Famous meals challengers Randy Santel and Katina DeJarnett not too long ago moved to Milwaukee.
They’re just like the Beyoncé and Jay-Z, the Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, the Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell of the skilled consuming world.
Santel has 1.34 million YouTube subscribers and about 1,020 meals problem wins spanning 50 states and 37 nations since 2010.
His girlfriend, often called Katina Eats Kilos, has 283,000 YouTube subscribers and has accomplished about 70 meals challenges since 2019.
‘I’ve all the time been a fairly large eater’
“I’ve all the time been a fairly large eater,” Santel stated, noting he weighed 205 kilos as a fifth grader.
His mother helped him drop pounds by means of Weight Watchers, he stated, then he obtained into soccer.
In highschool he switched to soccer and went on to play for Missouri State University, the place he graduated with a building administration diploma in 2008.
When he realized building wasn’t his ardour, he turned to well being and health as a “enjoyable factor to do” when he wasn’t working.
In 2010, he competed in a Men’s Health/Starz “Spartacus” Challenge, a nationwide physique transformation contest. After submitting his “earlier than” photographs, he had 12 weeks to coach.
A few weeks earlier than he was purported to take his “after” photographs, a good friend requested if he needed to aim a meals problem with him.
“I had simply accomplished 10 weeks of exhausting coaching, very strict weight-reduction plan and plenty of train, so I figured that will be a enjoyable option to deal with myself as type of reward for doing all that,” Santel stated.
The mission: A 28-inch Pointersaurus Pizza from Pointer’s Pizza in St. Louis.
The reward: The pizza without cost and $500.
Not solely did Santel end the problem along with his good friend, he additionally had ice cream for dessert and dinner along with his mother and father afterward.
“I spotted by means of all that I used to be a fairly good eater, which I actually had recognized already,” he stated. “But, I had by no means accomplished a meals problem earlier than.”
Becoming knowledgeable eater
Once he obtained a style {of professional} consuming, he was hooked. (Oh, and he additionally ended up successful that physique transformation problem and obtained to look in an episode of “Spartacus.”)
About a month after his first meals problem, Santel did his second, and issues took off from there.
Santel retired from the development administration business in October 2013 and has been a full-time skilled eater, YouTuber and content material creator since.
While there was extra financial prizes for restaurant challenges, these days, the prize is often the meal without cost, some type of memorabilia, like a T-shirt, and the winner’s identify on the restaurant’s corridor of fame.
“The cash as knowledgeable eater positively does not come from the precise meals challenges,” Santel stated. “It comes from the social media and the monetization of the movies you publish.”
Bodybuilding, skilled consuming go ‘hand in hand’
DeJarnett discovered health when she was 21. She went from being “actually, actually obese” to changing into an authorized private coach and becoming a member of the Air Force in 2015.
But when DeJarnett was on stage throughout an April 2019 girls’s physique bodybuilding present, she stated she felt small in comparison with the opposite contestants. So afterward, she determined to placed on some weight.
The manner she was going to do it? Restaurant challenges.
DeJarnett had gotten actually into watching aggressive {and professional} consuming movies on YouTube whereas coaching and thought, “‘I feel I can eat as a lot as a few of these individuals.’ “
“I stored doing it, and getting greater and greater ones, and by no means seemed again,” she stated.
Bodybuilding {and professional} consuming go “hand in hand,” stated DeJarnett, who now could be a member of the Air National Guard and graduated from Gonzaga University’s kinesiology program in December 2020. She had earned a common diploma from a neighborhood school years prior.
“All the vitality I exploit from doing these meals challenges, I exploit the following day or typically the identical day to carry heavy weights and stuff like that,” she stated.
A meals problem love story
In 2020, Santel was invited to do the Garbage Can 40-inch group Pizza Challenge at Riverside Pizza in Nenana, Alaska.
“I needed to deliver somebody with me that I by no means actually collaborated with,” he stated. “I had recognized about Katina by means of her channel and he or she had watched a few of my livestreams. So, I invited her.”
She stated sure.
They met up in Alaska in mid-July and began courting a number of days later.
“I feel I knew earlier than I even met her that I’d like her, simply from watching a few of her movies and stuff like that. But I’d say we linked from the second she obtained within the automotive,” Santel stated.
“It was like speaking to an outdated good friend,” DeJarnett stated.
They share a love of health, diet and, after all, consuming copious quantities of meals.
“Nothing will solidify a bond fairly like going by means of a hardship, then a victory collectively,” DeJarnett stated. “Going out and doing all of those challenges and simply struggling by means of them after which overcoming them makes a extremely, actually, actually stable bond.”
What their lives are like
A typical day in DeJarnett’s life seems like maintaining a healthy diet and exercising lots, posting on social media, filming and enhancing movies of restaurant meals challenges, challenges that she builds herself and meals opinions, and monitoring down challenges to strive.
Santel often goes on days-long journeys, the place he movies a meals problem video every day, then takes day without work to drop pounds whereas getting the filmed content material up on-line.
“We’re capable of go on the (meals problem) journeys collectively and share in all the pieces since we have now the identical fundamental profession and path we need to go,” Santel stated.
Santel can also be the proprietor and operator of foodchallenges.com, which encompasses a world database of meals challenges and articles on methods to put together, practice and strategize for them.
One manner he stated he has ready for meals challenges earlier than is by consuming 12 to 13 kilos of watermelon in a single sitting, together with water, about 18 to 22 hours beforehand to broaden his abdomen with out taking in too many energy.
“That offers your physique sufficient time to course of all of it, in order that you are empty and hungry as soon as it comes time to eat the precise problem or consuming contest,” he stated.
The morning of the problem, he stated he may have a protein shake, yogurt or fruit.
Most memorable meals challenges
One of Santel’s most memorable challenges was the 16-patty 3-kilogram Chainsaw Massacre Burger Challenge at The Burger Block in Melbourne, Australia.
He did it on his thirty first birthday, and 250 individuals got here to look at.
“With all these individuals watching, I beat the file by like 12 seconds,” he stated.
The problem that put DeJarnett “on the map” was the 72-ounce Steak Challenge on the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo.
She had one hour to eat a 72-ounce steak, baked potato, facet salad, roll and shrimp cocktail to get the meal without cost, a T-shirt, a memento mug, and a spot on the restaurant’s wall of fame.
She accomplished the problem from a stage with lights, musical performers heckling her and a crowd cheering her on.
“It’s a world-famous problem and one of many oldest restaurant challenges,” she stated. “They make an enormous present of it. … It was the one problem that was on my bucket checklist.”
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Fans typically drive hours to look at their challenges and meet the couple, Santel stated.
“Sometimes we keep hours afterwards simply ensuring that we get to all people,” Santel stated. “We simply keep so long as we have to. We attempt to be the primary individuals there, final to depart.”
Moved to Milwaukee for internship
Santel is not planning on being knowledgeable eater endlessly, although.
He went again to Missouri State University to get one other diploma, this time in dietetics, the science of how meals and diet have an effect on well being. He graduated in 2019, and his purpose is now to get his grasp’s in dietetics and turn out to be a registered dietician.
Santel desires to make use of the load administration expertise and data he has gained by means of doing meals challenges and at school to assist others.
When he turns into a dietician, he stated he’ll retire from skilled consuming and use his social media platforms to assist his followers with diet and weight administration.
This month, he is beginning a dietetic internship centered on well being promotion and illness prevention by means of Mount Mary University in Milwaukee and will probably be taking a break from meals challenges till Thanksgiving.
He and DeJarnett moved to Wisconsin in June.
“We each had been actually enthusiastic about attending to Milwaukee,” Santel stated. “We’ve heard a lot good issues in regards to the meals and the beer.”
While Santel will not begin doing meals challenges right here for a number of months, DeJarnett has already began filming a number of, together with Milwaukee Burger Company’s Big Milwaukee Challenge and Third Street Tavern’s six-stack burger problem.
“I get pleasure from meals, genuinely, and I get pleasure from selling eating places and seeing how the publicity helps the restaurant thrive,” DeJarnett stated. “Traveling, seeing the world, seeing the nation, assembly all types of individuals, it simply retains you going again for extra.”
Contact Hannah Kirby at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @HannahHopeKirby.