This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts. (And please subscribe!)
Competitive eaters are known for their bravado, but Tim "Eater X" Janus is different.
Sure he paints his face like the Ultimate Warrior, a beloved pro wrestler from the 1980s -- but he’s soft spoken. He used to be a day trader. He once walked onstage at the Nathan's 4th of July Hot Dog Eating Contest holding a sign that read, “Hermione dies".
Tim has competed at Nathan’s 11 times and finished second twice. But that took a special kind of practice.
"When I started competitive eating I didn’t like hot dogs and I realized that was a problem," he says. "And so I would eat a hot dog slowly at my apartment, and each bite I would think about the flavors and I would tell myself, 'This is good.’"
This week on The Sporkful, Tim tells Dan about how being a competitive eater affects your dating life, shares scandalous stories of cheating on the competitive eating circuit, talks about how much money these guys actually make, and explains what happens when you get hurt.
Plus, he explains the reasoning behind a decision he made in 2015 that shocked the world of competitive eating and changed his life forever.
After this episode you will NEVER look at competitive eating the same way again!
This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts. (And please subscribe!)
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Interstitial music in this episode from Black Label Music:
- "Worldly Endeavors" by Cullen Fitzpatrick
- "Mars Casino" by Jake Luck and Collin Gorman Weiland
- "New Old" by JT Bates
Photos: FlickrCC/Kat Selvocki; FlickrCC/Victoria Pickering; FlickrCC/Chris Chin
