Guest Post: Dan Stephenson on Swimmers and Food

Yesterday I reviewed Dan Stephenson's debut novel The Underwater Window, which is about two friends and teammates who are hoping to make the U.S. Olympic swim team. Among the many eye-opening details about competitive swimming Stephenson reveals in his book is how hungry the athletes can become as a result of their grueling workouts.

Cover photo credit: Copyright 2012 Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing.

I asked Dan, who was an elite swimmer, to tell us a little more about the relationship between swimmers and food.

Swimmers and Food—Big Love

Michael Phelps raised some eyebrows in 2008 when he revealed that his training "diet" consists of 12,000 calories a day. That's the approximate calorie content of a small gymnast.

Michael burned off all those calories in the pool, but his revelation left the impression that swimmers eat indiscriminately, like goats—only the volume is important. I suppose I have confirmed this impression in my novel, The Underwater Window. It's a novel about two best friends and competitors in the pool, who both hope to make the Olympic team. But it's also a book that answers the probing questions the general public has about swimming—what do swimmers think about when they swim? Do they wear boxers or briefs? What do they eat? It's not surprising that many of the scenes in The Underwater Window revolve around food. In Chapter 15, Doyle Wilson and five of his teammates gather for Chinese food and a poker game after a particularly grueling practice:

"If you ever have to watch swimmers eat, be prepared to shield your eyes. It's pretty savage. We need fuel, we need a lot of it, and we need it fast. The niceties of etiquette are unimportant to us. We're oblivious to the finer nuances of taste. The six of us tore into the food like it was famine relief. After about 15 minutes, the food was gone. Every scrap, every drop, every grain of rice."

Okay, so swimmers eat fast, and they eat truckloads, but what do they eat? It depends on whether you mean before or after a big meet. After the meet, Doyle's preferred meal is two burgers, fries, and a hot fudge sundae. He dips the fries into the whipped cream on the sundae before munching. This would not make a good pre-race or pre-workout meal—it would reappear in the pool gutter. The post-race indulgence is a treat mostly because it's forbidden during training. So swimmers, who are among the most dutiful of creatures during training, eat what they should—fruits and vegetables, pasta, lean meats and fish—they just eat a lot of it

Then there are old swimmers like me, euphemistically called masters. The hopefulness of that name reminds me of my niece's pet turtle, Speedy. Masters don't swim because somebody makes them; they swim for their own reasons—to stay fit, to meet challenges, to make friends. In my case, I swim because I like to eat, and if I didn't swim, I'd look like I swallowed a bowling ball. In other words, to waterlog a famous quote from Descartes: "I eat, therefore I swim."

Thanks so much, Dan. Your watery Descartes quote made me smile. The men's swim team often had food on their brains, but considering their practice schedule, as you describe it in The Underwater Window, it's no wonder those guys had to fuel up.

I walk four to seven days a week, but if I ate half of what Doyle ate, I'd be as big as house! Of course, he's over a foot taller than I am, so it'd be pretty difficult for me to go bite for bite with him even if I did swim competitively.

Buy The Underwater Window at an Indie, Powell's, Book Depository, or a bookstore near you. These links lead to affiliate programs.
Published by Watermark, 2012
ISBN-13: 9780578108049