I was reading FHM, where they had a little story about Diamond Jim Brady, millionaire glutton. This story pretty much corroborates what the FHM piece said about his eating habits. The FHM goes on to say he averaged over 27,000 calories a day. Now here’s a picture of ole Diamond Jim. He’s pretty fat, but I’ve seen fatter on the train today.
According to my sources the average human needs 2200 cals a day to maintain the weight they are currently at. My sources also tell me eating 3500 cals over what you burn, on average, will cause you to gain one pound. Soooooo. . . shouldn’t Mr. Millionaire have been gaining more than 6 pounds a day. Sure he burned a few boffing his girl and riding his gold-plated, mother-of-pearl handled bicycle, I don’t think any amount of riding could have offset the 2000 lbs he should have gained in one year of eating as he was purported to.
My question is: Is it really possible that someone could eat that much and not weigh 2000 pounds? Or have historians taken one or two fantastic eating binges and called it an “average” day for Diamond Jim?
The key words in your sources are, I think, “average”. Diamond Jim was probably not Mr. Average Digestive System. As a non-medical type, I can’t say exactly WHY he was like he was, but a general statement that his body didn’t obtain as much energy from the food he ate as we would expect in a normal person would probably be pretty accurate.
I have a (converted for Americans) 101 pound mother. She can pack it away! She also can’t do more then about 3 hours without eating or gets woozy. Seriously she can EAT. She has always been vigiliant ie: every summer she decides she needs to “be careful” with what she eats. But she does have a bloody good metabolism.
I think some people just have especially lucky metabolisms that they don’t share with their daughters.
There are people who have trouble absorbing nutrients from food (google “short bowel syndrome” for some examples). Such people do require more food than average folks because they are so inefficient in using it. If such a person ate a normal diet they would literally starve to death.
The causes of these sorts of things are variable, but it is conceivable that Diamond Jim had such a condition, which would explain how he could eat so much and only be mildly heavy.
I don’t see how he would have the time to eat that much. Seriously. I have known people that ate all day long, athletes that ate every hour and 45 mins- Huge amounts of food, and they only barely managed 8k. I’m not talking about brocolli and chicken breasts; Pizza, all you can eat buffets, slabs of beef, ice cream, cartons of eggs. You name it.
You would have to sit at a buffet and do nothing to eat all day long- and even then I doubt you can manage more than 12k.
I think there is a bit of exaggeration on the part of the historians as well. Breakfast seems a bit heavy. I can see somebody eating four or five eggs and 8-10 pancakes, come muffins and porkchops or something, but eating all that they said he did would take all morning.
Drinking a gallon of OJ isn’t impossible, I have myself drank a whole gallon of milk in one setting. (took about 15 mins though)
Not sure about the reported 6 dozen oysters in one day though, I suppose it is possible.
Two whole ducks, six or seven lobsters, six crabs, AND a sirloin steak? My BS meter is going off here.
Not to mention the two lobsters he ate earlier that day, the gallon of lemon soda (blech), and three whole pies he supposedly ate at lunch.
I have seen some large guys pack away food, and heard some stories I can tell you, but this just screams BS.
Possibly IS bs, but I’ve seen similar things. Had a roommate in college who could eat six plates of dorm food in the time it took me to consume one and a half.
Sumbitch was skinny as a rail, too. A metabolic wonder. He ate four largish meals a day, and could eat them quickly, efficiently, and without LOOKING like he was wolfing his food. We often ate together, and he could carry on a conversation while shoveling it in, politely and without apparent haste. I usually had to wait on him a little, but he usually finished shortly after I did; time was never much of a factor in his meals.
Admittedly, I never saw him eat any three pies in one sitting, but I have no doubt he could eat one entire pie in the time it would take me to eat one slice and go get another.
Add that to the fact that “Diamond” Jim himself was prone to exaggeration, and that his patronage was good for any restaurant’s business… and I suspect we’re somewhere between “high metabolic rate” and “high hyperbolic rate”…
Kazatuyo Arai, pencil-slim at 5 foot 6 and 110 pounds, led a Japanese sweep of Tuesday’s annual hot dog eating contest at Nathan’s in Coney Island.
Arai, 32, of Saitama, Japan, ate a record 25 hot dogs during the 12-minute contest. He was also the 1997 champion with 24.
Just watching this guy eat made me ill.
You know that record has been destroyed don’t you?
Takeru something ate 51 hot dogs in 2002 at the Nathan’s contest. He won again this year with 44 hot dogs, and was angry he didn’t beat his own record.
