UrbanUpdate

Going into the Rio Olympics, Ryan Crouser was a virtual unknown. Although he had won a handful of NCAA championships, his collegiate shot put career was also marred by just as many injuries. Besides, he was working towards a master’s degree in the build up to the 2016 games. Then he crushed it during the Olympic trials and brought home a gold medal from Brazil in his very first attempt, setting an Olympic shot put record in the process. Now, as a full-time professional athlete, he’s setting his sights towards the upcoming USATF Outdoor Championships.

GQ: One of the things I was most interested to ask you now that you’re an Olympic gold medalist—which, congratulations, by the way.

Ryan Crouser: Thank you!

But did you have a celebratory meal after winning the gold? Did you go out in Brazil and celebrate or have any kind of big blowout celebration meal?

What they don’t tell you is after you win an Olympic gold medal, your next 24 hours are almost booked solid with media. So the meal I had afterwards was a fast-food hamburger from a downtown sidewalk kiosk thing. That was the only thing we could find because I didn’t leave the stadium and finish with media and get back to see my family until 3 A.M. But I had a hamburger and a beer, which at the time was as good as anything because that was the first time in the whole time I was in Rio that I got to see my family. Everything was locked down so tight with training and everything all the security stuff there was crazy. So it wasn’t anything special, but being in the company of my family and friends there at 3 A.M. with an Olympic gold medal made it a pretty memorable meal.

It’s funny that you bring up fast-food burgers, because I spoke with Christian Taylor recently and he mentioned how popular McDonald’s always is for a lot of the Olympic athletes.

It was absolutely crazy. There was a line anywhere from an hour to two hours the entire time that McDonald’s was open. Everything is free and I think they had a limit that was 24 burgers per person. They went through a lot of McDonald’s in those two weeks.

That still blows my mind. The last thing you would think that all these Olympic athletes would be putting in their bodies the week of the actual Olympics is Mickey D’s.

Yeah, I stayed away from it. I was so focused in on training so I didn’t get any McDonald’s. But I was amazed at how many athletes were there.

You’re six foot seven, right? You’re a huge dude. So even if you weren’t this Olympic gold medal winning shot put superstar, I‘d imagine that you’d have to consume a lot of food anyways. So how much food are you actually consuming in a day?

I’m definitely eating a lot. And for me, the biggest thing is eating often. I try to eat five meals a day and include a couple of snacks here and there. The biggest thing for me is trying to never go more than three hours without eating, that way my body always has the nutrients to keep growing and recovering muscle. I don’t necessarily eat huge meals at a time, I just try to have about a thousand calories. Still, about half of what a normal person should eat in a day, five times a day.

What type of foods are you typically looking to consume?

I’ve found for me that a really balanced diet definitely works best. I mean, I’ve done all kinds of different food plans—one that kind of tilts towards more protein, one more carbs. But for me, I have a pretty fundamental diet. I’m definitely trying to get a lot of protein—close to about 300 grams of protein a day, so that’s definitely a lot. I try to get a gram for every pound of body weight. A lot of that is coming from chicken. I eat some read meat, but I try to mostly go with chicken and fish. Then the biggest thing that I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is carbs right after I work out. Everyone just really pushes protein, and I used to only do protein right after I finish, but then I kind of feel rough. So for helping me recover I’ll eat some carbs right after I finish as well as a lot of protein. And then in the morning I try to do more fats. That’s also help me. I really feel good when I get some healthy fats earlier in the day. I can feel different joints and everything feeling better.

I’ve actually been trying to put an emphasis on eating more healthy fats in the morning, because I’m terrible about breakfast. And I’ve found that it has helped me a lot with staying satiated for a better part of the day. I’m not starving come 11 o’clock anymore.

For me that’s not too much of a problem, just because... It’s funny, because everybody always thinks that athletes are kind of training themselves not to eat as much, but in my case I actually have to train myself to eat more. If I’m just trying to maintain weight, I have to be at 4,000 to 5,000 calories. When I’m trying to gain, I’m between 5,500 and 6,000 calories for the day. So it’s almost like training to try and get that much food in me and always trying to make it pretty good food. I mean, it’s easy to get some fast food and hit 6,000 calories, but that’s not always what’s best for the body.

With how much food you have to consume throughout the day and how frequently you’re eating, have you gone and worked with any of these meal-prep services or anything like that?

So I really like cooking myself, especially because I can kind of make it to my own proportions and do my own meal prep. But I’ve actually moved out to the Olympic Training Center in San Diego, so they’ve got a dining hall program set up that’s open from seven in the morning until eight at night. That makes meals really easy. It’s kind of like buffet style. So the meals here aren’t a problem with meal prep or anything. Pretty much everything is taken care of.

You know, we hear all the time nowadays about sports teams building these incredible performance centers with state of the art fitness and recovery elements, but they don’t always put so much attention towards things that can aid in nutrition. So it’s awesome to hear that the Olympic Training Center offers that to you guys.

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Yeah, a lot of people definitely underestimate the power of nutrition and diet in general. As an elite athlete—or just anybody starting out—the progress that you make is really two-thirds in the weight room and on the field, and the other third is just food and nutrition, really. It’s a huge aspect that definitely gets underdeveloped.

Definitely. This question sort of harkens back to my very first question, but before a big competition of before the Olympics, the day of your event, do you have a ritual meal of some sort?

I tend to cut back a little bit calorie-wise the day before and especially the day of. I’ll eat on big meal usually the night before and kind of do the metaphorical carb loading—eat something with a lot of carbs and usually I feel pretty good the next day. But the closer it gets to the competition for me, the harder I find it for myself to eat. The body kind of gets nervous and a little jittery. I definitely tend to perform a little bit better the day of on lighter meals and a more empty stomach.

You’ve mentioned the importance of getting carbs in—what is your go-to carb that helps you perform the best?

I like pastas a lot, especially a nice whole-grain pasta. It gives a nice combination of complex carbs and it’s pretty straightforward. I eat a fair amount of bread, as well. Probably more than I should. I’m a big fan of some well-made bread. I definitely love that.

Who doesn’t! Rio was your first time at the Olympics. You’ve got the USATF Outdoor Championships this weekend in Sacramento. Was there any big takeaway from your success at the Olympics that goes into preparing for an event like the Outdoor Championships? Anything new that you learned?

For me, I came out of college, finished my master’s degree in finance at the University of Texas last May, and then kind of just went straight into Olympic trials and then to Rio. So it’s been a big change this year adjusting throughout the fall and this winter to being a full-time professional athlete. Before I was really a student athlete with a definite emphasis on student. Athletics kind of took a backseat and I was trying to work my meals and nutrition in around classes. I finished my master’s degree in one year, so that was tough on training and eating because you have eight hours of class a day. Trying to eat around that was tough. Now I have realized that as a professional athlete, you’re not just training two or three hours a day. It’s a 24-hour job. Now my meals are extremely structured. I wake up and eat breakfast at the same time every day. I have a lighter first lunch at noon. Then a second lunch. Then I come back after the weight room and eat dinner at 5. Then we call it dinner number two at 7:30. Everything is really structured now and I really feel like I’ve made a full-time commitment to eating now.

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Do you ever get sick of having to eat so much food throughout the day?

There are a lot of meals where I just sit down and I stare at my food for a little bit. I almost have to find some motivation to put that meal away and kind of push through it. It’s not always the most enjoyable thing having such a structured meal plan. There are times that I really feel like I am training when I’m trying to eat dinner. People always tend to think that athletes can eat whatever and whenever they want, because they’re burning so many calories. Bit if you’re trying to really make progress and perfect and push your body’s limits, you have to be eating pretty much exactly on the time schedule and it’s not whatever foods you want. You have to eat what your body needs at that point of the day. So it’s a challenge, but it’s just another thing that you perfect as you go.

Last question: How often do you allow yourself a cheat meal?

Usually on Thursdays we have a group of guys and our cheat meal is we go to Chick-fil-A. I get two classic chicken sandwiches with a large fry and then a large lemonade. It’s definitely something I look forward to. I love Chick-fil-A lemonade. It’s not the best for me, but it’s good for the soul.

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