How do competitive eaters stay so thin?!

Kimblesnbits13
Kimblesnbits13 Posts: 369 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I'm really intrigued by competitive eaters and how they stay so thin. They only do events once or twice a month but still....they take in anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 (if not more). And here i am after some weekends of overeating by maybe 1000 trying to undo damage done lol. That alone takes a couple days to a week to get the water weight off! Anyone else wonder about these people and how they do it?!?!

Replies

  • PikaJoyJoy
    PikaJoyJoy Posts: 280 Member
    Not sure about all competitive eaters, but in Japan they are usually under medical supervision and include exercise into their daily routines to make sure they keep healthy.

    - To clarify - I don't know if this is true for all of them in Japan, but the pros usually do this.
  • yskaldir
    yskaldir Posts: 202 Member
    Maybe they are very physically active, eg. Erik the Electric.

    People don't get fat from acute overeating once/twice a month, they get fat from overeating on a daily basis.
  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,997 Member
    Do they reguritate afterward? I would.
  • Ironandwine69
    Ironandwine69 Posts: 2,432 Member
    sgt1372 wrote: »
    Do they reguritate afterward? I would.

    Not the ones I know. At least not on purpose.
  • SuzySunshine99
    SuzySunshine99 Posts: 2,989 Member
    I would imagine that if you ate that much in a short amount of time, your digestive system would not be able to handle it and would "reject" a good portion of it...one way or another.
  • DietPrada
    DietPrada Posts: 1,171 Member
    Only competitive eaters I've ever seen here in Australia are the Americans on pay tv channels and those dudes are like 400lb rednecks so I'm not sure what you're referring to.
  • zdyb23456
    zdyb23456 Posts: 1,706 Member
    When Adam Richmond had that Man vs Food show he definitely got fat over the seasons. I saw him on tv recently and he seems to be a healthy weight now.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    zdyb23456 wrote: »
    When Adam Richmond had that Man vs Food show he definitely got fat over the seasons. I saw him on tv recently and he seems to be a healthy weight now.

    He was the first one that came to mind. I always thought that guy was a heart attack waiting to happen while watching Man Vs Food.
  • petersimon69
    petersimon69 Posts: 1 Member
    Workout diligently everyday and you can have a cheat day once a week
  • JessicaMcB
    JessicaMcB Posts: 1,503 Member
    I've honestly always assumed most of them are hitting the ipecac syrup hard once they get home. Can you imagine the damn pain? Ugggh
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    JessicaMcB wrote: »
    I've honestly always assumed most of them are hitting the ipecac syrup hard once they get home. Can you imagine the damn pain? Ugggh

    That's what i thought too. What goes in, comes straight back out asap.
  • mca90guitar
    mca90guitar Posts: 289 Member
    Shocks me, look up Matt stone. Skinny as a stick and can plow down mass amounts of food.
  • Kimblesnbits13
    Kimblesnbits13 Posts: 369 Member
    mca90guitar wrote: »
    Shocks me, look up Matt stone. Skinny as a stick and can plow down mass amounts of food.

    Yeah Matt Stonie and Erik the electric were first that came to my mind!
  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,997 Member
    zdyb23456 wrote: »
    When Adam Richmond had that Man vs Food show he definitely got fat over the seasons. I saw him on tv recently and he seems to be a healthy weight now.

    That why they later changed the program so that he didn't have to eat all of that food. Later episodes had him recruiting local talent to eat the food instead.

    Don't think the program is on anymore but now there's a new program called "Ginormous Food" on the Food Channel where the host goes to places what produce obscenely large food products but he doesn't eat them -- he shares the food with people who are on the location at the time of the filming.
  • cityruss
    cityruss Posts: 2,493 Member
    Like everyone else, they abide by the irrefutable laws of calorie balance.

    If they aren't gaining weight, then over a sustained period they are consuming maintenance calories.
  • BWA468
    BWA468 Posts: 101 Member
    mca90guitar wrote: »
    Shocks me, look up Matt stone. Skinny as a stick and can plow down mass amounts of food.

    I love watching his videos. He’s insane with what he can get down. The pizza video (a family pizza meal deal like 5 large pizzas and sides) and the massive burrito ones were my favourites. #fooddreams
  • LolBroScience
    LolBroScience Posts: 4,537 Member
    cityruss wrote: »
    Like everyone else, they abide by the irrefutable laws of calorie balance.

    If they aren't gaining weight, then over a sustained period they are consuming maintenance calories.

    This.

    Many fast and/or stagger calories over the week. There are also a handful that put the energy to good use in the form of exercise as well.
  • tmpecus78
    tmpecus78 Posts: 1,206 Member
    Kimblesnbits13 wrote: »
    mca90guitar wrote: »
    Shocks me, look up Matt stone. Skinny as a stick and can plow down mass amounts of food.

    Yeah Matt Stonie and Erik the electric were first that came to my mind!

    Watch ETE's youtube. He trains a lot, often w/ extremely long bike rides and a long leg workout before his eating challenges etc.
  • Kimblesnbits13
    Kimblesnbits13 Posts: 369 Member
    tmpecus78 wrote: »
    Kimblesnbits13 wrote: »
    mca90guitar wrote: »
    Shocks me, look up Matt stone. Skinny as a stick and can plow down mass amounts of food.

    Yeah Matt Stonie and Erik the electric were first that came to my mind!

    Watch ETE's youtube. He trains a lot, often w/ extremely long bike rides and a long leg workout before his eating challenges etc.

    I know he trains a lot, so in his case, maybe you really CAN out-train a bad diet lol
  • tmpecus78
    tmpecus78 Posts: 1,206 Member
    Well he's not doing challenges weekly, so I wouldn't really say he can out train a bad diet. He goes many weeks sometimes a month or more between challenges. Not-to-mention he could be fasting and/or running low cal for days before and after challenges too balance things. Who knows, maybe on top of that his metabolism is crazy fast.
  • Kimblesnbits13
    Kimblesnbits13 Posts: 369 Member
    tmpecus78 wrote: »
    Well he's not doing challenges weekly, so I wouldn't really say he can out train a bad diet. He goes many weeks sometimes a month or more between challenges. Not-to-mention he could be fasting and/or running low cal for days before and after challenges too balance things. Who knows, maybe on top of that his metabolism is crazy fast.

    Oh true and I see his usual everyday diet is pretty good on the normal days. But still....he did 50,000 in 2 days lol That's gotta add some lbs! lol Assuming his maintenance is maybe 3,000 that would still add 12.5 real fat lbs!
  • CrabNebula
    CrabNebula Posts: 1,119 Member
    Breakdowns have been done of the 10k calorie challenge. It isn't that you eat 10k calories and you gain automatically 3lbs of pure fat.

    So my normal TDEE is 2100 cals. Lets say to prepare for the challenge, I eat 500 below that for a week, so 3500 cals in the bank. Then my normal TDEE for the challenge day is 2100 + 1000 from the thermic effect of food. So now we are at 3500 + 2100 + 1000. So now I have 6600 cals of 10000 gone off the bat. Then I am left with 3400. A large percentage will be turned to fat, but some to muscle. No big deal, just go back to the 500 cal a day deficit (probably way easy because who wants to eat like a horse the day after that!) for a week and back where I started.
  • PinkamenaD8
    PinkamenaD8 Posts: 99 Member
    I think Matt Stone talked somewhere about his diet before competitive eating, is almost a day fast of just few fruits and protein powder.
  • kellyjellybellyjelly
    kellyjellybellyjelly Posts: 9,480 Member
    I know this is an older thread, but I have been watching some of Erik's videos on Youtube. It's amazing how much food he can put away during his challenges.

    I remember reading an article awhile ago where he stated that during his bout with anorexia he ate a lot of vegetables that expanded his stomach.

    I have subscribed to Matt Stonie & will watch some of his videos another day.
  • kellyjellybellyjelly
    kellyjellybellyjelly Posts: 9,480 Member
    edited January 2019
    JessicaMcB wrote: »
    I've honestly always assumed most of them are hitting the ipecac syrup hard once they get home. Can you imagine the damn pain? Ugggh

    In a lot of Erik's videos it shows him buying Tums & Lactaid.
  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,099 Member
    They track calories....
  • bernadettenz
    bernadettenz Posts: 252 Member
    I have never been a competitive eater, but until I hit my mid 30s I could eat MASSIVE amounts of food and I ate like that every day. And I was tiny. 5'4 and I weighed around 50 kgs.
    As a teenager I used to eat way more than my Dad lol. I could easily eat a whole chicken myself. I think I just had a super duper fast metabolism!
    Then mid 30s I started getting fat damnit.
    I still have a far bigger appetite than most but I probably eat half of what I used to, so I think my metabolism is still pretty fast. I will still eat a whole pizza and a garlic bread plus dessert. I just can't do that once a week anymore.
    I'd say for most competitive eaters it's about metabolism otherwise it would be just awful doing a competition!

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