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See Amy Purdy and Michael Phelps Pose Nude!

During his short-lived retirement, Phelps says he packed on the pounds. "Oh, I was fat. I got fat and out of shape. It was hard because I had always eaten whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it," the 18-time gold medalist says. "I would always be like, 'All right, I'll go work out,' and I would never ever go. Sure enough, 25 pounds later, I was still saying the same thing. That was just part of my learning process."

The 6-foot-4 swimmer says the weight came off easily once he started working out again. "I got out of the shower one day and I'm like, "Wow. What am I doing?" It was all over after that. I lost 25 pounds in probably six weeks—just working out two hours a day, eating healthy," he reveals. "It shed right off."

At 29, Phelps' body has certain limitations. "I don't recover nearly as fast as I used to," he says. "It's one of the reasons I have to change what I put into my body. It's not the 18-year-old body it was before."

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