Meet The Black Widow

She stands five feet five and weighs 105 pounds, but don't let her deminutive size fool you. Sonya Thomas, known as The Black Widow for her unrelenting desire to "eliminate the males" in the sport of competitive eating, can eat more than you can. Today we honor her in our Wingaddicts blog, not so much for the 39 World Records she holds, but for her impact on the world of chicken wings.

The 53-year old South Korean, who lives outside of the nation's capital where she manages a Burger King restaurant at Andrew's Air Force Base, became a player in the competitive eating world when she won the women's title at Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Championship in 2011 and 2012.

Ms Thomas is currently a member of the National Buffalo Wing Hall of Flame, inducted in 2012 having won the championship at the National Buffalo Wing Festival seven times; in 2003, 2004, and 2007-2011. At her victory in 2011 she set the world record having eaten 183 wings in 12 minutes, defeating Joey Chestnut. Admitting that she could never beat Chestnut at hot dogs she famously joked, after beating him in wings, "his mouth is fast, but his hands are not." Chestnut broke her record the following year with 191.

Though we have no desire to eat competitively, to date the Wingaddicts (all three of us together) once ate 72 wings in about an hour and it wiped us out for about a week! 

“Eating competitions are about 70 percent mental, and 30 percent physical," Thomas said in an article for the Washingtonian. "Physical meaning stomach capacity. Sometimes when you’re eating a lot of food you think ‘oh, I’m getting full’ or ‘I’m getting sick,’ but you have to get over that. You push yourself and control it. Sometimes when I swallow one food I feel like throwing up, but then I have to control that feeling. Maybe I drink some liquid, try to get the air out by burping, and then  there’s more stomach room so you can eat more. Some people who can’t handle that throw up during the contest. That’s mental. Speed eating is like running: if you have a little mistake, mentally you lose.”

Asked how long it takes her to get back to normal after an event, Thomas said. "It depends on what kind of food. For example, if you have chicken wings, that doesn’t make me full. It’s not a big quantity of food. But chili, after six minutes, it’s going to be a lot of food—way over ten pounds. I walk around a little bit, take some Pepto Bismol if my stomach is bothering me, and then maybe eight to 12 hours later I’ll digest it and feel fine. The next day, I’ll eat salad, fruit, or light food. If my weight is heavier then I have to watch out what I’m eating, and exercise more than before. One or two weeks later my weight is back to normal.”

If competitive eating is something you aspire towards, there's some first-hand advice from one of the greatest of all time. We'll stick to slow enjoyment of our wings! But here's a list of the World Records currently owned by Sonya Thomas:

Sonya Thomas Competitive Eating World Records

Oysters: 564 in 8 Minutes

Cheesecake: 11 pounds in 9 minutes

Hamburgers: 7 Burgers (3/4 pound) in 10 minutes

Crawfish: 6.5 poundsin 10 minutes

Maine Lobster: 44 (11.3 Pounds of meat) from the shell in 12 minutes

Turducken: 7 3/4 pounds in 12 minutes

Chicken Nuggets: 80 in 5 Minutes

Jambalaya: 9 pounds in 10 Minutes

Sweet Potato Casserole: 8.62 pounds in 11 minutes

Fruitcake: 4 pounds, 14 1/4 ounces in 10 minutes

Quesadilla: 31.5 (4-inch Cheese Quesadilla) in 5 minutes

Crab Cakes: 46 Phillips Crab Cakes in 10 Minutes

Armour Vienna Sausage: 8.31 pounds in 10 Minutes

Meatballs: 10 pounds, 3 Ounces in 12 minutes

Deep-Fried Okra: 9.75 lbs in 10 Minutes

Mince Pies: 46 Mince Pies in 10 minutes

Buffalo Chicken Tenders: 6.93 lbs in 10 Minutess

Cherrystone Clams: 26 dozen in 6 minutes 

Hamburger: Big Daddy Burger 9 pound cheeseburger in 27 minutes, 0 seconds

Chili Cheese Fries: 8 lbs, 2 oz in 10 minutes

Toasted Ravioli: 4 pounds in 12 Minutes