Every day, Julie Goldberg eats in a way that could be described as “excessively normal.” She finishes her salad. He doesn’t eat the pizza crust. You’d have no idea that Ms. Goldberg, 38, is a competitive foodie in training to eat, if not the most hot dogs in history, then the most hot dogs she’s ever eaten in her life.
These titans of caloric consumption walk among us: construction workers and school administrators, farmers and accountants. The difference is that every 4th of July, the best of them flock to Coney Island for the Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest.
This year the stadium is unexpectedly open. Last month, 16-time pageant champion Joey Chestnut was disqualified from the competition after signing an endorsement deal with Impossible Foods. Soon after the news broke, it was announced that he would face off against his long-time rival, Takeru Kobayashi, in a Netflix special – “Chestnut vs Kobayashi: Unfinished Beef” — will go live on September 2. (Mr. Kobayashi, who holds the world record for downing bunless hot dogs, has not been allowed to compete since 2010 due to a contract dispute with Major League Eating, the governing body of Nathan’s event .)
The vast majority of eating elites don’t sign endorsement deals or get Netflix specials. But they are the backbone of what is not just a sport but an American tradition.
Even at the peak of competitive eating, the range of abilities is enormous: Mr. Chestnut holds the record for 76 hot dogs (and buns) in 10 minutes, seven dogs short of what scientists have determined to be the theoretical maximum capacity for a human. . Jeffrey Esperwho has finished second in Nathan’s competition for three consecutive years, manage 49.5 hotdog in his qualifier this year. Nine-time women’s winner Miki Sudo holds the class record of 48.5. Other pioneers, such as James Webb, Nick Wherry and Patrick Bertolettialso hovering in the high 40s.
But most competitors aren’t hitting those kinds of numbers.
Cheris Brown, 35, a stay-at-home mom who telecommutes two part-time jobs in Edon, Ohio, describes herself as “amateur-level,” though she technically turned pro last year. Her personal best in competition is 10 hot dogs.
In a world of Joey Chestnuts, it can be easy to lose sight of just how many dogs there are. Not to be confused: 10 hot dogs in 10 minutes is that many hot dogs. Even 6.75 hot dogs — Ms. Goldberg’s recent set of qualifiers — requires special training.
“The thing about competitive eating is that it’s very difficult,” Ms. Goldberg said over wood-fired pizza near her home in Astoria, Queens. It is not the same as gluttony. Overeating is easy, but competitive eating takes skill.
Ms. Goldberg started competing the same way many people do: You meet someone who does, you talk, and they suggest you try it too.
Shortly after moving to New York for graduate school—he’s working on a PhD in political science—he met Crazy Legs Conti, one of the “OGs of competitive eating,” by chance at an East Village bar. They started practicing together.
He taught her to dip the bagel in Tang, allowing the artificial sweetness of the citrus to neutralize the oppressive salt. He introduced her to the Solomon Method. (Named after King Solomon, who famously threatened to cut a baby in two, it’s the process of cutting the dog in half and eating both pieces at once.)
George Chiger, 45, met Larell Marie Mele, 60, in line at a cable company office in Pocono Summit, Pa.
“There’s this little, petite woman in front of me in yoga pants and purple hair, and she’s excited to go back to Coney Island and she ate 15 hot dogs and buns,” he says. “I kind of laughed and he said, ‘Big boy, I can eat more food than you.’
The two became partners. They would meet at her gym—she was a personal trainer at the time—and set up George Foreman grills on the basketball court to practice. if her goal was 15 dogs, he would tell her she would do 16, as motivation.
“We did this for years,” he says, until, in 2015, Ms. Mele finally convinced him to race a Nathan qualifier at Pocono Raceway. “The adrenaline pump was crazy,” he said. “It changed my life.”
When he met Ms. Mele, Mr. Chiger, who is 6 feet, was 400-plus pounds and had just been told by a life insurance company that he was uninsured. Today, he’s just under 300 pounds, a change he proudly credits to competitive nutrition.
“It showed me at the same time, OK, I can eat large amounts of food and be really health conscious the other six days of the week,” she said. “The doctors are happy. I call it the hot dog diet.” (This is not strictly true. He has also struggled recently donuts — 37 in eight minutes, strawberry cake — 14 pounds and sweet corn — 30 ears.)
One thing competition nutrition teaches you is that the body works in mysterious ways. And, like all sports, it’s a matter of training both the body and the mind.
First, the body. Each of these eaters is trying to do two things: expand the capacity of the stomach and improve technique. Gideon Oji32, a former college basketball player from Nigeria who by day is a management intern at Enterprise Rent-a-Car in Atlanta, runs “six or seven” miles a day in training — for “endurance,” he said, adding that he performs best when he is thinner.
“It’s a lot of sacrifice for what we love,” said Mr. Oji, who devoured 35 hot dogs at this year’s Nathan’s qualifier in Times Squareand holds the world record for coleslaw (22½ 16 oz. coleslaw at Hello Yes! — The World’s Healthiest Eating Championshipin 2017).
To increase the flexibility of their stomach, some athletes focus on what amounts to an internal stretching program, using massive amounts of watermelon or vegetables or water or Diet Coke, while others do no stretching at all.
“I don’t get the opportunity as much, with the business,” said Ms. Mele, who owns an electrical contracting company with her husband. “My training is just the practices.”
Here’s where all the shapes line up: You need to practice eating hot dogs. “You I have to do that,” said Mrs. Mele, gravely.
This process is refreshingly simple: You put 10 minutes on the clock and eat as many hot dogs as you can.
Once or twice a week, Darien Thomas, 25, of Bowmanville, Ontario, director of nutrition at a nursing home and Canada’s No. 1 competitive eater, turns on the music: Rage Against the Machine and only Rage Against the Machine. (“Every time I hear Rage Against the Machine, I literally taste like a hot dog,” he said.) And then, as his family watches — for safety reasons, he never practices alone — he eats.
It is an analytical type of diet. “That’s where you really improve in those practices,” he said. Competitive eaters deconstruct the process, tweak variables, look for inefficiencies.
Mrs. Goldberg was experimenting with a new method for her – two dogs at a time – but decided against it. Lately, he’s been focusing on shorter workouts so he can really get into the mechanics. He had heard that it was better to hold food in the center of your mouth than at the edges.
“Some people are instructed not to chew too much,” he said. This is her struggle today, fighting the natural urge to chew.
Then there is the mind. The body does not want to consume six or 20 or 72 hot dogs. “At some point, you’re fighting your body to keep that food down,” Mr. Oji said. The drive to overcome this natural instinct must come from somewhere deep within.
“There’s just a lot in my life that’s happened that makes me better at overcoming mental obstacles,” said Ms. Brown, the relative newcomer from Ohio.
Ms Brown’s 9-year-old daughter died in 2020 from a rare form of brain cancer. Six months later, her son, then 8, was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. He is doing well, although he may eventually need a transplant.
For her, the reward is more than the possibility of glory.
“I’ve made so many friends through competitive eating,” she said, adding, “Nobody else I know does anything this cool.”
For Mr. Thomas, the Canadian champion, it’s about the thrill of “that raw competition,” as he describes it — “that feeling of just being able to outdo yourself.”
On a Monday in early June, he spent the day fasting to prepare for the next day’s training. “Obviously, I’d rather eat with my family,” but greatness requires sacrifice.
