The sole purpose of this article is to stress that while food challenges and competitive eating can be very enjoyable and entertaining, you will gain weight if you don’t practice moderation and watch your daily calorie intake. People ask me all the time why I am not 600 pounds, and I laugh every singe time. The professional in me gives an answer related to how I don’t eat like that every day and I maintain a low calorie diet when not competing along with getting plenty of exercise, but all I am really wanting to do is answer them by saying, “Because I’m not an idiot.” Before continuing, if you think that food challenges and competitive eating promote obesity, please read Do Food Challenges Promote Obesity? to find out how wrong you are and why it does not. Whether you are actively competing in eating competitions or not, if you consume more calories that you burn off on a consistent basis, you will gain weight and it won’t be lean muscle tissue (unless you are training and eating with that as your goal). I will be the first person to tell you that. Anybody that has been following me on my social media over the past few years knows that I have had to diet multiple times to get my weight back down to where it needs to be. Sometimes I do get out of control, which is why I do have to take breaks to diet every now and then, but I also understand nutrition so it is never a big deal for me to have to lose the weight. If you are wanting to get more active in eating competitions, you need to understand that you have to be careful to avoid getting out of control and gaining excess weight, which can easily happen, and can’t be fixed quickly.

If you think that you can actively train for and compete in eating competitions without adjusting your daily nutrition habits accordingly (unless you are a really hardgainer), you are seriously incorrect and setting yourself up for failure. When I am actively competing and doing food challenges almost every week, I am basically on a diet and exercising every single day that I am not competing. That is my job, hobby, and the lifestyle that I have chosen for myself though, and that is what I enjoy. The easiest way to avoid gaining weight without really changing up your diet and exercise program is to severely limit the number of events that you do to just a few per month at most. Also make sure to train with lower calorie foods during the days before you do actually compete. The more active you want to be, the more you will have to exercise and diet when not competing. It is recommended that you maintain a healthy diet and exercise plan whether you are a competitive eater or not, but since you are wanting to eat more than most people, you have to diet & exercise more than most people too. If staying fit while being a competitive eater was easy, more people would do it. Competing at a high level while maintaining great physical shape takes dedication and hard work. There is a lot of trial and error involved.

This article is not meant to discourage anybody from entering the world of food challenges and competitive eating, but it is meant to make people aware that it is not all fun and games. Like any sport, it requires a lot of time and effort to be good at it. If you train with food and compete often, you need to adjust your diet and exercise program accordingly to make sure you are not gaining excess weight. If you have not already, please read Lower Calorie Stomach Training Foods to find out about the “Belt Of Fat Theory” and why having an increasing amount of fat around your waist can lead to decreased performance at the eating table. Actively competing in high calorie challenges and contests without watching your calories during the other days can cause you to gain a lot of weight quickly which can lead to severe health problems later if not kept in check. Consuming too much of anything is not a good thing, and that of course also applies to competing in eating events too often. Practice moderation, and don’t be afraid to take a short break from “eating” if necessary.

Another thing to note is that if you are wanting to become a competitive eater, you should not try to be a competitive “drinker” too. I know from experience that eating a lot AND drinking a lot of alcohol is a bad combination that can cause you to gain a lot of weight quickly. Like many foods, most alcoholic beverages are filled with calories, and therefore combining a lot of both will cause you to gain a lot of excess fat. This idea applies to people whether they are “eaters” or not. There is a reason that people use the term “beer belly.”

If you practice moderation and understand that you may have to “diet” for a few days after a competition, gaining weight will not be an issue. You also need to eat less calories during the other meals of the day when you are training. There are some professional eaters that fast for days from solid foods while drinking nothing but water, protein shakes, and meal replacement shakes before a really big competition, but as an amateur you don’t even need to be considering doing that. You may watch my YouTube videos and follow my trips around the world where I eat tons of food and have a great time doing it, but know that I put a ton of work in “behind the scenes” doing all of the required tasks that allow me to do those things. Calories are exercised away and metabolically burnt off on all of the days where I consistently consume less calories than I burn. I don’t just take a pill and have them magically go away. Contradictory to all of the advertisements that you see and hear by rich($) diet & supplement companies, the only way to lose weight weight is by consistently consuming less calories that you burn off. Competitive eating can be a lot of fun, but remember that weight (fat) gets added on a lot faster than it falls off, so make sure to keep your competition frequency, activity level, and diet all controlled and monitored so that you don’t gain too much weight. By doing this you will be able to have a lot more fun and compete at a much higher level while safely maintaining a nice physique you can be proud of.

Thanks for reading why you will gain weight if you are not careful and using FoodChallenges.com!!

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