J.J. Watt

J.J. Watt is crushing bacon-wrapped chicken to fuel 9,000-calorie diet

Published Aug. 13, 2015 1:35 p.m. ET

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Teddy Mitrosilis

How do you sculpt a physique like this?

Two things: Lift lots of weight and eat lots of food.

Like 9,000 calories worth of food.

In June, J.J. Watt discussed his eating habits on colleague Jimmy Traina's podcast, and now in an interview with ESPN he adds more. Watt explained how he noticed his energy level was down during a tough workout this offseason. He didn't understand why until he spoke with his longtime trainer and realized the problem was simple: He wasn't eating enough. "My body was grabbing for something that wasn't there," Watt said in the interview. "It was trying to fuel itself with no fuel."

What Watt needed to do was add more fat, more carbs and more calories back into his diet.

The Houston Texans stud targeted between 6,000 and 9,000 calories per day depending on his activity level (for example, during two-a-days, he's pushing for the upper end of that range). To consume that many calories, Watt started scarfing tons of protein, quality fats and bringing cheat days back into his life once a week. "I started crushing avocados," Watt said.

If Watt ate, say, eight chicken breasts in one sitting, his trainer suggested wrapping three of those in bacon in addition to adding more sweet potatoes, more pasta and more olive oil, among other fats, to his day. Watt didn't reveal his specific diet plan in detail, but ESPN's Tania Ganguli concluded that it would take 20 chicken breasts, 50 slices of bacon and 13 full avocados to reach 9,000 calories in one day (those aren't the only things Watt is eating, though, of course).

The best part of Watt's new license to consume an incredible amount of food? His once-a-week brunch cheat day.

"I love brunch," Watt told ESPN. "Brunch is my favorite meal. I went there, had brunch, had a massive potato pancake omelet, which is an omelet inside a potato pancake. Then I had stuffed French toast with berries and stuff. My cheat meals aren't even that exciting. That was my cheat meal. The omelet is still pretty darn healthy. The stuffed French toast was the cheat meal, but that was delicious."

Watt isn't going quite as crazy as swimmer Michael Phelps, who famously trained for the 2008 Olympics on a 12,000-calorie-per-day diet, but he admits eating has pretty much become his second job. "It's literally, if I'm not working out, I eat the whole time I'm not working out," Watt said. "It's exhausting. You have to force feed. You have to force yourself to eat food."

Read the full piece for more.

Teddy Mitrosilis works in social content development at FOX Sports Digital. Follow him on Twitter @TMitrosilis and email him at tmitrosilis@gmail.com.

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J.J. Watt

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