Strictly star Tom Dean's 7,000 calorie diet and 'tough' conversation before Olympics

Tom Dean, who is currently starring in the latest series of Strictly Come Dancing, has opened up on the "tough" conversation he was forced to have with his friends

Strictly Come Dancing's golden boy Tom Dean has opened up about the sacrifices he had to make while mingling with his uni pals as he trained for Olympic stardom.

The 24-year-old, who began his love affair with water at just eight with Maidenhead Marlins, is now a three-time Olympic champ in the 4x200 metres freestyle relay. Yet, it hasn't all been smooth sailing for the swim sensation; balancing a mechanical engineering degree at the University of Bath with gruelling training sessions at the National Swimming Centre.

Recalling his college years on the Paul Chowdhry podcast, Tom revealed the challenging social navigation as his mates questioned his lifestyle choices, aimed firmly at one day becoming an Olympian.

"It's about everything outside the pool, what you eat and not drinking and living clean and all that good stuff. I tell you what was tough was, before I went to the Olympics, when I was like 'no I'm not going to go out, I'm not going to drink', and they were like 'why, what are you doing? '" shared Tom.

He continued: "And I was like 'well I might go to the Olympics at some point, that was a tough bit. I used to be like 'I've got to train tomorrow morning' and they would say well 'why don't you have a day off? ' It doesn't really work like that, that was a funny one.", reports the Mirror.

Tom, who won two medals at the Tokyo Olympics three summers ago, including becoming the individual 200 metres freestyle champion and securing a relay victory, was unable to defend his individual title in Paris due to intense competition at the Olympic trials.

The towering 6ft 4in athlete made his debut on the Strictly Come Dancing floor last week with his partner Nadiya Bychkova. The duo performed a tango to Harry Styles's hit song 'Golden', earning them 23 points.

Tom kick-started his career by setting records at the European Junior Championships in 2017 and 2018, where he clinched gold in the 200m individual medley. In 2021, he became the first British male swimmer in 113 years to win two golds at the same Olympics, both individually and as part of his team.

During a podcast interview, Tom shared the diet regimen he follows to maintain his physique. He explained: "It's more like the amount you've got to eat through the day. The diet plan is basically eat as much as you can, I'm on like 7,000 calories a day."

"So it's like two big breakfasts, big lunch, snacks before and after training. For breakfast I have a bowl of porridge, fruit and peanut butter and bananas and stuff beforehand and then afterwards I'll have almost a Full English basically, eggs, sausage, toast, beans, mushrooms."

"Big lunch, snacks before training, normally like a peanut butter bagel, cereal bars, bananas, yogurt, granola before bed because if I don't I'll wake up in the night because I'm hungry. I wake up at like 3am, I've got to go downstairs and make myself some food in the kitchen."

"I've been sat at my kitchen having bagels at three in the morning and you've got to get up for training a few hours after that."