"I just finished eating six hot dogs."
These are the words of Jim Harrison, a friendly 22-year-old, university student who is in the midst of a quest to eat 450 hot dogs during the month of April.
If he is successful, he will win $1,500, courtesy of a soon-to-be roommate who placed the bet with him at the end of March.
If he wimps out, Harrison will be obliged to pay $1,000 for welching on the bet.
During a recent telephone interview, Harrison said he has been eating six hot dogs per meal, three times a day.
It's an aggressive pace that he needs to keep if he is going to eat his way to victory.
"It's been a lot easier than I thought it was going to be," Harrison told CTV.ca from Hamilton, where he lives in a student house near McMaster University.
Before the bet, Harrison typically would eat two hot dogs if he was at a barbeque, though he believes he may have eaten three hot dogs on a handful of prior occasions.
As of Friday morning, he's managed to down 317 hot dogs in just over three weeks.
But that means he still has 133 to go.
Origins of the ‘hot dog prop bet'
It all started when he and a friend found themselves with a fortuitous windfall of cash, courtesy of online poker winnings.
Armed with the newfound cash, one joked that the other should spend his poker money on hot dogs.
Then they began to speculate on how many hot dogs a person could eat in a month.
Next the conversation turned to more concrete numbers, as they began debating how many hot dogs Harrison could eat in a month and how much cash would be involved.
His roommate put the hot dog number at about 480, but Harrison said he "haggled him down" to a measly 450.
With 3-2 odds in place and the cash payout set, the so-called "hot dog prop bet" was born.
"The money is important to me," said Harrison, whose two-month summer job doesn't begin until July.
Then came the rules, which came into effect two days later when the third-year multimedia student began chowing down on the Schneiders Red Hots he and his roommate purchased for the bet.
Rule #3: You can only throw up four times
Harrison has to eat each hot dog in front of a web cam, to prove that he actually digested it. He can eat a hot dog off-camera if technical difficulties prevent him from recording the event.
Each hot dog has to be accompanied by a bun and Harrison can put whatever toppings on it that he wants.
He can throw up a maximum of only four times during his hot dog odyssey. The advantage here, is that he doesn't have to re-eat any hot dogs that he lost from his system. Harrison is not, however, allowed to throw up on purpose.
He has to finish up his eating by 11:59 p.m. on April 30.
Fame, friends and family
Champion hot dog eaters have made headlines, even before Harrison and his gargantuan eating goal came along.
Takeru Kobayashi made a name for himself in the United States, after winning Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest in July 2001.
Kobayashi, whose nickname is "The Tsunami", would win for six straight years, until he was bested by Joey Chestnut, a California man who beat him in July 2007.
Chestnut and Kobayashi, are currently ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, by the New York-based Major League Eating, which bills itself as "the world body that oversees all professional eating contests."
The official Major League Eating website says that Chestnut currently holds the record for hot dog eating, when he ate 68 of them in a 10-minute period last summer.
Harrison said he did not research the strategies employed by competitive eaters before diving into his own bet, but believes the process that Kobayashi and Chestnut go through is "more of a sprint than a marathon."
His own contest has won him little acclaim, outside of a radio interview and a mention on a blog covering the poker world.
But there is the notability he has gained on the Internet. A Google search of the words "hot dog bet" results in Harrison's story showing up in the top three hits.
If you search "hot dog prop bet," his story is mentioned in each of the top five.
Some people have jokingly told him "this will kill me," said Harrison.
And then there was his family.
His dad found out about the bet and telephoned Harrison while he was in the middle of eating a hot dog in front of his web cam.
"Dad said: ‘I'm watching you right now,'" Harrison said, noting that the odd contest of intestinal durability has won his father's support.
But his mom didn't agree.
"She was not pleased at all," he said.
Hot dogs and…‘health'
Harrison admits the hot dog prop bet is not the first time he's kept to an unconventional diet.
He claims to have once made 32 visits to McDonalds in a single month, in addition to "September 09" when he also ate at McDonalds every day.
While his mom expressed concerns about his health during his current dietary departure, Harrison admits even he has thought about the issue.
Harrison considered going to a doctor, but concluded it could affect his ability to win.
"I didn't want to go before and freak myself out," he said, noting that he plans to visit a physician after the end of the month.
Overall, he feels pretty good and said he has gained only a pound overall.
"I've been eating more fruits and vegetables than I ever have," Harrison said.
But he admits it's "not going to ever balance out" in the end.
Leslie Beck, a Toronto-based nutrition expert and registered dietician, said Harrison's diet is far from ideal.
"From a heart-health perspective, it's horrendous," Beck told CTV.ca in a recent telephone interview, citing the high levels of sodium and saturated fats in the hot dogs and buns.
Based on the type of hot dogs Harrison is eating, Beck estimates he is likely taking in a week's worth of sodium in a single day, as well as three times the amount of saturated fats that he should be consuming on a daily basis.
"Thank goodness he's doing it on a short-term basis," she said.
Somehow, a reporter gets the impression that with dozens of hot dogs already devoured, Harrison seems to have the right constitution to win.
"The fact that it's gross doesn't seem to bother me," he said.
Asked what he is going to eat when it's all over, Harrison initially says he might go out for "a quarter-pounder meal from McDonalds."
On further reflection, however, Harrison might consider eating a nice breakfast.
Or anything really, so long as it "doesn't taste anything like a hot dog."
