Help me become a binge eater!

March 25, 2011 2:42 PM

I'm gonna be in an eating contest, but I haven't eaten a single large meal in ages.. how quickly can I stretch out my stomach? Over one weekend?

From reading the two donut threads (1, 2) and the Stranger article, I've learned about water, cabbage, and snacking the day of. I'll be trying to eat a 7 lbs. burrito next week, which would be a piece of cake if I was still 19, but time has moved forward and my stomach has shrank (and hairline receded). Luckily, the challenge focuses on capacity and not speed, so we won't need to work on my lack of hand-eye coordination.

So how long would it take for me to get back to proper teenage binging capacity? A weekend?

And feel free to share any more eating contest tips (not for speed, just capacity).

Cheers!

PS If anyone's in SF, this is the Suicide Kimchi Burrito challenge downtown. Feel free to join me next week! Buuurp!

posted by hobbes to food & drink (3 answers total)

My friend (he's Asian, if that gives him any eating contest cred) swears by watermelon. Lots of watermelon. Keeps you "full" so your stomach is all big, but is mostly water so you're still hungry.
posted by phunniemee at 2:44 PM on March 25, 2011

Did an interview with Sonya Thomas once. Apparently she developed her eating talents by being poor and working at burger king, and, to save money, ate an entire day's worth of food in one sitting during the reduced-price meal she got at the end of her shift. Even though her success as a competitive eater means she can now afford to eat three times a day like a normal person, she still eats one massive meal in the middle of each day when training for a competition, though no longer from Burger King. She includes lots of green vegetables, because they tend to supply lots of nutrition and bulk, without a ton of calories.
posted by patnasty at 3:26 PM on March 25, 2011

Cabbage. You are looking for the bulkiest, least nutritionally dense, fibrous thing you can find. In most cases, that is cabbage. Stuff yourself with it to stretch your stomach without the risk of type 2 diabetes.

In a weekend? Yeah, that is going to be tough. People that do this stuff for-realsies do the cabbage thing for much longer, then start emptying and scaling back in that kind of timeframe.
posted by milqman at 4:56 PM on March 25, 2011