including "Sour Patch Kids, Reese's or a bag of chips." His coach, Bob Bowman said, "I don't think he eats a lot of garbage."

Lochte, Phelps's teammate, cut out most fast food in the years leading up to the London Games. He blistered Phelps and the field in the 400-meter individual medley on Saturday to win his second-ever individual gold.

"We sat down the other night, he had a salmon salad," said U.S. team coach Gregg Troy during the Olympic trials last month. "That's a whole different deal."

Lochte still has a sweet tooth. Each night of the trials, Lochte's father handed him a favorite childhood treat—Skittles, the rainbow-colored candy.

Garrett Weber-Gale, who won two golds during swim relays in Beijing, has since apprenticed at restaurants in Italy and New York and started AthleticFoodie.com. He has railed against refined sugars and connected his Olympic prowess at the last Games to his hand-prepared meals.

He won't get another chance in London. At the trials last month, he finished eighth in 100-meter freestyle.

I must be doing something wrong because McDonalds in my mind is the BEST CHOICE to get a decent lunch that isn't a belly buster.

A 250cal grilled honey mustard snack wrap and a unsweatened Iced tea with 3 pack of equal.
Even TWO of these and your lunch ends up at about 508 cals.

True. My skinny guy friends don't like eating there because the portion sizes aren't "big enough". Compared to other fast food places, it's easy to pick something that's not over the top.