Joey Chestnut, the number one ranked competitive eater in the world, visits WIRED to answer the internet's burning questions about competitive eating. How do competitive eaters train? What do competitive eaters do after a competition? Do they even taste what they're eating? How does one begin a career in competitive eating? Joey Chestnut answers these questions and plenty more on Competitive Eating Support.Watch Chestnut Vs. Kobayashi: Unfinished Beef Live on Netflix on Labor Day, September 2 https://www.netflix.com/chestnutvskobayashiDirector: Jackie PhillipsEditor: Richard TrammellTalent: Joey ChestnutProducer: Anna O'DonohueLine Producer: Joseph BuscemiAssociate Producer: Paul GulyasProduction Manager: Peter BrunetteProduction Coordinator: Rhyan LarkTalent Booker: Meredith JudkinsProduction Assistant: Lauren BoucherPost Production Supervisor: Christian OlguinPost Production Coordinator: Ian BryantSupervising Editor: Doug LarsenAdditional Editor: Jason MaliziaAssistant Editor: Justin SymondsSpecial Thanks: Netflix
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00:00I'm Joey Chestnut, a competitive eater,
00:02ranked number one in the world.
00:03Let's answer some questions from the internet.
00:04This is competitive eating support.
00:11At Tanner Dean, McCoy wants to know,
00:12what is easier to eat in one sitting?
00:1418 Krispy Kreme donuts or one large pizza?
00:1718 Krispy Kreme donuts.
00:19Oh my God, those donuts are like air.
00:20They go down fast, especially if they're warm.
00:22I love pizza, but crust always slows you down.
00:2518 donuts, so easy.
00:28Those won't even make it home from the drive-thru.
00:30At Virgil Virgil, woke way too early
00:32and then just wondered how do competitive eaters
00:34not just die from the amount of salt and s*** in their body.
00:38If somebody tried to eat 70 hot dogs for the first time,
00:41they might die.
00:41That's kind of like the person who ran the first marathon.
00:43They died, but now millions of people can run a marathon
00:46because they know how to train.
00:47Eating 70 hot dogs, I've trained and made my body adapt to it.
00:50Our bodies are absolutely amazing.
00:52At NotBubbaWallace, I can't understand why anyone
00:55would dunk a bun in water instead of just eating hot dogs
00:58like a sane person and washing it down with some water.
01:00Well, apparently NotBubbaWallace
01:02isn't very competitive in anything.
01:04Dunking the bun makes it faster.
01:05We're skipping the step of having to drink the water,
01:08right, by dunking.
01:09I'm eating one hot dog using the wet bun as a sip of water.
01:12It helps swallow the hot dog.
01:13That's the way it works with competition.
01:15It's not always pretty.
01:16For the upcoming contest, there's a no dunking rule.
01:19I've been practicing eating hot dogs without dunking.
01:22I have to take the right size bite, right amount of water.
01:24See how fast I can get this bad boy down.
01:28Mm, pretty slow, but that's about it.
01:45At James W. Bell Music,
01:47how does one train to eat so many hot dogs?
01:49My training isn't too much different from like a runner.
01:51Runners have to run, eaters have to eat.
01:53It's hard because I can't practice every day.
01:55Once a week, I'm doing a practice contest
01:56and then there's a recovery period, a cleanse, a fast.
01:59So I'm empty for my next practice.
02:00Day of contest, I like black coffee.
02:02The acid from the coffee gets things in your stomach
02:05while moving around and you're ready
02:07and a little amped up from the caffeine.
02:08I wouldn't call it a drug, but I do think caffeine helps.
02:11At NYDesignGuy, what do competitive eaters do
02:14after the contest?
02:15Do they purge or just digest?
02:17Either way seems uncomfortable.
02:19The best competitive eaters do digest the food.
02:21I only get sick if there's something wrong.
02:22If I'm dehydrated or the food's bad.
02:24When you say uncomfortable, that's where I'm really lucky.
02:26I kind of like the feeling of being bloated.
02:28That's one of the things that works in my favor.
02:30I'm trying to stay vertical and stay walking around.
02:32It helps the food settle deep and starts digestion.
02:34After that, then I'm thirsty
02:35and I just want to go to sleep and have some crazy dreams.
02:38Some contests, I'm putting on a lot of weight.
02:40The most I've gained is,
02:41I think it's been more than 20 pounds
02:43and it takes about five days for me
02:45to get back to my normal weight.
02:46But I love it.
02:47At Carl I Winning, do professional eaters like lose
02:51from stopping because their jaw hurts,
02:52not because they're full?
02:54Yeah, you're absolutely right.
02:54Your jaws and your throat muscles
02:56slow down a lot of competitive eaters.
02:58Like the food settles at the back of their throat
02:59because their throat muscles are weak.
03:01Really important for us to train those muscles
03:04and get them strong.
03:05At I'm Nasty Nat, how do competitive eaters not choke?
03:09Just swallowing whole hot dogs like nothing.
03:11I have seen people choke.
03:13It's always the person, it's their first contest
03:15and they're just trying to keep up.
03:16It's always turned out okay.
03:18Run DMC912 wants to know,
03:20anyone else wonder how people get into competitive eating?
03:23Do they enter regional tournaments and work their way up?
03:25I'm genuinely curious.
03:26I did my first contest when I was 21.
03:28It was at a casino in Reno.
03:30They offered me a free hotel room.
03:31I was like, heck yeah, I'll do it.
03:32I tied for third and I was like, oh my God,
03:34I'm gonna do another local one.
03:36Three contests later, I was at Coney Island
03:37on the 4th of July and I got third.
03:39In order to be a good competitive eater,
03:40you have to love eating.
03:41It's always easier to eat a lot of food if you like it.
03:43At TW for Fat asks, how do competitive eaters
03:46not gain weight?
03:47Dude, I do gain weight and it's a battle.
03:49I have to be aware of it because if I lose track
03:51of my long-term calorie intake, I gain weight.
03:53Then I start losing contests.
03:55I hate losing.
03:56Without getting graphic, I'm taking in thousands
03:58and thousands of calories during a contest.
04:00There's no way to absorb all those calories.
04:02Things are running through me.
04:03My normal routine after contests is to eat super high fiber,
04:07keep everything moving, low carb, no starches.
04:09Doing cardio helps me with my breathing during a contest,
04:12but I don't depend on cardio to burn calories necessarily.
04:15I try to get into a calorie deficit in order
04:17to get back to normal weight.
04:18Some people chipmunk while they're eating.
04:20They kind of overstuff their mouth
04:21and they keep food in their cheeks.
04:23Kind of amateur way to eat.
04:24You're not moving the food efficiently.
04:26You want to keep everything moving at the same pace
04:28and not letting it build up.
04:29At Jiggy PA, serious question for competitive eaters.
04:32Do y'all actually taste what you're eating?
04:35Or of course we taste it.
04:36It's like a race car driver.
04:37Can they tell if they're driving on a crappy road?
04:39I really like when it's good food.
04:41I really hate when it's a food that I love
04:43and they did a bad job with it.
04:44Oh, there's nothing worse than that.
04:46If it's taste I like, it definitely is easier.
04:48The first couple of minutes of a contest,
04:50I'm a fat guy having fun.
04:51If there's a flavor I don't like,
04:52it hits me again and again and again.
04:54Everything's more work when it's not a good taste.
04:56At J66DSKC, do eating competitions
05:00have weight classes like fighting?
05:01Because I'm positive that for my weight class,
05:04I could absolutely smoke most people.
05:06There's no weight classes.
05:07For the most part, men and women compete next to each other.
05:10Big and small compete against each other.
05:12The healthier you are, the harder you can push your body.
05:13There are big guys who can eat a lot of food.
05:16Great guys, but they can't do it in 10 minutes.
05:18All the top eaters are pretty healthy.
05:20I wish I was a little bit more fit, but I love to eat.
05:23At Odal wants to know,
05:24anyone ever examined the health of competitive eaters?
05:26I wonder, is it any worse than normal?
05:28One of my biggest splurges is my doctor.
05:31He does my blood work
05:32and there have been times where I go to him and I'm heavy,
05:34but he's really happy
05:35with the way everything's working right now.
05:36Most competitions aren't necessarily healthy.
05:39Any kind of athlete.
05:39I don't think we're much worse than normal.
05:41Contests and practice take a toll.
05:43Some contests are really hard on the body.
05:45It takes days to recover.
05:46Some contests are hard on the mouth.
05:48If it's a fried food, my mouth is raw for a couple of days.
05:51There's always a recovery period after a contest.
05:53You gotta be willing to put up with it.
05:55At 3T Productions wants to know,
05:57who ranks the competitive eaters?
05:58Does it matter if you eat kale or pancakes or hot dogs?
06:02America needs answers.
06:04There is a league, Major League Eating.
06:07Right now I'm ranked number one.
06:08They rank based off performance in contests.
06:10There is a kale contest, there's pancakes and hot dogs.
06:13And hot dogs are the most important contest of the year.
06:16Every food's a little bit different.
06:17Every eater has their own strengths, weaknesses.
06:19Some people are capacity eaters.
06:21Some people are good swallowers.
06:23My general training method is building tolerance.
06:25If I'm in a kale contest, I have to practice with kale.
06:28If it's hot dogs, I'm building my tolerance with hot dogs,
06:30getting my body comfortable with it.
06:32At Smitty83 wants to know,
06:34how do competitive eaters afford to train?
06:36I assume they find all the all-you-can-eat buffets
06:38that they haven't been kicked out of
06:40and plop a chair down and just go to town.
06:42I very rarely go to buffets.
06:43If I'm training for the kale contest or hot dog contest
06:47or bologna, I have to train with that food.
06:49Most of the time, sponsors will send me the food,
06:51which is awesome.
06:51But also, the food we're eating in the contest
06:54is not that much when you think about it.
06:55It costs about $40 to do a practice.
06:57I'm not eating anything for two days
06:59leading up to that practice.
07:00And then afterwards, I'm not eating very much.
07:02I'm eating vegetables.
07:03At Mventor, competitive eating crowd,
07:06what's your favorite or go-to donut consumption technique?
07:09For contests or for pleasure?
07:12Because I love bitterness of black coffee
07:14with sweetness of donut.
07:15But for contests, most donut contests,
07:17we're not allowed to dunk donuts.
07:18Alternate between eating sip of water.
07:20Alternate, if you find that rhythm
07:21and don't over stuff your mouth.
07:23At Sammy Ddub, wants to know,
07:24what do competitive hot dog eaters do the rest of the year?
07:27That is in July 4.
07:28Do they have regular jobs
07:30or is there a professional hot dog eating
07:32international circuit?
07:33Yeah, there's tons of contests.
07:34I have records in like 50 different foods and I love it.
07:38Hot dogs is probably the biggest contest of the year,
07:40but I do everything from wings, ribs, pizza.
07:42I stay busy.
07:43At DG, Jaden wants to know,
07:45how competitive eaters not get hiccups?
07:47I always be hiccuping whenever I eat quickly.
07:49I never get hiccups.
07:50I stopped getting hiccups after I was like 12 years old.
07:52You might want to go to the doctor, Jaden.
07:54I burp.
07:55A lot of times during the contests,
07:56we call it catching a burp.
07:57You have to stop eating for a second so you can burp
07:59and you have to be careful not to nothing comes out.
08:02Those are all the questions for today.
08:03Thank you for watching competitive eating support.