Tackling eating challenges took him to TV stardom, but Adam Richman had to battle more
than super-hot wings and massive burgers on his way to the top. From body image issues
to handling criticism from Alton Brown and Anthony Bourdain, here's some of the ways
Man v. Food changed its original host.
These days, Adam Richman can sometimes be found listed among the ranks of legendary
professional eating champions, but as he mentioned on the show, he hosted Man v. Food as a regular
guy with zero background in the world of competitive eating.
"Just a regular guy with a serious appetite."
This was by design, because while it's mesmerizing to witness eating legend Joey Chestnut demolish
a five-pound BurritoZilla in Season 1, watching Richman try and fail to tackle a seven-pound
breakfast burrito in the very next episode is arguably far more entertaining.
Richman was a Yale-educated actor and a sushi chef before he got the Man v. Food gig. In
2011, he mentioned that the auditioning process for the show didn't even involve any difficult
eating challenges. While this means he had to develop methods to prepare for his gluttonous
triumphs after getting the job, anyone who's watched Man v. Food can attest that Richman
certainly succeeded.
After a few years of Man v. Food, Richman was a seasoned veteran whose challenge preparation
routines sounded like that of a pro athlete doing warm-ups. He revealed these surprising
tricks to get his body going before the big moment in an interview with Heeb:
"It was always lots of exercise like leg and back work-outs in particular. They're your
biggest muscle group so they activate your metabolism quite a bit. And then I would do
interval sprints on the treadmill or jump rope."
Adam Richman preferred to view Man v. Food challenges as a good time and an enjoyable
communal experience rather than a brutal battle against a giant meal. Still, the eating challenges
remained a gigantic hurdle for Richman, and in order to survive them, there was a trick
he tried to use whenever possible: fasting.
Richman preferred to enter a challenge well-hydrated, with no food in his stomach and with an extensive
workout under him to give his metabolism a boost. By keeping his diet and health on point,
he also stood a chance to feel significantly better after challenges. A shining example
of successful preparation was the Big Texan 72-ounce steak challenge, during which Richman
devoured the giant slab of beef in under half an hour, despite it being only his first year
on the job.
On the other hand, if Richman's fasting failed, he was immediately in a much worse situation,
as he explained to 411mania:
"The simple fact is that if I eat at all the day before I have a major, major obstacle
going against me when it comes to the big challenges."
It's easy to think that big eating is a big man's game, and that a huge appetite is a
far more important factor than decent physical conditioning. Then again, a look at the lean
and ultra-fit competitive eating legend Takeru Kobayashi indicates that when the portions
get super-sized, quite the opposite can be true.
While answering fan questions for the ESPN website, Adam Richman made clear that he was
well aware of the benefits of being as healthy as possible before he started shooting Man
v. Food. So, before the cameras started rolling and the mega-dishes started coming, he took
steps to make sure his physical condition was par for the course. As he explained:
"When I started the show before the first episode was filmed, I went to specialists
ahead of time because I wanted to start with a baseline of good health, versus correcting
bad health down the road."
When you host a show like Man v. Food, it's only natural that at some point, you might
reach a stage where you simply can't stomach a certain food anymore — even if you used
to find it delicious. As Adam Richman told the Mirror in 2015, this exact thing happened
to him with oysters.
"After the oyster challenge in New Orleans, which was over half a decade ago, I think
I may have had less than a dozen since. It just turned me off."
The Man v. Food challenge Richman is referring to is his 2009 visit to the ACME Oyster House,
where he was tasked with joining the restaurant's "15 Dozen Club" by wolfing down the requisite
180 oysters. Man managed to beat food that time, but the experience of nearly 200 oysters
passing through his gullet was evidently more than enough to scare even a battle-hardened
food aficionado like Richman away. No more oyster feasts followed.
The fact that half-chewed bits of burger didn't keep falling out of Adam Richman's mouth every
time he opened it during Man v. Food eating challenges is proof that the man is quite
adept at combining his two widely known talents: eating and talking. Knowing how to speak with
food in your mouth is an extremely strange and specific thing to master in a world where
not talking with your mouth full is the go-to move in most social situations. However, Richman's
role as Man v. Food host featured so much eating and speaking in front of the camera
that at times the two were bound to intertwine, but as the man himself said on Eat With Mikey,
"No one really teaches you to eat on camera."
Fortunately, the world now has an expert. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune,
Richman revealed his secret for unlocking the questionable ability to monologue with
your mouth full.
"Realize where you articulate. If I hold all my food [in the right cheek], I can still
talk. I can essentially recite the Declaration of Independence, as long as I keep my food
here. If I move it to my left side, I'm absolutely shot."
So, keep an eye on that right cheek during your next Man v. Food marathon. You never
know what secrets it might be hiding.
Consuming wild amounts of food for a living could take a toll on your mental well-being,
especially if your job also entails being constantly in front of the camera. As Adam
Richman told the Mirror, for him this meant that he eventually became ashamed of the extra
pounds that his Man v. Food gig was piling on him.
Richman has had a history of body image issues, and as he discussed further in Men's Health,
he was getting depressed over his looks. Things got so bad that at one point, he even tried
to meddle with camera angles in an effort to cover the way he looked, though a member
of the crew promptly told him that it's probably not the best idea for a TV show host to only
show the side of his face.
Richman started noticing his extra Man v. Food-induced pounds during the making of 2013's
Adam Richman's Fandemonium, and his look was only one of the things that indicated he'd
become larger. Airplane seats were another indication, as were the constantly changing
sizes of his clothes. Richman has also said that he attributes his weight gain to the
fact that his meticulous health preparations for Man v. Food challenges failed to account
for the rest of the food he was munching on during his long and arduous shooting days.
If you didn't keep tabs on Adam Richman after his tenure on Man v. Food, you might be surprised
to find out that he became a considerably more streamlined presence. According to an
article Richman co-wrote for Men's Health in 2013, that his reputation revolved around
his capacity and willingness to eat vast amounts of unhealthy food ultimately lost out to wanting
to feel healthy again.
As such, Richman decided to make some dietary sacrifices so he could shed the excess weight
he gained from the TV show. After meeting with health professionals, Richman started
a healthy diet that dramatically cut back his calorie intake. Diet and exercise helped
him shed a whopping 70 pounds in only 10 months.
Man v. Food gave Adam Richman many life-changing experiences, but he probably could have skipped
the time a restaurant possibly endangered his health. The food challenge that Richman
has said, quote, "almost killed" him happened during the show's season 2 trip to Sarasota,
Florida, when Richman visited the Munchies 4:20 Café to tackle their "Fire in Your Hole"
challenge of downing 10 super-hot wings. Richman only managed two.
"I had to decide. Carry on and die, or end the challenge by sipping the only salvation
in sight - milk."
The rest of the episode details his deep, seemingly never-ending suffering after quitting
the challenge. On an episode of Hot Ones years later, he revealed the restaurant had actually
cheated by spiking the wings with an entire bottle of dangerous ghost pepper extract.
Even years later, he remembered the terrifying experience. On Eat With Mikey in 2018, Richman
described the "Fire in Your Hole" challenge as a full-on death scare — though he did
note that a crowd member grabbed one of the wings and, weirdly, ate it without issue.
Still, for Richman himself, the experience was excruciating:
"I remember thinking I'm going to check out here right now, because what happens is your
nose swells, the mucus passages swell in your nose, and your throat swells. So it was like
'I can't breathe.'"
Adam Richman got to eat all sorts of wonders on Man v. Food, but he also had to swallow
the bitter pill of drawing criticism, which has included the ire of other famous food
personalities. In 2010, he got a crash course on dealing with hate when celebrity chef and
food show presenter Alton Brown said some pretty nasty things about his work in an interview
with Zap2It. Brown said at the time:
"That show is about gluttony, and gluttony is wrong. It's wasteful. Think about people
that are starving to death and think about that show. I think it's an embarrassment."
Another famous chef with bad things to say about Richman was the late, great and notoriously
acerbic Anthony Bourdain. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Bourdain had a theory about
the Man v. Food host and why his food challenges were so enticing:
"Admit it. You wanted him to die."
Then again, Bourdain also famously had it out for Guy Fieri, so maybe he just didn't
like casual road-trip culinary show hosts, period.
Despite Bourdain's comments, Richman later told the Observer that he and Bourdain were
good friends. However, Brown's attack seems to have really stung Richman, who responded
on Twitter by writing:
"Alton Brown, MvF is about indulgence — NOT gluttony — & has brought loads of biz to
Mom-n-Pop places. You were my hero, sir. No more."
Man v. Food and its original host are well-known in the U.S., but, as one famous chef once
indicated, Adam Richman may also have fans in some pretty surprising places. According
to the Los Angeles Times, Anthony Bourdain stated in 2015 that people in Middle-Eastern
countries like Libya, Iran, and Yemen and Afghanistan enjoy Man v. Food – though not
necessarily in the way it's meant to be enjoyed.
The way Bourdain put it at the time, people in those countries enjoyed the show because
it confirmed their idea of Americans as, quote, "fat, lazy" people, who are also happy to
waste food. Bourdain even completed the picture by jokingly suggesting the show might drive
people to join terrorist organizations and fight against America. Ouch.
Of course, it's probably worth noting that this particular story does come from Bourdain,
a man who was somewhat well-known for slinging sharp insults at other food folks. And considering
Richman and Bourdain remained friends after the fact, the statement should probably be
taken with a pinch of salt. There's also the possibility Bourdain was jokingly exaggerating
Richman's Middle-Eastern influence in order to make a point about Western gluttony. Then
again, who knows? Maybe the well-traveled Parts Unknown host was simply fed up with
the way people kept asking if he knew Richman whenever his journeys took him to that corner
of the world.
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