2.7 kg chicken per day, 0.3% body fat: How Ronnie Coleman prepared for Mr. Olympia

Ronnie Coleman is a revered name in the world of body-building. The ‘real-life version of The Hulk’, as people used to call him due to his superhuman physiques, won Mr. Olympia a record eight times. Coleman was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame and is generally regarded as the greatest body-builder of all time.

Coleman was the latest guest on renowned UFC commentator and comedian Joe Rogan’s famous podcast ‘Joe Rogan Experience’. In the 90-minute episode, Coleman discussed a variety of topics with Rogan about his career, size, and his training for Mr. Olympia. Coleman also revealed his diet and body fat ratio on the podcast, which was something that shocked Rogan and most of the viewers.

“What a lot of people don’t understand is you see me big up there, but it took a long time for me to get there I didn’t get there overnight. I put on … between five and 10 pounds (2-4.5kg) of muscle a year, and that came from all that heavy lifting (and) a lot of eating, a lot of eating.”

“It wasn’t a lot to me but if someone normal tried to eat it, it would probably be a lot. So I’d eat a pound (450g) of chicken, grilled breast with half a cup of rice.”

“I had about six meals a day.”

“It’s kind of hard to eat like that so I would have to wake up in the middle of the night to eat and go back to sleep. You kind of get used to it. When you eat like that, you get hungry every three hours. Every two or three hours you’re hungry because I’m not eating a lot of fat. It’s lean, I’m not eating a lot of carbs so it’s a little bit of food at a time.”

56-year-old Coleman said that he only started professional body-building to get a free gym membership. And when he started doing it, Coleman said he achieved a body fat of 0.33 percent, which is astonishing. Rogan reconfirmed with Coleman on what he was saying as he could not believe it.

“That’s less than half a percent,” Coleman clarified.

Rogan replied: “What? How does a human get that low?”

Coleman explained that some of the things he achieved are due to genetics and many people won’t be able to get there even if they try.