eat one's Wheaties

English

WOTD – 22 August 2012

Etymology

An allusion to the breakfast cereal Wheaties, long advertised as the "Breakfast of Champions", and its long-standing association with sports celebrities.

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU):

  (file)

Verb

eat one's Wheaties

1. (US and Canada, idiomatic) To prepare or fortify oneself for an activity requiring exertion.
   • 1971 Oct. 19, Haney Reilly, "Another game, another loss but Hawkeyes looked better," Telegraph-Herald (Iowa, USA), p. 17 (retrieved 1 July 2011):

     But he just couldn't get the ball through the goal posts (poor Harry . . . he didn't eat his Wheaties, or else his shoe was on backwards).

   • 1994 Sep. 11, "Garbage Collector Lifts Away Worries," Miami Herald, p. 1B:

     Jo-Ann Wonsik answered a Herald want ad for a career requiring day after day of heavy lifting. . . . "And you've got to eat your Wheaties on this job," she said.

   • 2008 Dec. 10, Felicity Barringer, "Science Students Get a Real-Life Lesson, in Science Fiction," New York Times (retrieved 1 July 2011):

     Of all the movie promotions in all the towns in all the world, Keanu Reeves had to walk into this one: a California Institute of Technology forum at which he was asked, “How could an alien being grow so fast without violating standard mass- and energy-conservation laws?” . . . He paused. “I ate my Wheaties.”

Translations

fortify oneself

• Swedish: äta upp gröten, (skaffa sig) råg i ryggen
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

See also

• gird up one's loins
• have had one's Weetabix today - British English version