A McDonald's lover has eaten 32,340 Big Macs and has the receipts to prove it

• A Wisconsin man holds the Guinness World Record for most Big Macs eaten in a lifetime.
• Donald Gorske of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin has consumed more than 32,340 burgers since 1972.
• To stay healthy, Gorske skips the side of fries and takes regular six-mile walks.

It all began on May 17, 1972, when Donald Gorske got his first car.

"I drove to McDonald's, ordered my first three Big Macs and went out to the car and ate them," said in a recent Guinness World Records video. "I said right there that I'm probably gonna eat these the rest of my life."

He tossed the three containers in his back seat for safekeeping, and the rest, as they say, is history. Nearly 50 years later, Gorske is the undisputed record holder for eating the most Big Macs, with more than 32,340 consumed.

It's hard to be a record-holder without - well - records, and Gorske has that covered. Bankers' boxes filled with empty cartons fill his home, along with folders full of receipts collated by year representing each burger ordered and eaten.

Oh, and he has a calendar too.

"I started out eating nine a day for a while," he said about the early days of his habit, though lately he's on a more regimented two a day.

Local McDonald's franchise owner Dave Rause, who has been keeping Gorske well-supplied with special sauce and patties, told the Guinness team that at one point Gorske realized his daily trips to pick up Big Macs were costing him more in gas money than in actual food costs.

Now Gorske makes two trips per week - Mondays and Thursdays - to pick up a stash of six or eight burgers to bring home and eat later.

"I'm not the type of person who tries new stuff," he said. "When I like something, I stick with it all the time."

"Don Gorske did not tell me about his Big Mac obsession when we met," his wife Mary Gorske told the Guinness team. "I didn't realize it would go on forever."

While Gorske plans to eat Big Macs every day for the rest of his life, he said Mary has drawn a line: "When it comes to where she's gotta put a Big Mac in a blender, then she says it's over for me."

For someone with a daily fast-food habit, Gorske is in remarkably fit shape. He attributes that to being disciplined about saying no to a side of fries and taking regular six-mile walks around his neighborhood.

Each Big Mac contains 540 calories, and McDonald's says it sells more than a billion Big Macs around the world each year. More than half of those are sold in the US, and Japan is also a major Big Mac market.