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In Just a Few Dude-Food-Stuffed Years, Competitive Eating Has Leapt from American Subculture to Mainstream Tv to a Greasy Spoon Near You

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In Just a Few Dude-Food-Stuffed Years, Competitive Eating Has Leapt from American Subculture to Mainstream Tv to a Greasy Spoon Near You IN JUST A FEW DUDE-FOOD-STUFFED YEARS, COMPETITIVE EATING HAS LEAPT FROM AMERICAN SUBCULTURE TO MAINSTREAM TV TO A GREASY SPOON NEAR YOU. MH HITS THE UK FOOD CHALLENGE CIRCUIT TO SEE IF GLUTTONY IS AS MUCH FUN AS IT LOOKS TO BECOME A BURGER WORDS BY SAM ROWE ILLUSTRATION BY HANOCH PIVEN KING DEMANDS TOTAL COMMITMENT. DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES? GUTTER CREDIT GUTTER 84 MEN’S HEALTH MENSHEALTH.CO.UK MEN’S HEALTH 85 THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE EATER hours, it could feasibly be hunger. Having spent days studying Santel’s exhaustive online how-to guides (Training Stomach THE “IT BECAME A Capacity, Staying Ripped etc) and trying states outranks any other eater on the to stretch my abdomen by upping my COMPETITION competitive eating scene. Living at home water intake, I’m wary of disparagement. with his parents in Missouri and vowing My concerns are justified. “This is a WITH MYSELF to abstain from a committed relationship dangerous pursuit and my medical advice until he achieves his eating goals (500 would be, in no uncertain terms, not to try wins), Santel’s life revolves around this this at home or in competition,” is the TO STAY LEAN unconventional vocation. “I’ve always unequivocal verdict of Dr Deryk Waller, MAN loved to eat,” he tells me, “so it became a senior associate doctor at Blossoms sitting in the greasy spoon wears a T-shirt WHILE DOING competition with myself: to maintain my Healthcare. “Binge eating can cause bearing the slogan: “These aren’t guns. physique and be lean, while doing all these peptic ulcers in the gastrointestinal tract They’re cannons.” Arrows point to his THESE FOOD food challenges. I always say I lift to eat.” and further stomach perforations in those sizeable biceps. In front of him sits a large His existence is a boom/bust cycle that people with pre-existing ulcers. This – some might say obscenely large – platter CHALLENGES. sees him tour multiple countries to tick would constitute a medical emergency.” of fried food. He squashes a fistful of off food challenges, then spend the Dr Duane Mellor, spokesperson for the chips in his hands and rams the compact I ALWAYS SAY I subsequent months repairing the damage British Dietetic Association, likewise urges carb-ball between his jaws. In a few rapid with a strict diet and gym regime. Santel’s caution. “You are going to be consuming chews, it is gone. A swiftly assembled most recent binge odyssey was a 44-day a lot of energy and your body’s got to do egg-and-bacon sandwich is subsequently LIFT TO EAT” journey around the UK in early 2015, the something with it,” he explains. “Not only dispatched in just three more bites. results of which he documented on his will it increase your chances of putting on Stopping briefly for a glug of water, the website with all the detail of a sporting weight, the risk of long-term conditions man contorts his 6ft 5in frame like a almanac. Over the course of six weeks he like diabetes and heart disease increase, snake, as if to rearrange his insides and triumphed in 41 of his 43 challenges, too. I wouldn’t recommend it.” free up space. A small group of bemused ingesting over 200,000 calories It is with these cheery diners murmur their approval. in the process. prognoses echoing in my head After just 28 minutes and 20 seconds, It was this British odyssey that I arrive at Jones’ Café the entire food mountain is devoured. that caught my attention. As a Bistro in Leicester, home of This is the first time anyone has civilized, mature, health-aware the diabolic 666 Breakfast surmounted the 4kg feast served up at the individual, I realise that I am Challenge. In fact, it should Hard Boiled Egg Café in Cavan, Ireland supposed to be appalled by really be called the 666666 – acknowledged by Guinness World such behaviour. When Challenge, including as it Records as the largest English breakfast researching this piece one food 69 does six rashers of bacon, six on the planet – within the 60-minute writer told me, somewhat RECORD FOR eggs, six sausages, six hash limit. His spoils? A commemorative piously, that such antics display HOTDOGS browns, six pancakes and six T-shirt, the €19.95 cost of the meal waived “a poverty of intellect” and EATEN IN slices of toast. That’s around by the host, and – one assumes – a hefty represent “an insult to anyone 4500 calories in total – just bout of indigestion. with a sense of decency”. But 10 MINUTES under twice the daily Over 1.1million people have watched it’s a sentiment I can’t share. Owing to guideline amount for men. When Santel this episode on YouTube. You will have IF YOUR HEAD IS SET ON a crappy metabolism and a complex visited here in January he ate the lot in seen similar feats on television in the GLUTTONOUS GLORY, relationship with my gym card, my waist under 12 minutes (the time limit is 30 form of Man v. Food and Diners, Drive-Ins YOU’RE FACING SOME size is in constant flux. So on one level, I’m minutes), becoming only the eighth and Dives, of course, but this is somewhat SERIOUS COMPETITION intrigued by the simple biochemistry of person to complete the challenge. lower in key. There is no film crew, no it all – just how does he do it? On another, Whereas Leicester’s fast and curious production trailer, no whooping crowd, there’s the geography. We’re used to came out to watch Santel do his thing, by no slick idents. Just a camcorder in a 01 02 03 04 05 seeing this sort of thing over in the US – the midpoint of my rather more languid half-empty Irish café and a former US BURN they do everything big after all – but display I am the restaurant’s sole patron. construction worker called Randy Santel RECORD Walsall? Swansea? Leeds? What possesses There had been another customer but she with a supersized bit between his teeth. CALORIES a man to cross the Atlantic and sit in a left with a sneer as I broached my third Joey Chestnut’s barren bar in Dundee with the sole sausage. It’s a pretty dismal affair. Despite R 69 hot dogs in 10min LO D OF THE ONION RINGS purpose of eating 18kg of steak and a high mastication tempo in the early few Santel has the physique of a fitness model contained 10,419kcal, haggis? And all for the sake of a Polaroid minutes, by the end my pace decreases to and the dietary proclivities of a hungry but undoing the on the wall? I reason that there’s only one slow-motion – each bite of lukewarm toast elephant. Since becoming a competitive damage takes a lot way to find out, so I embark on my own a chore as my jaw aches from the exertion. eater and part-time bodybuilder, he has longer. Work off TREADMILL SQUAT & PRESS BICYCLE CRUNCH RENEGADE ROW JUMPING LUNGE abridged version of Santel’s UK tour: five I’m a loser, a bloated one at that, and I’ve established himself as one of Earth’s 1000kcal in 60min 12 MINUTES 60 SECONDS 90 SECONDS 60 SECONDS 90 SECONDS days, five cities, five monster meals. had to fork out £15 for the privilege. Start with a jog and With dumbbells at Lie flat, lift up your In a press-up position Lunge forward, jump most prodigious gluttons. Aged 29, his with two rounds of According to Randy Santel’s this circuit from increase the speed your shoulders, drop shoulders and pedal holding kettlebells, up and switch legs in GRILL remarkable record of 254 food challenge by 1mph every 30sec into a squat. Push up, your legs, bringing row one weight into mid-air. Go back to ING IN THE NAME OF foodchallenges.com – a compendium victories in eight countries and 22 US Sandy Macaskill of for 5min. Walk 1min. extending the DBs the opposite elbow your abs. Return to the squat/press and Stepping on the scales at a private health that offers tips to budding eaters, plus Barry’s Bootcamp. Spend 6min doing above your head. to your knee. Repeat the floor. Repeat with do another set of facility on day one of my eating quest, I It’s a good start... 30sec flat-out, 30sec Lower and sink into on the other side and the other arm. Put each. That’s round jogging. Wobble to the next squat. Feel alternate to get your some extra mustard one complete – now can’t help but feel pangs of guilt. At least, the weights room. it in your buns. fat-burning on a roll. on those reps. back to the treadmill. RUTH HATHAWAY LUCY | FOOD STYLING: STUDIOS HEARST PHOTOGRAPHY: WRIGHT DESIGN: DAN | PROP MITZ SCOULLOS ASSISTANT: FOOD STYLING & GREY ROSEANDGREY.CO.UK ROSE BARBER BOARD RETRO I think it’s guilt – since I’ve not eaten for 18 86 MEN’S HEALTH MEN’S HEALTH 87 THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE EATER keep going for so long and maintain both his appetite and his figure? “Since I am the world’s greatest, I want to see how far I a geographical breakdown of every known can take myself, to what level I can actually close to 1kg per day. And what else do challenge worldwide – Britain is now go,” Kobayashi explains, his Japanese I have to show for my efforts? There’s a second only to the USA in the number of sieved into English and recited back to me commemorative T-shirt I’ll never wear, TOUGH EGG TO CRACK: eating contests staged.
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