To go from hating the way I looked to being a 'Cosmo' centerfold... by Adam Richman

To go from hating the way I looked to being a 'Cosmo' centerfold is a profound honor.

Adam Richman

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Categorized in : Go Being Way Honor

I'm Adam Richman. A food fanatic who's held nearly every job in the restaurant biz. Now I'm on a mouth-watering journey to find America's greatest pig-out spots. And take on the country's most legendary eating challenges. I'm no competitive eater, just a regular guy with a serious appetite. This is my ultimate hunger quest. This is Man v. Food.

journey jobs country

Gratitude is the attitude. That's the thing. by Adam Richman

Gratitude is the attitude. That's the thing.

gratitude attitude

Generally speaking, there's a difference. Moose nose is just pure cartilage. It's not just the end of a chicken leg, it really is - imagine the cartilage of game meat.If I ever took the spare tire off of my car and was on a survival show, and Bear Grylls was like, "What you need to do in a survival situation is eat your tire," I'd be like, "That's moose nose!"

car differences games

If something is nice about you, usually one or two people will tell you. If something is foul about you, everyone will tell you.

nice two people

People believe what they want to believe. You have to run your race and be proud of the person you see in the mirror.

mirrors running believe

That was another incredible thing: the opportunity to be in Greenland, a place I had read about in NatGeo a decade before. Suddenly I was staying there and hiking there, and we took a mini iceberg out of the water and chipped it up and used it as ice cubes and made cocktails with it. It's surreal.

ice hiking opportunity

People follow me on social media, and they can tell I have varied interests. I think in the U.K. people perhaps know me for some other stuff because of my involvement with soccer and support of Tottenham.

media soccer thinking

Man V. Food is the highest-rated show in the Travel Channel's history, so clearly there's going to be a correlation.

correlation shows men

I lived in San Jose for a little bit, and one of my neighbors was Vietnamese and was teasing me. I said "I've had pho," and then he goes, "Oh, what do you get, the number one big bowl?" I was like, "Come on, man. You don't have to come at me like that." But yeah, I've tried tendon. Tendon eventually yields.

yield numbers men

The first one that I went to with my friends was with my buddy Michael - and we actually cut class to get tickets - was INXS at the Garden.

cutting garden class

When Lollapalooza started, and I was really into Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jane's Addiction, Soundgarden. I went to that Lollapalooza tour twice, I think.

addiction hot thinking

Shaq is Shaq. I did an episode of The Soup with Shaq, and he shook my hand, and I felt like I was a Ken doll, like I had no hand.

dolls soup hands

I think the most surreal moment for me having been a kid who was on unemployment, was on food stamps - I'm not kidding you, to utter these words aloud is so surreal to me - but to say, "I had to give up my Super Bowl tickets for my all-expense paid research trip to Argentina's wine country," it was like, who's life is this? It was splendid, and the nice thing was that they renewed my contract for another year.

giving-up nice country

We were filming in Greenland, and I treated my crew. It's 24 hours of pretty bright daylight there right now, and I always try to do something nice for my crew every trip or in every other city. So I greeted them with a midnight cruise, but it looked like two in the afternoon.

nice cities two

I think that in terms of who is known the world over, I would wager that it's probably someone like Mark Wahlberg or Dwyane Wade.

wade world thinking

In the early '90s I was floating somewhere between the Brat Pack/Andrew McCarthy/James Spader/Pretty In Pink kind of stuff and the alterna-pop look, crossed with a very distinct grunge sensibility.

floating stuff looks

There are soccer athletes that are known the world over except in the U.S. Thierry Henry, for example.

example athlete soccer

Actually, I am loathe to admit, but I also remember freshman year of Emory - and I'm so sorry to have to admit this - but there was a Domino's Pizza in Emory Village, where I went to college, and I was ordering a pizza.

college sorry years

I was 12 or 13, and I had seen a demo about origami at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. My dad, my step-mom, and I were at the Japan pavilion of Epcot, and my dad was going to get me an origami book. They had these really sick origami books with an overleaf, but those packs can sometimes blow, because they give you, like, eight sheets.

dad mom book

I've always been a massive Beastie Boys fan, so if you look at their style aesthetic on Check Your Head, that was the headspace I was in for a minute. Whatever that was, that was me.

style fans boys