hot dog eating champ eats 20,000 calories in one sitting

He's crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's at least 40 Zumba workouts! Whew!

Yuk !!!

Most of that is coming out the other side in a hurry.

or throws it up minutes later
but the secret is explained here. in summary he eats mostly vegetables the rest of the time and drinks plenty of water and keeps moving during the competitions.

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/competitive-eating-how-safe-is-it?page=2

The article cited states "competitive eaters say vomiting at competitions is rare."

Of course there are risks to this time of competition. This is likely part of the reason why the competition eating window was recently decreased to 10 minutes (they used to have 12 minutes to eat hot dogs).

There are also risks associated with being overweight and obese. The majority of the top ten competitors in this competition (I looked them up) have a lower BMI than the average American. Almost all of the top eaters in this competition exercise regularly as well.

These athletes exercise regularly and train hard for these competitions. They do not eat like this everyday. Both the female winner Sonya Thomas and arguable the best male eater of all time Takeru Kobayashi (who was banned from Nathans because of a contract dispute with Major League Eating http://www.ibtimes.com/takeru-kobayashi-joey-chestnut-rift-competitive-hot-dog-eating-1334263#) are very lean and exercise for hours every day.

Sonya Thomas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonya_Thomas
She is very lean at about 100 pounds (I could not immediately find her height online)

Takeru Kobayashi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takeru_Kobayashi
19.5 BMI at 5 feet 8 inches and 128 pounds

Joey Chestnut, the winner this year (and every year since Takeru was banned) is one of the larger top athletes in the sport at 6 feet 218 pounds. He wins because of his training and technique despite having a 29.6 BMI

"The theory is that if you're too fat, it blocks the amount your stomach can expand. I now think size just doesn't matter.....At least not as much as technique. "
http://espn.go.com/page2/s/caple/020703.html

These athletes have my respect. Yes there are risks to what they do, but there are risks with most professional sports.