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Look: What sport's athletes need to eat the most?

Fanatics

It takes a lot of calories to fuel a professional athlete. Just ask Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt, who consumes between 6,000 and 9,000 per day.

In this study from Fanatics, the company looked at several professional sports and calculated how many calories on average athletes use weekly and burn in an average training session.

Here are some of their findings:

  • NBA stars consume 54,392 calories per week as fuel for games - more than double that of the average active male (21,000). They also burn up to 43 lemonade cups worth of calories in one practice.
  • The MET (metabolic equivalent) calorie intake of MLB players sits at 3,562 daily. That's equivalent to 28 slices of French toast or 54 poached eggs.
  • Wrestlers require 46,433 calories per week, which works out to a little over 233 cheese quesadillas or about 161 cheeseburgers.

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