Ryback Talks About His Eating Habits And Funny Stories

Ryback recently did an interview with FirstWeFeast.com where he talked about all of his meals and his time on Tough Enough, he routinely snuck food in.

Let’s talk about the origin of “Feed me more.” You first said the phrase into a camera after winning a match early in your Ryback run. It just gained steamed from there, right?

Yeah, it happened when they were just giving me local guys. I personally wasn’t happy. I wanted to be fighting main roster talents. I was getting guys half my size, then it was two guys half my size. One day, I just looked at them—Vince, Triple H, Stephanie, Kevin Dunn, everyone in charge—and just screamed, “Feed me more!” It just came out. I’ve had other [catchphrases], like “Ryback rules!,” that were a little more premeditated. “Feed me more” was natural and just happened. It’s kind of how I’ve lived my whole life. I’ve always said, ‘More is never enough.’ I feel like [“Feed me more”] could take off any chance we let it because every human being, at their very core, understands “Feed me more.” All of us have an ego. All of us are never satisfied. You give a homeless man on the street a hundred dollars. His first instinct might be to be thankful, but I guarantee you he wants more. It doesn’t matter what you apply it to: food, just life in general. Everybody wants more. It’s one of those things that the people understood and kids understand. It took off, so I’m very thankful for that.

The other reason we chose you for this interview was we saw that great package from your Tough Enough days where Al Snow talks about how you can’t stop eating and snuck food in. Was Al exaggerating those stories to make them more entertaining or were they accurate?

It’s funny ’cause everything he said was entirely true. I remember one thing that always bothered me [was him saying], ‘He sweats when he eats.’ I was very sick throughout all of Tough Enough with bronchitis. I got pneumonia shortly thereafter. I was a mess from being sick, which is the reason why I was sweating. I don’t sweat when I eat unless you put blazing chicken hot wings in front of me for a wing-eating contest.

Tell us the Rice Krispie Treat story:

I’m not big on normally eating sugars or a lot of junk, but we were traveling and we would do these eight-hour training sessions—sometimes just all day. I ate a huge meal. I remember that I was still starving, and all I could find was Rice Krispies Treats, so I bought like three or four of ‘em. I remember Bill Demott, who was my original trainer at Deep South Wrestling and is now the lead trainer down at the Performance center, would get hot at me over little things. He was like, ‘You’re eating again?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He goes, ‘If you eat that Rice Krispies Treat, I’m going to punch you in the face.’ I said, ‘Punch me in the face. I’m eating this Rice Krispies Treat,’ and he did. He punched me in the face—not as hard as he could but not as soft as he could either. He’s a very large man, if you’ve ever seen Bill DeMott. I got up and I was very angry with him. I got on a moving escalator and right in front of him, ate all the Rice Krispies Treats.

Give us a food profile of yourself. What do you like to eat? Can you cook at all?

Right now, I’m here in Vegas. I got whole wheat protein pasta cooking and a whole pound of steak cut up, loaded on a low simmer, cooking as well. That will be my first real meal of the day. I’ll take that, pour it all in a big bowl with a little bit of pasta sauce. When I’m home, that’s usually my first meal every day. That, or low fiber oatmeal with natural peanut butter. From there, every two, two-and-a-half, three hours, I eat something. It’s usually steak, grilled chicken, tuna fish, eggs, egg whites, brown rice, sweet potatoes. I eat the same meals over and over again all throughout the day. I got my protein shakes. I usually try to get one or two of those down a day, just straight natural whey isolate. That’s pretty much it, as far as what I eat.

When I’m home, I got my places. We have a Port of Subs here near me. When I’m home, I usually like to swing out there once. I’ll get a foot-long wheat bread, light mayonnaise, and double steak sub. At Panda Express, I’ll get grilled chicken, brown rice. No matter where I go, it’s always pretty much the same regular foods. I can cook when I have the time.

Favorite Food:

I never eat it anymore—I think I’ve had it once in the last year—[but] I love pizza, as does any other red-blooded American, I’m sure, or human being in the world. With the way our schedule is with TV, I don’t do cheat days or anything like that. I absolutely love pizza. The last time I had it was when we finished aSmackDown taping in Las Vegas. I had wrestled Daniel Bryan in the main event on SmackDown. A bunch of the guys stayed in town and we ended up going out all night. The last time I went out was that night because it was a very long night [with] a lot of adult beverages consumed. I remember getting up later that day. We had a few days off, which is why everyone went out. I remember not eating anything all day because I was quite sick. Then, finally, around 9pm, I ordered a whole pizza from Papa John’s—the extra large with the cheese crust. I still have great memories of that pizza. It was unbelievable. That by far is my favorite. If I could eat that more often, I would.