GROWING up with two hungry brothers, I thought I was used to eating as much as possible in a short space of time.

But such experience counted for little when I came up against the latest food eating challenge.

The Big Breakfast Challenge, at Charlie’s Cafe, in Roentgen Road, Daneshill, is so big it should come with a health warning.

The brainchild of cafe owners Jackie Terry and Christine Tuffs, the super-sized fry up includes six sausages, six fried eggs, four hash browns and three black puddings, as well as six slices of bread and toast, plenty of chips and three portions of baked beans.

The meal must be polished off in just 30 minutes, with competitors getting a bottle of water to help get their food down their gullet.

Despite this artery-clogging line-up, 60 people have signed up to take on the challenge on Saturday. It’s all for a good cause however, with entrance fees of those who fail to finish going to St Michael’s Hospice.

Not one to shirk a challenge, I agreed to a trial run of the Big Breakfast.

I got an early indication of how hard it would be when I heard that the only other person to have tried it failed, before feeling ill for the rest of the afternoon.

My pre-meal preparation consisted of a eating a small banana when I woke up, to get my metabolism working, and a few stretches before I sat down to eat.

But any tactics I had went out the window when I saw what was before me.

On a tray-sized plate, I could see spoonfuls of baked beans, rows of sausages, black puddings and hash browns, topped with chips and six fried eggs.

I decided to work my way from left to right, and had seen off three sausages, an egg, chips, baked beans and a slice of fried bread in the first ten minutes.

With the clock ticking, I realised that I had not even got a third of the way through, and I was already beginning to feel uncomfortably full.

I ploughed on, only taking small sips of water so the bread in my stomach did not expand.

But my pace dropped further, and my bloated stomach made it difficult to even lift the fork from my plate to my mouth.

There was a sense of relief when my time was up, with half of the food remaining on the plate.

So how did I do?

Christine, rather politely, said: “I would hope that people would eat a little bit more, but it was a good effort.”

With a place on the wall of shame secured, I waddled out of the cafe for a lie-down.

With the challenge containing more than 3,000 calories, it is perhaps not surprising to hear that fitness gurus would not advise eating it regularly.

The full challenge contains six sausages, six rashers of bacon, six fried eggs, four hash browns, three black puddings, three portions of baked beans, three canned tomatoes, chips, and six slices of bread and toast.

The NHS recommends that men have 1,900 calories per day, and women 1,400.

Matt Goddard, a personal trainer from Odiham who offers his clients nutrition advice, said the challenge should be taken on early so people can burn off the carbohydrates later in the day.

He added: “It is not something that you would want to do regularly but will not have a massive effect if you do it just once.”