Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps says a story about him consuming 12,000 calories a day while training for the Beijing Olympics just isn't true.

At the 2008 Beijing Games, where Phelps won a record eight Olympic gold medals, a New York Post story with the headline: "Phelps' Pig Secret: He's Boy Gorge" reported he ate 4,000 calories for each meal.

Wednesday, Phelps told Ryan Seacrest in an interview that it was a myth.

"I never ate that much," Phelps said. "It's all a myth. I've never eaten that many calories."

Seacrest replied: "Good because I was starting to loathe you, that you could really eat all this."

Said Phelps: "I wish. It's too much though. It's pretty much impossible."

Other tidbits from the interview:

Phelps is listening to Afrojack, Avicii and Skrillex "to get fired up."

On what's different about his training compared to 2008: "I'm a lot more relaxed than I was going into Beijing," Phelps said, adding that he's "trying to fine tune some small things that are going to make a big difference."