Shadowing Practice: How Competitive Eaters Stay so Lean - Learn English Speaking with Video
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The other day I was being productive, watching a hot dog eating contest, and noticed something.
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All the top eaters are pretty healthy.
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I mean, just look at the lean faces on the Major League Eating leaderboards.
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I wanted to find out how somebody who regularly eats over 10 ,000 calories a day looks like this.
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Many speculate about a darker side to their career.
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But these crazy gobblers give those of us with scary appetites hope.
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And again, I don't have like this crazy metabolism of the gods.
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So how are they doing it?
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And should we use any of their tactics ourselves?
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Strangely, almost all competitive eaters have deep backgrounds in health and fitness.
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Matt Stoney studied nutrition.
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Santel, a registered nutritionist.
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Neo, a registered nutritionist.
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Katina eats kilos, a background in bodybuilding.
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Beer meets food, an impressive fitness background.
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And it's not a coincidence.
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With this sport, getting your nutritional approach right can quite literally be a matter of life and death.
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Here's a CT scan of a competitive eater's stomach after they were rushed to hospital.
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You can see the food pushing their organs around.
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It's a risky escapade.
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This is 69 hot dog buns, 69 hot dogs and over two quarts of water.
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This is what it looks like inside the human body.
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Surely no human is able to stomach this without ruptures, right?
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The rock on which he stands is not a rock, it is the United States of America!
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This is Joey Chestnut.
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He just devoured 71 hot dogs in under 10 minutes, making him the greatest competitive eater in history.
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A man of unhinged powers, and one of his secrets?
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Maintaining a healthy weight.
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I do gain weight and it's a battle.
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I have to be aware of it because if I lose track of my long -term calorie intake, I gain weight and then I start losing contests.
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I hate losing.
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Coincidentally, this is the ideal body according to competitive eaters.
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A short neck, long torso and wider build.
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But this doesn't mean fat.
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The belt of fat theory suggests that belly fat restricts the stomach's abilities to expand, limiting the amount of food the competitive eater can ingest.
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Excessive fat gain also limits the contestant's ability to breathe or shoveling food down their gullet.
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If I wasn't taking care of myself, if I wasn't physically in great shape, then I wouldn't be able to physically compete at a high level.
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Okay, so we know that saying someone will fit is a requirement for elite competitive eating.
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This doesn't explain how the muckbanger Hungry Fat Chick ended up with off -the -chart obesity, while competitive eaters maintain an ideal weight.
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Many believe it's the difference between a slow and a fast metabolism.
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competitive eating comment sections are full of people dissatisfied with their slow metabolisms
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but according to competitive eaters their metabolisms aren't anything special there are
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so many misconceptions about food challenges and food challengers one of them is
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that we've got some magic metabolisms and
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that we're just able to eat loads of food all of the time it is not the case.
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Matt Stoney has an estimated BMR of 1 ,516 calories per day, Mickey Sudo 1 ,223 calories,
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and Beard Meets Food 1 ,623 calories.
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According to studies, two people of the exact same height, weight, age, sex, body composition, and lifestyle could have energy needs
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that differ by 800 calories per day this could be the difference between a 1100
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or a 1900 calorie bmr some people are genetically gifted with a faster metabolism
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but it's rare
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and it doesn't mean they can swallow sausages all day without
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getting fat statistically most people within 200 calories of their estimates
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this is why competitive eaters get frustrated with people talking about the metabolism like it's some ancestral curse all the
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while they put a lot of effort into losing fat it does not matter how fast your metabolism is
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if you eat in excess of calories consistently you're going to gain weight also believe it
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or not i do have an average metabolism
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but there's something many do to speed up their metabolisms weightlifting it's estimated
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that by gaining 10 kilograms of muscle losing 10 kilograms of
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fat your bmr increases by 85 calories per day giving you
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an extra 31 000 calories to to play with over the year.
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Although I'm not some muscle -bound juice head, what mass is on my body is mostly muscle.
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So to sustain my body weight and the activity level, in addition to keeping me alive, my body needs more calories than somebody who doesn't weight train.
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Competitive eaters may burn a few hundred more calories per day, but there's no way this could ever offset weekly 10 ,000 calorie challenges.
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So I wanted to find out how they eat outside of competitions.
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is most of what i prepare at home is raw fruits
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fresh vegetables a lot of lean meats routine after contests is
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to eat super high fiber i focus a lot on vegetables maybe like a lean
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or a fat free dairy otherwise i kind of just fill
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the gaps with whatever else works i am massively into eating clean and then
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when it's time to throw down then i go in on the food my daily diet consists of a lot of vegetables,
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fruits, low -fat protein, but a lot of micro -dense foods and I in fact actually enjoy eating like salads and broccoli, green beans, corn.
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Healthy eating, great.
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But how exactly is this helping them lose weight?
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Your body does reflect what you do over 90 % of the time
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and I am probably a competitive eater four days of every month.
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The average competitive eater doesn't eat like this all the time.
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In fact, most do around one challenge per week.
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The single, most important factor and I can't stress this enough
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when it comes to gaining weight or losing weight is the amount of calories you consume over time.
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This makes it a simple equation.
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To maintain my weight I need to eat roughly 18 to 20 ,000 calories per week
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so if I film a restaurant challenge that's say 7 ,000 calories I know
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that throughout the rest of the week I have 11 ,000 calories to play with.
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On their off days they'll drop their calories to prevent weight gain.
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To If all they're larger than average stomachs, with few calories, they volume eat.
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It lets me eat a large amount of food without having to consume a large amount of calories.
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Take this example.
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This is what 1 ,000 calories of strawberries looks like next to 1 ,000 calories of donuts.
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Competitive eaters opt for very high volume foods to stay sane while in a calorie deficit.
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Two and a quarter pounds of salad.
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It's rich in protein, really good macros basically I'm eating this entire meal for roughly a thousand calories.
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The fiber content also helps keep competitive eaters full and the micronutrients help to keep their bodies healthier.
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If you want to do food challenges you better love to learn vegetables and fruit.
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Many including Matt Stoney supplement with whey protein and consume high protein diets.
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Protein not only helps prevent muscle loss and a calorie deficit
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but it's the most filling macronutrient per calorie so a high protein diet can help you lose weight.
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If we come back to the diagram that shows how we burn our calories, there's a section called TEF, which stands for the thermic effect of food.
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It's the amount of calories your body burns breaking down foods.
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It typically takes more energy to break down protein in comparison to the other macronutrients.
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This seems to also be the case for nutritious whole foods versus ultra processed foods.
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So the thermic effect of eating a high protein diet with lots of whole foods is another very small factor, helping competitive eaters maintain a healthy weight.
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But let's not get distracted.
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It all comes down to calorie balance.
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Makes sense.
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But if this is the case, what about practices before competitions?
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And many comments suggesting they have more disordered habits.
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We'll get to that.
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But first, we need to explore their cardio, because they must do tons of it, right?
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Surprisingly, many competitive eaters do very little cardio for weight loss.
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Cardio is overrated for burning calories for most people, which is why it represents the smallest amount of calories burned per day on this chart.
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It's not at all necessary for fat loss.
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That's not to say competitive eaters don't do cardio.
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I'm usually doing between three to four hours of actual training and that's endurance training, so.
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Yasir Saleem is another competitive eater and endurance athlete.
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His energy expenditure chart probably looks more like this.
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This is how the most decorated Olympian of all time, Michael Phelps, was able to maintain his weight eating 8 to 10 ,000 calories per day.
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It was brutal.
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But aggressively swimming after a 10 ,000 calorie curry is likely to result in embarrassment and a ban from your leisure centre.
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Even if you run an extra 10 kilometres every day, it's only an extra 600 -ish calories, the equivalent of this much peanut butter, which is why most competitive eaters,
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if they do any cardio at all, are more moderate, with Joey Chestner claiming to run two to three times per
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week to help them push the boundaries for human hot dog consumption.
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Doing cardio helps me with my breathing during a contest, but I don't depend on cardio to burn calories necessarily.
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I try to get into a calorie deficit.
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Because while it's a helpful fat loss tool, competitive eaters like to use a much more sustainable fat loss accelerator.
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But I don't do anything any crazier than going for regular walks outside for cardio.
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I walk a lot, like I walk like a lot every day.
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NEAT represents a large proportion of the calories we burn per day.
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Non -exercise activity thermogenesis is a calorie you burn from fidgeting, walking, and any activity that is an exercise.
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there's a reason in bodybuilding
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when the goal is to get incredibly lean most people increase their step count it's low intensity
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so can be done after a big challenge for long periods and
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while multitasking making it easy to fit into daily life i
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fucking hate high intensity interval training that's why i walk for
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a long long time this is all pretty healthy stuff
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so what about all the comments suggesting that competitive eaters are hiding their true weight loss methods from the public.
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It's me trading on an eating disorder for money, is what the 2024 Nathan's Hot Dog champion, Patrick Bertoletti, admitted to in an interview.
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It's no surprise why psychiatrists suggest that there's an overlap between competitive eaters and eating disorders,
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and why so many people in the comment section suspect they all throw up after competitions.
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He says I heard you
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and basically all competitive eaters make yourself sick after the challenge any truth to
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that um i definitely don't think there is any truth to
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that i think some people probably do but i think you can't really base
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that on all competitive eaters many do it intentionally
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but this is a dangerous assumption the best competitive eaters do digest the food people always assume
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that um you're going to puke after that
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but for my rule of thumb is i don't induce like
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if it comes out it comes out we don't go induce
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vomiting i never have vomited after any of these food challenges besides
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when i tried to chug a gallon of milk
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while they may digest the food many fast for long periods
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of time cost about 40 to do a practice i'm not eating anything for two days leading up to that practice
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and then afterwards i'm not eating very much i'm eating vegetables
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this is how they're able to fit a few practice runs
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in each month all with the supervision of medical professionals one
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of my biggest splurges is my doctor all the top eaters
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are pretty healthy the healthier you are the harder you can push your body.
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This is why most competitive eaters try to keep their weight down sustainably and their approach is clearly effective.
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To use Beard Mead's food as an example
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if we give him a generous BMR estimate of 1 ,900 calories he walks a lot
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so let's put his knee at 600 calories.
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He eats a lot of protein and healthy foods
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but also does some challenges so let's put his thermic effective food at 300 calories.
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And lastly he trains in the gym putting his exercise activity thermogenesis about 200 calories per day.
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Each day, he burns around 3 ,000 calories, which is 21 ,000 calories per week.
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If he does one 8 ,000 calorie challenge a week, he now needs to eat under 2 ,167 calories to avoid weight gain without doing anything too crazy.
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Hopefully it helps some people out, and like I said, you can kind of apply this knowledge, you know, at a less extreme level if you like.
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This is the exact process I use myself, to stay in decent shape while still enjoying food just with more moderation, so I don't have to spend most of my days in a calorie deficit.
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This is what matters, not whether you're a carnivore, keto, or fruitarian.
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And it doesn't matter if you can't run, have a slow metabolism, or a rampant appetite.
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There's something everyone can do.
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The point is, if competitive eaters can stay in decent shape, you can do so too, while still enjoying the foods you like.
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If you want to see what happens when a once -fit tribal island did the exact opposite of everything in this video, I recommend this video next.
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I'll see you next time.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “How Competitive Eaters Stay so Lean”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: calorie, competitive, eater, weight, eating. This video has 174 sentences and 2275 words to shadow. The speech runs for 13:04. The speaker talks at a natural 174 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 76% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| calorie noun | /ˈkæləɹi/ | A non-SI unit of energy, equivalent to 4.184 kilojoules, that can raise the temperature of a kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. This is the unit normally… |
| metabolism noun | /məˈtæb.əˌlɪz.əm/ | The chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life. |
| vegetable noun | /ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/ | A plant raised for some edible part of it, such as the leaves, roots, fruit or flowers, but excluding any plant considered to be a fruit, grain, herb, or spice… |
| muscle noun | /ˈmʌs.əl/ | A contractile form of tissue which animals use to effect movement. |
| lean verb | /ˈliːn/ | To incline, deviate, or bend, from a vertical position; to be in a position thus inclining or deviating. |
| deficit noun | /ˈdɛfəsɪt/ | Deficiency in amount or quality; a falling short; lack. |
| chart noun | /t͡ʃɑɹt/ | A map illustrating the geography of a specific phenomenon. |
| disorder noun | /dɪsˈɔɹdɚ/ | Absence of order; state of not being arranged in an orderly manner. |
| consume verb | /kənˈsum/ | To use up. |
| ideal adjective | /aɪˈdi(ə)l/ | Pertaining to ideas, or to a given idea. |
| stomach noun | /ˈstʌmək/ | An organ in animals that stores food in the process of digestion. |
| decent adjective | /ˈdiː.sənt/ | Appropriate; suitable for the circumstances. |
| fitness noun | /ˈfɪt.nəs/ | The condition of being fit, suitable or appropriate. |
| roughly adverb | /ˈɹʌf.li/ | In a rough manner; without kindness, softness, or gentleness. |
| physically adverb | /ˈfɪz.ɪ.kli/ | In a physical manner. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| break down verb | To stop functioning. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. | |
| come down to verb | To reach by moving down or reducing. | |
| go in on verb | To contribute money for a joint purchase. | |
| lead up to verb | To set in motion; to act as a causal or preparatory event or sequence of events. | |
| speed up verb | /spiːdˈʌp/ | To accelerate; to increase speed. |
| throw down verb | To cause something one is holding to drop, often forcefully. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | somebody who regularly · somebody who doesn · people, which is |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were rushed · is overrated · can be done |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 37 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, doesn't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: breathe /bɹiːð/, athlete /ˈæθ.liːt/, thumb /ˈθʌm/, thermic /ˈθɜː(ɹ)mɪk/, thermogenesis /ˌθəːmə(ʊ)ˈdʒɛnɪsɪs/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: rush /ɹʌʃ/, consumption /kənˈsʌmp.ʃən/, composition /ˌkɑm.pəˈzɪʃ.ən/, proportion /pɹəˈpɔɹʃən/, nutrition /njuːˈtɹɪʃ.ən/
- Long words — get the stress right: metabolism /məˈtæb.əˌlɪz.əm/, intensity /ɪnˈtɛnsɪti/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/, composition /ˌkɑm.pəˈzɪʃ.ən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like calorie, metabolism, vegetable.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.