Eddie Hall, the first man to deadlift 500kg, once ate 20,000 calories in 24 hours

One of the best – and worst – things about getting into bodybuilding is that, when you’re in bulking mode, you need to eat a tonne of food if you want to put on mass.

If you want to build big muscles then your body needs the fuel, it’s as simple as that. Hard work and protein shakes will only go so far.

Take it from Eddie Hall, a former World’s Strongest Man and the first person to ever lift 500kg off the floor. His 2016 deadlift has only since been exceeded by his rival, Hafþór Björnsson from Iceland, who played Gregor ‘The Mountain’ Clegane in Game of Thrones.

Björnsson lifted 501kg, although Hall has criticised the lift for being undertaken in what he views as an unofficial capacity.

It’s fair to say that both men, whatever their differences, have pushed the envelope for what the human body is capable of.

Hall lifting over 500kg of copies of his own book (John Phillips / Stringer/Getty Images)

Getting to that kind of strength requires an insane amount of muscle, and a ridiculously calorific diet to match. Hall has revealed that he once ate 20,000 calories in just 24 hours, which is around 10 times the recommended calorie intake for an adult.

Hall, speaking on @RobMooreDisruptors on YouTube, said it was ‘the worst day of my life’ whilst detailing the repercussions of eating such a huge amount of food.

During bulking season, he would regularly eat somewhere between 12,500 and 15,000 calories, but he decided to go all out for what he dubbed a ‘cheat day’.

"There were days when it was a Sunday and you'd have a day of recovery and pile on the calories to help that recovery process to help you train harder for the week coming,” he said.

"When I was in a big bulking season, I'd have litre of ice-cream after every single meal - and they were big meals. I'd have a full English breakfast, a litre of ice-cream; snacks in between; lunch would be half a kilo of steak, rice, pasta, vegetables... a litre of ice-cream.

"Then snacks up until dinner time, then a massive chicken curry, bolognese with a kilo of pasta - and then a litre of ice-cream. It was just a way of piling the calories on - not the healthiest."

He expanded the calorie intake to 20,000 calories by eating a litre of double cream throughout the day.

"By the end of the day, this litre of double cream had gone and, f*** me, it was the worst day of my f****** life. I spent the whole night s****ing myself, throwing up, s****ing through the eye of a needle," he added.

"Never again - I learnt my lesson. The human body can only take so much. I felt my limit that day."

Hall a few months before he broke the world deadlift record (James Baylis - AMA/Getty Images)

That said, he admitted that he’d give it another go if someone were to offer him £100,000 as ‘everyone’s got their price’.

Along with being the first person to lift half a tonne, Hall became the World’s Strongest Man in 2017 and was the UK’s Strongest Man between 2011 and 2017.