A 30-stone bloke credits monster eating challenges for helping him lose weight - claiming regularly devouring 10,000-calorie treats helped him shed six stone. John Dawes said comfort eating exacerbated by a relationship breakdown saw him 'constantly' chomping on pizza washed down with fizzy pop and doing no exercise.
The dad-of-two's eating habits spiralled out of control leaving him tipping the scales at 30 stone and wearing 58-inch waist trousers. The delivery driver, who rarely socialised due to anxiety and depression, feared he wouldn't live long enough to see his children grow up so knew he had to do something about it - but was unsure how to tackle it.
After spotting an eating contest advertised online, which he describes as playing to his strength of eating large amounts of food, he decided to give it a go in a bid to meet new people. The 43-year-old tackled a beans on toast challenge in July 2020, where contenders were served a gut-busting 20 slices of toast and 2.5kg of baked beans.
Despite not managing to polish off all the baked beans, the self-professed 'foodie sex god' clinched second place and described the experience as 'euphoric'. John, now 24st, soon realised he needed to be in peak condition to become a chomping champ so began offsetting his calories.
The 5ft 10 foodie started to embrace a low-calorie diet in August 2020 when not competing, ditching fizzy drinks for water and racking up his step-count while out on deliveries. Conceding he's 'never going to be wafer thin', he's now looking to add to his six-stone weight loss and is appealing to his social media followers on how to do it while still enjoying 'calorific challenges' - with his next step being joining a gym.
John, from Billingham, Teesside, said: "I've been wanting to lose weight for a while because I want to be here for my kids, I want to see them grow up. I was 30 stone at the time I started eating competitions, I wasn't exercising at all and I was comfort eating.
"I felt awfully sluggish and I couldn't stand to look in the mirror, I hated looking at myself. I was just trying to find something that I enjoy. I heard about the beans on toast competitive eating challenge online in 2020 and I just thought 'I could do that' but with my anxiety at the time I wasn't sure.
"I knew I was good at it because of comfort eating, it played to my strengths of eating a lot, and I just took it to a bigger scale. Instead of eating as much as possible it was eating as much as possible in a faster time.
"I grabbed someone to go with me to make sure I didn't walk out and I enjoyed it. I came second in the first challenge and I put myself in for the next three or four competitions straight after.
"I didn't completely finish it, I got half the beans down and all the toast, but it was a sense of euphoria [thinking] 'oh my god I can do this'. It was great. But then I started to take a real interest and was looking at how to get better and make sure it doesn't affect my health."
It was at an early eating competition when John caught sight of himself that he knew something had to change and embarked on his weightloss journey in August 2020.
John said: "I saw myself in a shirt, I basically saw a unit, and I thought 'I need to lose the weight'. I used to just eat pizzas constantly and drink loads of fizzy pop and it's now totally different.A lot of it is staying active and off-shooting the calories.
"If I know I'm doing a 10,000 calorie feast in a weekend I'm going to have six days of eating low-calorie meals, staying active and drinking a hell of a lot of water.
"I'm a very competitive person and you need to be in good shape to tackle such intense challenges. It's ironic being able to finally lose weight while taking part in such calorific challenges, it's just keeping on top of it. I'm staying active now as much as possible, will soon be joining the gym and will be hammering it as much as I can."
Competitive John wants to ensure he's in the best possible shape when stepping up to the plate during contests and appealed to his followers on how to progress on his weight loss journey.
In a Facebook post, John wrote: "Since I started competitive eating I've lost an amazing amount of weight. I started at 30 stone, I'm 24 stone. Still not happy, I'd like to lose more. [If] anyone could help I'm all ears."
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Since his first competition, John hasn't looked back, tackling countless challenges and attracting a loyal online following along the way on his account Food and the Beast, where he describes himself as a 'foodie sex god'. Thanks to a consistent calorie-controlled diet between the gut-busting challenges, plus walking and hauling heavy loads at work, John has managed to steadily drop the weight.
John said: "The weight loss has been slow and steady. No-one noticed the weight go straight away, but in the last year people have said 'oh you're losing weight'.
"I feel a bit better for it, I'm not as sluggish as I was. I'm not going to be wafer thin and if I do get really thin I'll need to do a lot of work in the gym just to build the body up so it fills out the excess skin.
"I'm still 24 stone but as soon as I can get down to a good level so I can start moving more and faster than I do, I want to do more. I've never been able to fit in Primark clothing before but when the Greggs range came out I managed to start fitting into their clothes - they only go to a 3XL.
"It's absolutely brilliant, I'm going to keep going as long as possible. Firstly for my kids, they want to see their daddy fit and healthy. I want to walk my daughter down the aisle and my son grow up into a man. I've no number on the scales in mind, all I'm after is to be the best."
