There are many famous quotes about experience. Julius Caesar quoted, “Experience is the teacher of all things.” C. S. Lewis quoted, “Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.” Oscar Wilde quoted “Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.” Another great quote by Rita Mae Brown is that “Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.” You can read all of the articles and watch all of the videos you can find on this site to help you learn how to train, strategize, and dominate your next food challenge. By doing that, you will gain an excellent base of knowledge about how to successfully win food challenges and competitive eating events. With that being said, no set of articles or videos will teach you as much as you will learn through actually training for and attempting a proper food challenge. As Isadora Duncan one said, “What one has not experienced, one will never fully understand in print.” I personally have over 200 food challenge wins around the world and over four years of experience, and I am still constantly learning things to this day through new experiences as I continue traveling and doing more challenges. Especially if you are wanting to move forward and attempt more food challenges, you need to take some time after a food challenge to analyze and critique yourself and how you both trained and performed.
It will be a lot more fun to critique yourself after winning, but know that you learn a lot more from losing than from winning. Donald Trump once stated, “Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.” I have not lost many challenges over the past few years compared to how many I have beaten, but I have lost some. I can tell you from experience that I learned way more through those few losses than through all of my wins combined. Whether you do it while driving home from the challenge or later that week, take a few minutes to think back and critique your entire challenge. What did you do well that you need to continue doing? In what ways can you improve? If you are more of a visual learner, you may want to use a camcorder to film yourself eating and attempting the challenge. Even if you have no intentions of putting the challenge video online, have a friend or family member record your challenge for you. Then you can watch yourself and visually analyze how you did throughout the challenge. Whatever you do, ask yourself these following questions to maximize the experience and learn as much as you can. You will be much more prepared for your next big food challenge.
Questions To Ask Yourself After The Challenge
1. Was your body well trained for this challenge? Should you do anything differently next time? – Did you prepare enough for the particular challenge that you chose? Is there any way you can improve your training schedule for the next one? Use these questions to help improve how you train for challenges in the future. If you could not finish your entire meal, your training needs to be adjusted, or you should pick smaller challenges.
2. How was your eating strategy that you prepared beforehand? Can anything be improved? – Did you follow the eating order and strategy that you mentally developed before the challenge? If so, was the strategy flawless or do you need to make corrections next time? If you lost the challenge, you obviously have corrections to make.
3. Are there any questions or concerns you wish you had clarified before beginning the challenge? – Was there any confusion beforehand or while you were eating? Did any rules surprise you that you wish you had found out earlier so you could prepare better? Was the challenge exactly what you thought it would be? Ask next time!!
4. How were your techniques during the challenge? Should you do anything differently next time? – Did you take too big of bites or did you drink too much liquid? Were you happy with your eating speed and techniques? Can they be improved? If you know you need some work, analyze what you are doing wrong and how to correct it.
5. How was your confidence both before and during the challenge? Did you know you would win? – Did you think you were going to win beforehand, or did you know you were going to win? You didn’t think you might lose did you? If you lacked confidence, figure out what you need to do to be confident you will conquer the next one.
6. Is there anything you wish you had done directly afterwards to help your body recover quicker? – How did you feel directly after the challenge? How did you feel a few hours afterwards, and what did you do to speed up the recovery process? Use this question to figure out how to improve your recovery after the next big challenge.
7. Is there any other aspect you can improve to help you perform better during the next challenge? – Use this question to critique and decide whether there are any other ways you can improve your eating abilities. If you lost, be honest and decide whether you even had a chance to win. If you lost with over a full pound of food remaining, you may have chosen a food challenge that is too difficult for you at this stage in your career. If you did choose a challenge too large, use that knowledge and experience to help decide which challenge you want to attempt next that you know you actually have a shot at winning. Your performance doesn’t matter if you choose a challenge you can’t win. Get creative here and decide what other things you can do in the future to improve your training, strategy, techniques, & overall performance. Be better tomorrow than you were today!!
By answering the above seven questions, you will be able to critique your entire challenge experience from the beginning to the end, all the way from your first training session to your recovery after the challenge. The most important thing you need to do is be honest with yourself and critical of yourself so that you are able to improve and become a better food challenger than you were before the challenge. Critique yourself using the questions above and you will successfully be able to become the best food challenger / competitive eater you can be.
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