Becoming the World’s Strongest Man required Eddie Hall to consume eye-watering amounts of food every single day.
But while the enormous calorie intake helped power him to the biggest title in Strongman, Hall has admitted there was one unavoidable side effect that made life miserable – and it involved spending a huge portion of his day in the bathroom.
Speaking on The Terry Stone Connection Podcast, the 2017 World’s Strongest Man lifted the lid on the extreme diet he followed during his competitive years, revealing the brutal reality of eating enough food to fuel his body at its heaviest.
At the peak of his career, Hall weighed close to 200kg and regularly consumed around 12,000 calories a day to maintain his size and recover from punishing training sessions. That meant eating almost constantly from the moment he woke up until he went to bed.
His daily menu included some astonishing meals.
Hall revealed he would regularly eat half a family-sized cheesecake twice a day, consume huge amounts of steak and chicken, and drink litres of cranberry juice alongside his meals in an effort to pack in as many calories as possible.
Unsurprisingly, his digestive system struggled to keep up.
Reflecting on the demands of eating so much food every day, Hall said: “I was blowing up the toilet five or six times a day.”
He admitted the constant eating became one of the hardest parts of being a professional strongman.
“People think the training is the hardest bit. It isn’t. The eating is the hardest bit. You’ve got to force-feed yourself all day, every day,” he said.
Hall explained that every aspect of his life revolved around becoming stronger.
Meals were planned with military precision, recovery became a full-time job and every calorie had a purpose. There was little room for enjoying food when the priority was simply consuming enough to keep up with the demands of elite competition.
Although the lifestyle was extreme, Hall believes it was necessary to reach the top of the sport.
The former Strongman went on to win the 2017 World’s Strongest Man title after years of finishing just short of the summit, before retiring from elite competition shortly afterwards.
Looking back, he says people often admire the records, trophies and incredible feats of strength without appreciating the sacrifices that happened behind the scenes.
For Hall, that included not only relentless training sessions and enormous food bills, but also enduring the uncomfortable consequences of eating around 12,000 calories every day.
It’s a side of professional strongman that fans rarely see, but one Hall was more than happy to laugh about as he reflected on the extraordinary lengths he went to in pursuit of becoming the strongest man on the planet.
Featured image credit: Eddie Hall / Instagram / The Good, The Bad, & The Rugby / YouTube
