You might not know it from looking at me now, but back in the day, I was a college athlete, 185 pounds of rock-hard muscle. Cue the Al Bundy comparisons:
Which is to say that, at my athletic peak I could—and did—eat like a wild man. Not to the same degree as the world’s strongest men profiled in this piece, but almost every day of freshman year, I’d eat a couple of three-egg omelets, one bagel with cream cheese, a Belgian waffle (extra butter, extra syrup, natch) and home fries. I look back on that kind of conspicuous consumption the same way Al Bundy looks back on his Polk High football days.
Still, I never had to resort to anal tampons to keep from shitting all that food out—like some of the world’s strongest men have to do. Gross.
Check that shit out and everything else that was fit to print from MEL today, below.
Must Read
“Inside the Guts of the World’s Strongest Men”
When you lift big, you gotta eat big. For the world’s strongest men, that means 12,000-plus calories a day, split into meals every hour. You know, something like this:
And that’s just breakfast.
But as explained in Newton’s Third Law, for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. And the opposite of eating big is shitting big. That’s probably why strongmen often have hemorrhoids, chronic IBS and diapers on hand at all times. READ MORE
Terror Trilogy
Tomorrow, director Paul Greengrass’ newest film, 22 July, about the 2011 Norway domestic terror attacks that killed 77 people, debuts on Netflix.
22 July marks the third film by Greengrass that’s dealt with terrorism, after United 93 (about 9/11), and Captain Phillips (about the 2009 hijacking of the Maersk Alabama by Somali pirates). I know for me personally, reliving these tragedies isn’t exactly a good time—and yet, Greengrass sees the experience as vital.
Cuz I’m Keeping It Raw
In weird Instagram trend news, dudes are going all Rocky for the #RawEggChallenge. And, evidently, they have reasons? Being smart doesn’t sound like one of them, though:
Yikes.
Bros Love Spikeball
Picture this: Clusters of dudes, shirtless and/or with shades on, serving a ball the size of a grapefruit into a taut, netted trampoline-looking platform on the beach.
This, in all its basic glory, is Spikeball. It’s neither difficult, nor particularly expensive to play. And for those reasons, the game’s bro-advocates have aspirations of turning Spikeball into the next great American pastime.
Fail So Good
It’s human nature to avoid failure—our bosses often fire us for it, our partners might leave over it and it makes us feel bad about ourselves if we can’t overcome it. But by nearly every measure, failure is a good thing, relatively speaking: It helps us learn from our mistakes, which, over time, makes us better humans.
Andrew Fiouzi spoke to a psychologist, a boxing coach, a urologist and a Mars simulation commander about just how vital screwing things up is in the context of succeeding in life.
Racists, Please Lay Off the Puppers
Why are so many bigots going with dog avatars on Twitter, and what did these fluffy love bugs ever do to them that they’d want the rest of us regular folk to associate Man’s Best Friend with their terrible ideologies?
Basic Dad Advice: Home Alone
There comes a time in every parent’s life when your kid quits accepting the reality of his constant supervision and begins asking that you not call the babysitter when you head out for date night. And when that happens—likely between 8 and 10 years old—it can be difficult to decide whether your kids are mature enough to handle being on their own. We asked a professor in human development, a 911 operator and the writer of the Home Alone book for their advice on the right age to leave your child unattended.
FitBit, More Like SickBit
Good joke, huh? But seriously folks, if the internet and *COUGH* WebMDwasn’t bad enough (eyestrain from reading too much MEL? CANCER), it’s only a matter of time before our tech wearables turn us into even bigger hypochondriacs. For example, the latest and greatest Apple Watch promises to let you know when you’re having heart problems, and can even call EMTs automatically when you fall.
That, however, is just the tip of the iceberg—pretty soon our wearables will be collecting so much information about our health status that it’s almost inevitable that people will begin self-diagnosing.
And you know what that means: CANCER!
Jeff Gross
Jeff Gross is MEL’s senior editor for social media and content marketing. His daily ICYMI column, which chronicles all things meta on the site, is the quickest way to catch up on MEL, and the funniest thing you’ll read all day. Follow him on Twitter.
