My personal bests without puking:
24 bottles of bud light. Strangely, i have drank less and puked.
Entire medium Pizza Hut pizza without crusts, 10 slices of a large ph pizza without crusts, entire big New Yorker without crusts.
10 slices (at say 1/2 lb a slice) of prime rib, nothing else, several times. Usually with horseradish and au jus. My goal whenever i go to a prime rib buffet is to eat prime rib as big as my head.
I remember when I was still a kid riding a bike easily eating a large pizza, drinking an entire pitcher of OJ and wanting more. That’s when I first realized I could pack away a sizeable amount of groceries.
I college we went to the all you can eat Red Lobster and I had 28 bowls of popcorn shrimp.
Working remote on the North Slope, we went to the Kuparuk mess hall and it was one of those unfillable days. I can’t remember everything but it was on the order of five ribeye and NY strips, 2 big meaty chicken cordon bleus, countless Alaskan king crab legs, a bunch of broccoli and 3 pieces of apple pie with ice cream. I finally quit but only because I was embarassed to keep going back to the grill, for what would have been at least the 8th time, to ask for another very generously sized entree.
It has to be either going to one of those Brazilian steakhouses with the little red/green card- I got carried away to say the least, or when I was in college and there was a bet concerning who could eat a “Super Monster” from Freebirds World Burrito(a local burrito joint at the time, ca. 1993 or so) first.
Said burrito was roughly the size of a full-sized Thermos- about 8-9" long by 3.5" in diameter, and supposedly weighing in at 7 lbs.
I finished it without barfing, but it was a sore trial; all the meat, rice and beans were in the top half, and when I got to the bottom it was full of guacamole and sour cream.
In high school I put away a local 3lb burger challenge, with accompanying fries and I think cole slaw.
I’ve eaten at a few Brazilian steakhouses in recent years and have more or less gorged myself each time, but I have no idea exactly how much I ate. A lot, though.
2 stories, one as a kid and one as an adult:
When I was a kid, my favorite restaurant was a Mexican all-you-can-eat buffet called Pancho’s. Every birthday, my mom would take me and a handful of friends to Pancho’s, and we’d gorge ourselves. We’d also have an eating contest- who could eat the most flautas, which were like deep-fried, tightly rolled tacos (looked like a really big cigar). I always won. The last few years, when I was like 11 or 12, the contests were so lopsided that I would face-off against two friends at once. I still won- I ate something close to 40 flautas, and my two buddies couldn’t top 25 or 30 between them. I also found out later that they always cheated (by hiding the food under the table), but I still won.
When I served on a submarine, I would regularly trade food for sleep- I would be so tired after standing watch that I’d go straight to the rack (we called our beds “the rack”), often skipping meals. But when I did eat, oh boy… most of the time the food was middling to bad, but occasionally it was pretty good. Steak night was one of the good nights. On one steak night, I polished off 2 steaks pretty quickly, along with a plate of corn and mashed potatoes. I asked for more, and the cooks shook their heads but gave me another steak. I ate that one and asked for more, and they decided they’d show me- they gave me a plate piled high with 2 steaks and a mountain of corn.
I ate that too, and the cooks never doubted or challenged me again.
I was anorexic, and dieted my 5’6" stuff down to 95 pounds. During that time, I would drink 14 to 16 24 oz. cups of black coffee a day.
Since recovering, I occasionally eat a lot of food in one sitting. My favorite is an entire large 4 cheese pizza with barbecue sauce on it.
I was in an informal pizza eating contest in college and downed 16 large (yet somewhat thin) slices, which is more than one “extra large” pizza.
My second biggest stuffing was probably at the buffet at Circus Circus. My stomach was empty and I was famished because I had just hiked 25 miles over the past 2 days without enough solid food, and I had 5 plates full of food. As in almost falling off the plate they were so full.
I have always been a big eater but my own personnal record had to be at my brothers wedding reception when I was about 15 years old. I wasn’t actually counting but I know I must have eaten at least 25 cold cut sandwitches over about a 4 hour period, probably a bit more.
I would on occassion eat 1/2# bacon, 1/2 dozen eggs, 2 medium sized hash brown potatoes for breakfast with at least 2 pieces of toast and jelly. I did drain off all the grease and used just a small butter pat to cook my eggs.
Once in Vegas we were at a casino buffet and I was challenged to eat 10 plates of dessert (on top of a normal, large-ish buffet meal.) I succeeded-- although it’s worth noting that those desserts are rather dainty portions.
Dsiclaimer: I was very athletic as a kid. I ran track (miler), played football (WR) and basketball (guard), did a season as a gymnast (high bar), as well as wrestling. My brother lettered in football, basketball, and baseball. So during high school, we were essentially two human blast furnaces. Our grandmother worked a school cafeteria and raised 10 kids, so we were accustomed to ready access to vats of food; she never learned not to cook in bulk.
Mostly, I remember a blur of food. My grandmother said it wasn’t unusual for my brother and I to eat an entire chicken each, plus sides. Since my 20s, I’m considered to have a bird-like appetite, being one of those weirdos that stops eating when I feel full, rather than trying to clean my plate.
The most I’ve seen eaten involves my brother as well. Not long after I moved to Chicago, my brother showed up with 3 buddies to do a Bears walk-on tryout; I’m 6" and weighed 210# at the time, the smallest of the group. I took the guys to Sizzler for lunch during the visit, and when we got there they were starting to clear away the breakfast buffet. One of the guys said “whoa, what do you do with all that?” “We throw it out.” “Get over here.” They ate the entire breakfast buffet (the mound of scrambled eggs was huge) - then we had lunch. The funniest part is, once people learned they were trying out for football, everyone took it in stride - reactions went from OMG to just “oh.”
In my 20’s my buddy and I would get 12 Krystal (White Castle) burgers, a large order of fries and a large drink each to devour on our way to the golf course, about a 20 minute drive.
One Christmas Eve, after the 10:00pm service, my fmaily sat down to our traditional lobster dinner. Over about a 1.5 hour period (-ish, I know I had to get up three times to re-warm the bowls of butter as they kept congealing) I ate a five-pound lobster. I’m pretty sure I also did some damage to the platter of grilled brussels sprouts.
The really weird thing was that I left the table craving grains. I would have started cooking a pot of porridge right then if I could have remained standing long enough.
In the wee hours next morning, I experienced a sensation in my intestines that can only be described as nausea and vomiting; but it was heading down rather than up, thank goodness!
We have a Brazilian Churrascaria near my house. I have to limit myself to one or two visits a year, because by the time I get out of there, I feel like I have eaten half a cow. It’s hard to estimate the weight; I guess the next time I go, I’ll have to get on the scales before I leave the house and when I get back home.
I think my most was Pasta at Old Chicago in Fort Collins. They had an all you can eat Pasta with about 8 Noodle forms and maybe 7 sauces.
When I was about 16 in the summer,I spent all day from 2 AM when My Dad woke me up and said the Grandparent’s neighborhood and house had flooded Till 9PM carrying things like water soaked mattresses up stairs with nothing to eat, quickly trying to get to everything that might be salvageable.
I normally at a shit-ton in those days, but I was so damn hungry that time, when we ended up at Old Chicago that night I had probably 8-9 plates of Pasta and Sauce.
Let’s see if I can remember: In the early 90’s, a friend and I went to this small chain place that’s now out of business, but it reminded me of an O’Charley’s or Applebee’s. He was a hot-wing fiend, the hotter the better, so he had lots of hot wings and some beer to wash it down with. I had just gotten off work and was starved. We split an appetizer - fried cheese sticks, IIRC - but I ate most of them. I then had a sizable bowl of New England clam chowder with plenty of crackers. Next I got a huge bacon cheeseburger which must have been a half-pound patty, cooked weight. Had a double-order of fries on top of that, then I finished off with hot apple crisp with ice cream.
The result was me moving very carefully through the parking lot and gingerly sitting in his car, wondering how close I was to bursting my stomach. I don’t think I’ve ever been that full before or since. We ate around 8pm, and I woke up the next day and said, “I’m still full.” Dinner time rolled around, I said, “I’m still full.” I talked to my friend later that evening, and I said, “I’M STILL FULL!” We went out to eat again anyway, but I took it very easy:)
Damn, that was good food, though. Damn good. We were both upset when it closed.
I don’t honestly have an answer to the OP
But I do remember once, when I was twelve or thirteen, a potluck that was part of a family reunion. I was still growing then, and ate and ate and ate. I was absolutely stuffed, and then I saw the dish of black olive. I love black olives and had to have some, so I got a few.
Doesn’t sound so bad? I did almost get sick, and still remember going out to our family car and lying down in the back seat, in misery. My own mother still teases me about it, well over forty years later.
I think it was that incident that taught me not to eat something if I was full, no matter how good it was. Things don’t taste as good if you have to tamp them down into your stomach.
I would guess somewhere around 4-5K myself, but my maintence is more like 2000-2500 calories (5’11", 170 lbs, moderate activity). I know I’ve finished two entire large pizzas (although very thin crust) in a sitting before, but I’m not sure what my record is.
12 course Chinese New Years special dinner. No vomitus, but a raging scary case of MSG overdose.
My story is eerily similar to OP’s.
When I was a teenage boy, one and a half pizzas reheated in the microwave, and on another occasion a massive buffet binge of around 8 plates. (Creamy seafood mix over fried rice at some place on the Savannah docks, yum.)
Bit off topic, but does anyone else ever have “thirsty nights”? Occasionally I drink at least 3 litres or so of non-alcoholic liquids during the evening before my thirst is slaked. And on those nights what I really crave is milk.
Back in about 1985 or so I went to a Captain George’s in Virginia Beach and ate a dozen lobster tails, about a pound of peel and eat cold shrimp, a cluster of king crab legs along with a garden type salad, a couple of rolls and a baked potato - it was a birthday gorge that a bunch of seals, my BF of the time [a seal, hence the seals ;)] and a few others did. At the time I was still doing normally 1800 calories a day of the normal diabetic diet but I will allow myself to cheat 2 or 3 times a year. It didn’t really impact me all that much becuase I was walking rounds as a security guard and doing 5-7 miles a night. I was in excellent physical shape, I had finished rehab 4 years previously and was working a fairly hard physically arduous job before moving down to Tidewater.
A few years back I took one for the Dope and did the drink a gallon of milk in an hour thing. Didn’t barf either time - though I really didn’t want any milk for a while afterwards!