For folks like Don "Moses" Lerman, the former owner of a day-old bread shop from New York, it's a dream come true. Lerman is the reigning burger meister, having wolfed down 11 ¼ burgers in 10 minutes last year.

"I'll stretch my stomach until it causes internal bleeding," he says. "I do it for the thrill of competition. Some people are good at math. Some people are good at golf. I'm good at eating."

Lerman, 42, says he trains every day to stay in top shape. Like most competitive eaters, he drinks massive amounts of water, more than a gallon at a time, to stretch his stomach. Only rookies think that fasting helps.

"You don't have to be big. You just have to want it," he says. "When you've eaten your 12th matzo ball in under three minutes, you have reach deep within yourself to finish number 13."

Eating is another one of those activities where boastful men say size doesn't matter. A legend of the eating circuit, Takeru Kobayashi of Japan, weighed in at only 131 pounds last year, when he shattered the Nathan's hot dog eating contest, devouring 50 dogs in 12 minutes.

In Japan, where food eating is taken very seriously, competitive eaters can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money. The sport has not evolved that far in America. The winner of the Ben's Kosher Deli's 2002 Matzo Ball Eating Contest, Oleg Zohornitskiy, walked off with a modest $2,500 prize, after eating a record-breaking 16 ¼ matzo balls in five minutes, 25 seconds.

But the matzo ball event event was more for charity (and, of course, publicity for Ben's), raising $10,000 for the Interfaith Nutrition Network, an organization that fights famine.

But the big bucks are out there. The Glutton Bowl will offer eating challenges with a $25,000 top prize.

Now, guys like Ed "Cookie" Jarvis, who won a contest last year by inhaling a 17-inch pizza in three minutes, can't get over the recognition he's getting.

"In the last year, I've traveled all over the country, and I can't believe how many people have come up to me and said, 'Aren't you that food guy?'"

Some people may not have wanted to stand too close to Jed Donahue after he ate 152 jalapeño peppers in 15 minutes. Still, fame comes in strange ways these days.

The IFOCE has a mandate to keep the sport clean and verify records. "Nobody has ever been hospitalized at one of our events," Shea says. "There's an EMT there, just like a football game."

Shea and his brother got involved as the governing body of food fests 15 years ago, but the Nathan's contest has been running since 1916. There are now more than 300 registered IFOCE members.

And many of those members are multifaceted. Jarvis and Lerman, for instance, are "cross-eaters" who gorge themselves at many different types of eating contests. The 2002 IFOCE calendar includes events for chicken wings, matzo balls, jalapeño peppers, oysters, burritos, onions, pickles and hamburgers.

But the hot dog contest is still "our Augusta, our big tournament," Shea says.

With the sport now coming into its own, here's a look at some of the prominent "athletes."

"I want to eat so many matzo balls that the crowd will cheer me with a fervor not seen since Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic," Lerman says. (ABCNEWS.com)

Family Status: Single.
Training: Lerman drinks a gallon of water in 2 ½ minutes.
Inspiration: "It's the recognition, not the money. It's the pat on the back from friends and family."
Advice: "You don't have to be a big fat slob. I weighed just 145 until I started training for ice cream and french fries. And I'll lose that weight again."
Greatest Moment: "When the press gathered around after the matzo ball contest, it was like a presidential press conference."
Realization of Eating Greatness: "As a kid, we'd go to all-you-can-eat hotel restaurants in the Catskills and I'd be the last to leave. No buffet ever made a cent off me."

"I didn't tell me wife I was into competitive food eating on our first date. It took about three months. Now she competes," Lipsitz says. (ABCNEWS.com)

Records: Lipsitz faced off with New York radio personality Curtis Sliwa for the pickle championship and took the title by consuming 2 ½ pounds of sour pickles in five minutes.
Family Status: Recently married Lorain "Loraineasaurus Rex" Lipsitz. They met at a singles event and she soon joined him in the competitive eating circuit . "It was my mother-in-law's worst nightmare," he says.
Training: If Lipsitz eats like a starved animal, it's for good reason. He trains with his two German shepherds, Sabrina and Rascal. "I cook up a family pack of 40 hot dogs and we race … We don't eat out of the same bowl."
Advice: "This is like a lot of other sports. It's about training and God-given talent. A lot of the people enter these contests for a free lunch; then they realize they were blessed."
Greatest Moment: "When I picked up my gold-plated pickle for becoming the pickle champ. A lot of people want that trophy."
Realization of Greatness: "When I was 10 years old, I could eat 10 ears of corn in one sitting."

"My mom didn't want me to play football, so this is how I feel the thrill of competitive sports," Jarvis says. (ABCNEWS.com)

Family Status: Married for four years to wife Elyse. They have a 22-month-old child.
Training: "I drink a gallon and a half of water in under two minutes. The first two gallons go down in a minute and five seconds. The last two cups take a minute. That's when you start to sweat."
Inspiration: "The Food Network."
Greatest Moment: "Just three days after my dad died, I won the french fry title. I dedicated that to my dad."
Wife Says: "She'd like me to lose weight. I want someone to sponsor me like the Subway guy. I want to drop 100 pounds."
Realization of Greatness: "Coming from a large Italian family, if you didn't eat quick, you wouldn't get seconds."

Charles "Hungry" Hardy became the first non-Jew to win the matzo ball eating contest. He also holds a sushi record. "This sport crosses cultural lines," he says. (ABCNEWS.com)

Records: The hot dog crown came when Hardy downed 23 ½ dogs in 12 minutes. In last year's matzo ball contest he tied Jarvis with 13 matzo balls each. In a 1-minute, 25-second "eat-off," Hardy prevailed, swallowing 2 ½ matzo balls to Jarvis' one.
Family Status: Married to wife Valerie for 17 years. They have a daughter and two sons.
Wife says: "Bring home the bacon!"
Training: "I won't say. Would a magician teach you his tricks?"
Inspiration: "I set a sushi record in Japan and kids there on the street all shout out my name. This sport is international."
Advice: You have to pick the right food. For me, matzo balls are the hardest. They expand in your stomach. It's like eating five pounds of sponge. Or even cement … I won't do ice cream. All that coldness is traumatic on the body."
Realization of Greatness: "I was called by my union in 1998 to enter a hot dog contest on the World Trade Center. I had never done this sort of thing before and I didn't want to make a fool of myself. But my wife said, 'Just think of it as free lunch.' The rest is history."

The International Federation of Competitive Eating, Inc. supervises and regulates eating contests in their various forms throughout the world. The IFOCE helps to ensure that the sport remains safe, while also seeking to achieve objectives consistent with the public interest -- namely, creating an environment in which fans may enjoy the display of competitive eating skill.

The IFOCE coordinates members and affiliates in the United States, Japan, England, Germany, Canada, Ireland, Thailand and the Ukraine, helping to promote the sport in local, national and international media. The IFOCE establishes liaison with all individual competitive eating venues and sponsors and helps to organize a wide variety of competitive eating events.