Competitive Eater Matt Stonie on How He Trains His Body to Eat 62 Hot Dogs in 10 Minutes
AGE: 23HEIGHT: 5′8″WEIGHT: 130 LBs.WAIST: 28′
“My first years of eating competitively were miserable. I was dehydrated, bloated, all that stuff. After a few years, I perfected my regimen. Now I know exactly what to do—when to work out, what my diet should look like, how much liquid to drink. People think I've got this superhuman metabolism and I eat, like, 8,000 calories every day. It's not like that. I'm just like everybody else. I work hard to keep in shape. I run. I lift weights. My body has just adapted over the years.
“On a normal day, I eat 2,000 to 2,500 calories. But when I'm practicing for a competition, I can go up to 10,000 calories, no problem. Some days I go above 20,000. Hot dogs are really up there. I did a pumpkin-pie contest once that was like 22,000 calories. Then I have to work it off. If I eat 15 pounds of food, then the next day I'll actually be up 20 because of the water retention. Then the next day I'm down like ten to 13 pounds. The next day I'm down another five pounds. Then I'm back to normal.”
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Clay Skipper is a Staff Writer at GQ.XInstagramRelated Stories for GQHealthHealth