The most dangerous activity linked to competitive eating and food challenges is definitely when people attempt to train to increase their stomach capacity by using nothing but water. This training method is mentioned as one of The Dangers Of Competitive Eating, and it cannot be stressed enough that you need to be very careful using water alone to increase your stomach capacity. If you are really wanting to involve water training into your regimen, please read How To Expand Your Stomach Using Water which contains a beginner’s guide to water training that teaches you how to train safely and gradually for your eating competitions. The safest and most effective way to train with water is to involve food in your training too so that your body is not depleted of nutrients and electrolytes. Please read Expanding Your Stomach Using Food AND Water to learn how to combine both methods of training so that you can increase your stomach capacity safely and very effectively while also consuming less calories and experiencing shorter periods of discomfort during and after your training sessions.

As mentioned in How To Expand Your Stomach Using Water, there are a few professional eaters that are able to drink over 2 gallons of liquid in one sitting. These professionals have trained for years to be able to do that, and they built up their capacity gradually, just like you need to. Also, they do not use just water. They use low calorie sports drinks such as Gatorade or Powerade along with water to maintain their electrolytes. The actual amount depends on your size and body type, but if you try to drink over 1 gallon of regular water really quickly without any prior experience or food in your belly, serious problems are likely to occur. You may pass out and even die. Winning a food challenge or eating contest is not worth risking your life. To learn a pretty good scientific explanation of how too much water can hurt and even kill you, please watch the informative video below.

As you saw during that video, drinking too much H2O while water training is not anything that you want to mess with. In addition to possibly killing you if you have too much too quickly, drinking an excessive amount of water puts a large amount of stress on your kidneys. Your kidneys absorb excess water out of your blood stream, and therefore drinking excessive amounts of water for a long period of time can damage your kidneys, just like drinking alcohol consistently for a long period of time can damage your liver, and you don’t want to do that. Therefore, limit your frequency of training with just water, and increase your frequency of training with both food AND water. Then you have the best of both worlds, and you get to experience the benefits of both while reducing the negative downsides that occur if you have too much of either one. The main goal of food challenges and competitive eating is for everyone involved to have fun, and we don’t want anybody getting hurt. If you attempt to train with just water, and you end up getting hurt or killed, you will not be seen as “dedicated.” You will be seen as an idiot that did not know when to say when. When doing any type of serious stomach capacity training, please do not attempt to do anything that you know your body might not be able to handle.

To go back and view other Stomach Capacity Training articles, click here.