We’re getting really tired of people who say that their skill is mechanics or songwriting or saving lives with the aid of medical science.

Those skills are naught compared to the mighty skill held by Mr Joey Chestnut, a man who we wish to emulate in every single way possible. Why? Because Joey Chestnut – our favourite competitive eater – has just eaten 45 slices of pizza in 10 minutes during an event in New York, smashing the previous world record.

By doing so, Joey Chestnut instantly won a place in our heart. How big? Easily as big as the impacted chuck of bone-dense cholesterol that we presume is lodged in his ascending aorta and will zap him off to an early grave before too long. Hooray for Joey Chestnut!

To train for his impressive eight gold medal haul in the Olympics this summer, Michael Phelps worked his way through 12,000 calories a day – 10,000 more than the recommended average. In short, Michael Phelps is a pussy.

That’s because competitive eater extraordinaire Joey Chestnut yesterday smashed the world record for eating slices of pizza, blasting through 45 in the space of 10 minutes. That’s 11,700 calories. And 450 grams of fat. In 10 minutes. We love Joey Chestnut.

We love Joey Chestnut so much that we’d hug him, but we’re scared that the embrace would trigger some sort of retroactive gag reflex inside him, leading to him belching up endless wads of mashed-up dribble-covered pizza into our faces. Just getting the melted cheese out of our hair would be a nightmare.

Joey Chestnut first came to our attention last year, when he bravely stole the competitive eating crown away from Japan by forcing reigning hotdog-eating champion Takeru Kobayashi into gruesome fits of convulsive puking while putting away 66 hotdogs in 12 minutes at a Coney Island eating competition. Kobayashi didn’t go down without a fight, though – so determined was he to maintain his title that he even started eating his own vomit at one point. Honestly, it’s on video. But not even a majestic act like that could stop Joey Chestnut from taking his rightful crown, and a star was born.

Joey Chestnut was won competitive eating titles since then, but yesterday saw his legend take another leap skywards – for that was when Joey Chestnut broke his pizza-eating world record during the Famous Famiglia pizza-eating contest in Times Square yesterday. Here’s a snatch of The New York Daily News‘ report on the event, but we’d like to prepare any male readers first – you’ll never feel more impotent than you will during these next few lines:

He folded the slices – very quickly – and shoved them into his mouth. He jumped around some, to help them go down the hatch, or knocked back water from paper cups. He never appeared to chew… The morning of the pizza matchup, he had coffee for breakfast – and a gallon of water to stretch his stomach muscles. He hadn’t had anything but protein supplements for two days before that.

Honest to God, Joey Chestnut is the David Blaine of eating until everyone watching starts sobbing and dry-heaving everywhere. Men want to be Joey Chestnut. Women want to be with Joey Chestnut. Doctors want to slap Joey Chestnut around the face while screaming “Look what you’re doing to yourself!” He’s a hero, and we should all be proud of him.

You might think that a man eating 45 slices of pizza for sport while the world is on the brink of economic collapse falls into a category somewhere between ‘frivolous’ and ‘offensive’ but you’re wrong. We want Joey Chestnut to be our adopted father. Even though we’re older than him. You wouldn’t think it though – seriously, he looks like he’s going to die any minute.