Olympic gold medalist spends $1,000/month on food: 'It's a pretty significant investment in my athletic performance'

At six-foot-seven and 320 pounds, two-time Olympic champion Ryan Crouser needs a lot of food to fuel his quest for gold.

The shot put star, who took home the gold medal in his event at both Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, must consume roughly 5,000 calories a day to maintain his size and strength.

A typical breakfast might consist of a five-egg omelet with cheese and a quarter pound of turkey sausage followed by two servings of oatmeal and a cup of blueberries. For his two lunches he'll have a pound of lean ground beef or chicken and 12 ounces of rice. Dinner, meanwhile, is shared with his girlfriend.

"We'll follow a recipe for a family of four. She has one serving and I'll have the other three. A normal serving for most dinners is around 400 calories, so three servings gives me 1,200," he says.

That's all to say, Crouser is used to racking up large grocery bills at his local Sam's Club.

"It definitely gets expensive. I'm at $200 to $250 a week for myself alone," he says. "The way that I look at it is that it's a pretty significant investment in my athletic performance."

The current world record holder, who spoke to Make It while promoting his partnership with Thorne, doesn't pinch pennies when it comes to buying the best ingredients he can. He'll splurge on organic, grass-fed beef even if costs him "30% to 40% more" than the alternative.

"If I'm getting higher quality food in, I'm getting higher quality training out," he says. "I can tell without a doubt that I train better and perform better. As an investment, it makes financial sense."

As he looks to once again take home gold at Paris 2024, the self-coached Crouser sat down with CNBC Make It to discuss his approach to training for the Olympics.

Now 31, Crouser's body doesn't bounce