A Laborious Non-Cheat Day

Good Day Cheat Fans! I hope you had a good holiday and I hope you didn't work at all, and if you DID I hope you didn't work hard AT ALL! That's what Labor Day is for after all, not working. So, if you worked on Labor Day and you are working today STOP, only for a few minutes and read this blog, Cheat Day. Don't Care. A blog about my Cheat Day adventures. If you have been with me for a while this is a new edition, a new week, a new cheat day. If you are just joining me, welcome! If you find this one boring, go back and read some of my far crazier adventures.

I had gained weight (2lbs bringing me back to 244) when I weighed in on what would have normally been my Cheat Day. In my last edition I had made mention of the fact that there would be no official Cheat Day for the next few weeks to a month as I drop drinking all together and attempt to focus my efforts for a wedding I am to be involved in this month. I have held strong on the no drinking which is great, BUT I have eaten a few off diet meals. Here is what and why:

Tuesday afternoon I went to a Cubs game (one of the hardest places to NOT drink mind you, they got guys BRINING YOU beer! C'mon!). Anyway, I totally ate Taco Bell before the game so I could get grub on the cheap. I got 2 Beefy 5-Layer Burritos and the new Double Stuffed Cheesy Gordita Crunch and before you fuckers ask, YES I got the nacho cheese Doritos loco taco shell instead of the plain old hard shell. I was disappointed by how stuffed this double stuffed CGC was, but that COULD be because the war zone that is the Wrigleyville taco bell is about to close down and their staff could give two shits about the food, customers, or Taco Bell in general. I think I'm going to try it again at a different Bell.

Here we can share my POP!

Once in the game Nicole Carter gave me a weiner with mustard and onions (ball park dogs are dank as fuck BITCH) even though I TOLD HER I was full from Taco Bell and didn't want anything else! I also ate a few of her fries and the rest of her soft pretzel, but I WASN'T HUNGRY I SWEAR! I just can't leave food behind which is a HUGE problem I have...YUGE.

THEN there was Wednesday. I ate pizza, Papa fucking Johns SHIT pizza cut into god damn Chicago/Midwest SQUARES and not slices because this city for some reason doesn't know what fucking pizza is!...because (sorry) I ate it because I went to the American Blues Theatre fundraiser that Liz put together and that came with the price of admission. I also drank a Sprite. I like Sprite. Oh, OH! Get this, PBR also came with the price of admission, and I totally didn't even drink one! SUCK ON THAT SALLY!

TAKE THE PICTURE!

Then I was pretty good for the next couple days until Sunday when I went to the grocery store and ate two donuts. I also drank a couple of Cherry Cokes. Then on Monday (Labor Day) just before the main event Liz and I got trapped in Margie's Candies from the rain...oh no, SO SAD, what a HORRIBLE place to be trapped...NOT. It was awesome. I got mint chocolate chip in a chocolate dipped with sprinkles waffle cone and Liz got a turtle sundae with birthday cake ice cream and a different kind of ice cream that I can't remember. Margie's Candies fucking RULES! Go get ice cream from there!

Then, for the main event! Logan's BIG SAUSAGE CHALLENGE!!!! BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM! Thanks Logan for making ME a judge! It was a delight. The Conner's are known for their yearly Chili Cook Off in February, but this year they thought they'd try a new challenge. This one was set up like more of a cooking show/challenge. This year there were two teams of 3: Team Law TBD and Team Art. The Law came in hard with a Korean/Mexican fusion sausage in your standard hot dog bun. The sausage was cooked to perfection, though the fusion was more of a FEUDsion as each food style kind of fought for attention with each bit. Then Art had to show up with their make shift sausage patty breakfast sandwich. It was a delicious sandwich, but the toppings: egg, pomegranate slaw, Brussels sprouts, and feta cheese kind of over powered the sausage patty a bit.

The Team of judges!

LOOK! I'm no foodie, I just like to eat dank ass shit, and DANK dis SHIT was. If they put it on again next year and you're around! Attend and partake in some delicious sausage concoctions!

Look at me go, trying not to Cheat Day but still sprinkling some cheat around whenever I get the chance! Here I come Cheeseman wedding! I'm gonna look so HOT in my TUX. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other and eat like your life depended on it.

ELE,
Zach

Cheat Week in Florida!

Hey everyone, sorry I missed a week, FUCKIN' SUE ME! I hope you managed to get through last Monday without tales of gluttony from the number one cheater! I'm back this week with not much of an update so this one is going to be short and sweet.

The reason I missed last week was because I was busy moving my parents from Virginia to Florida. On Monday, when Cheat Day. Don't Care is due I was driving from Jacksonville to Tampa and unloading trucks and furniture shopping. BUT! The Saturday before I was pounding back an obscene amount of Bud Light (3 18-packs between 5 people), eating Wawa sandwiches and Pizza Hut pizza. So that is what I was eating/drinking on what was technically Cheat Day last week.

I'm going to take a moment to praise Wawa. I am sure I have done this in posts past but they are great gas station subs. Low and behold I find out that Florida has something similar in a "Pub Sub" or a sub from the Publix grocery store chain. Wawa came into existence in VA when I was in High School. It was a 24 hour spot that we kids would go when the night was winding down and we had to make one more stop before heading back to mom and dad's house. It's tried and true. It basically never fails and aside from sandwiches they have a bomb ass selection of other treats (like cheese filled pretzels, strawberry kiwi drink, and cheap cigarettes YES, even smoke on cheat day). One of, if not the best sandwich at Wawa is their chicken salad, it's off the fucking hook. BUT, it was hoagie fest when I was there this time, so I ate a pizza cheese steak for breakfast! NOM NOM MAWfugglers.

Cheat Day certainly stretched itself a bit as my itinerary was hectic, making it near impossible to keep up with my standard dietary restrictions. I had to fly into DC on Cheat Day morning, pack up/throw out what was left of my parents' house, drink and party the night away, wake up and do a few last minute dump runs, eat at my childhood Taco Bell (Cheesy Gordita Crunch, Beefy 5-Layer, Cheesy Bean and Rice) with my boys one last time, drive to Jacksonville to crash at a LaQuinta for the night (On the trip I had Hot Fries, Pickles, 2 McChickens, 2 McDoubles/ @LaQuinta I had 2.5 Bud Light Limes), wake up and finish off the drive to the Tampa area (Once we arrived at my aunts house she fed us delicious fried chicken and pasta salad).

Once in the Tampa area we had to: unload the car, go furniture shopping, eat dinner out (Frenchy's Outpost where I had a giant buffalo grouper sandwich and fries). HARD NOTE, I ordered a delicious frozen pineapple alcohol beverage and there was not quite glass shards but shards of a glass-like substance in the drink. I do NOT recommend Frenchy's outpost, food was fine I guess. Next on the agenda was to get back to Aunt Maureen's house where we had to crash for the evening. We drank a few more Bud Light limes and swam in her awesome pool! The next day was unload the POD day. We did that and set up my folks' bedroom so we could stay in their new place for the night.

Palm Pavilion

We ate out again at a place called the Palm Pavilion which was right on the beach and I had a delicious Cuban sandwich. Apparently Tampa is ACTUALLY where the Cubano was invented as Tampa has the second largest Cuban population in the world! (I didn't fact check this, so if I'm wrong go fuck yourself). If you are ever in Clearwater Beach go to the Palm, it is a DElight. The next day my brother had to get on a plane and head home, but before he left we went to a little greasy spoon called the Garden Grille Cafe where I ate a half order of biscuits and gravy, eggs, bacon, and crispy potatoes. While at the Garden Grille Cafe we over heard a lengthy conversation about the redecorating of an old couples' condo, they sounded eerily similar to residents of Seinfeld's Del Bocca Vista. We all had a good laugh.

The rest of the itinerary was unpacking and more furniture shopping. I ate breakfast at Taco Bell (bacon breakfast crunchwrap and bacon breakfast quesadilla and Cinnabon delights), one more meal at Aunt Mo's (Digiorno's pizza and side salad) and one more meal out at The Lucky Dill. I decided I'd start being good at The Lucky Dill and I ordered a Greek Salad because I wanted to ease back into the diet. Once bizarre thing about their Greek salads down in Tampa is that they put a scoop of potato salad IN the salad. It's strange, but good!

Then I got drunk on the plane off of Dewars and now I am home. I did NOT cheat this past Cheat Day because my body hurt. Thanks for reading and living everyone! Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and eat like your life depended on it!

ELE,
Zach

"Spoken" for by a "Big and Little" Keg Party this Cheat Day!

Happy America week you fuckin' cheatin' ass cheater eaters!

"WOAH HO HO DUDE! Comin' on REAL strong this week, don't ya think?"

HEY! If you don't like it this is gonna be a LONG post for you sexy cheats, beCAUSE this week for Cheat Day, I went to a KEG PARTY!!!! WOOOOO! Thanks Alex Romero and Andrew Campbell of Make It Up Media fame for getting me out to a Keg Party benefit jawn called Lemon Jeese to benefit PAWS Chicago, an Animal Rights org! BUT, I'm getting ahead of myself. Don't praise me for my selfless act of saving countless animals' lives one beer at a time just yet, because I've got some Cheat Day debauchery to report.

I awoke a little late because I had a REAL late night the night before (if you want to know more about that you're going to have to PM me) but I weighed in at my lowest weight yet, 243lbs! Which felt real good after I gained a little weight back from those vacations I was going on. Liz and I slowly and groggily got ourselves together and headed down to the local and lovely bagel cafe, Spoken, where I get...wait for it...a vegetarian sandwich!

"Did you just say vegetarian mawkfler?"

Liz's Sammy (also good)

YEAH man, chill. It was god damn delicious and it came on a PIZZA BIALY! The sandwich is called the Caldera, named after what it will leave after it is eaten. (Look it up and you might laugh). The sandwich has provolone, artichoke hearts, kalmata olives, and basil pesto. I also think I need to mention PIZZA BIALY again! I had to look up what a bialy was, it's a certain kind of flat-ish bagel and when there's pizza on a bagel it doesn't fucking matter whether or not there's meat it's gonna be fucking TASTY! Go get one, I dare you! Besides, I can eat meat any day of the week.

I then had to go to improv where I didn't eat anything so...MOVING ON! When I got out I went to record an episode of Chooch Chat with Anthony Giamichael, Mike Hamilton, and Mike Sater. It was mostly about the world cup. Also, before and during the podcast I ate peanut butter stuffed pretzel bites, golden berries, a delicious soft cheese atop cut bell peppers, vodka lemonade drinks, and of course BEERS (my old favorite Miller High Life to be exact).

I then went to my NEW SPOT OF THE WEEK to meet Liz for a Linner meal between her performances of Buddy-The Buddy Holly Story at Stage 773. The spot? Big and Little's on Belmont. Big and Little's is known for their fish tacos and has developed into a small chain over the last few years. They are a very popular dinner food spot in the city and they certainly do good everything.

I got the Al Pastor burger. Why?! Because you NUMBSKULLS they put FRIED pork belly up on that! Did you forget that I'm talkin' bout MAWfcklin' CHEAT DAY!? GOD. They also got American Swiss (the blondest of all the cheeses), pickled jalapeno, GRILLED PINEAPPLE, and "special sauce" (which I'm still convinced could be orange jizz). I also got me some cajun fries which are always a nice touch.

I'm gonna be honest with you here folks, this burger was easily the best item I have eaten off of the Big and Little's menu. I have been underwhelmed by them in the past. Granted, I'm not a fish or fish taco type of guy, though I AM a taco kind of guy so I think I'm just going to have to taco it up there in the future to continue to delve into what supposedly makes them so well liked on the north side.

From there I went to the Lemon Jeese keg party! It's for a good cause and I think the guys throwing it are fantastic. I ended up drinking cans of PBR and Modelo because the keg was a IPA and it was a little warm (amateurs). But it was nice, it was fun. I played a game of beer pong and shot gunned a beer with my boy Alex. Beer is great! Drinking is fun! Let's get drunk again NEXT Cheat Day.

Beer of the week

As the sun was setting and the party was coming to a close it was time to transition from Cheat Day into Cheat Night! I headed for an impromptu game night with the Giamichael's where I drank more Modelo, ate halves of leftover burritos from god only knows where!, and very quickly lost $5 in a game of 99. Want to know what it is? Come over and we'll take some of your money showing it to you!

Did I forget to mention...?

After that stop my friend Mike Sater and I grabbed more Miller High Lifes from the store and I ordered a late night end of Cheat Day Jet's pizza with jalapeno and pineapple with TURBO CRUST, DUH! Always Turbo Crust! And it seemed like it was a jalapeno and pineapple kind of day I reckon! Happy Summer!

It was a long wander of a cheat day where I bounced around all over the north side finding drinks and bad food to crush! It's a wonderful day of the week to be spending with friends and trying any thing and everything, especially when you've lost 7 pounds from the week before! This week is gonna be tough with Independence Day splitting it up, but I am hopeful! Maybe I'll amp up the working out! Send good vibes ya'll and let me know what you'd like to see me try NEXT Cheat Day! Take care of yourselves! Take care of each other. Eat like your life depended on it.

ELE,
Zach

Gatlinburg...More Like FATlinburg

Howdy You Cheatin' Squaller Hollers! It's I, the rootin' tootinest Cheater of them ALL! And BOY do I have a tale for you this week! I didn't get to weigh in, cause I was in GATLINBURG, Tennessee for a joint Bachelor/Bachelorette weekend. So, even though I don't have a personal PHYSICAL victory to impress you with, I do have some things I learned mentally. Things that, though they may not be directly related to weight loss, do carry some similar lessons that one might learn on a journey for betterment.

You see, for my boy Bobby Cheeseman's bachelor party I wasn't going to allow myself my usual ONE measly cheat day. I was going to go buck wild as much as I could with him and all our friends to celebrate his last chaste days! (he's a virgin...shhhh) This was one of those new fangled bachelor parties that coincided with the bachelorette party. It's a brave new world ladies and gentleman, and those bachelorettes were NOT happy with those strippers' cooters in their faces, but MAN did it make me horny...I mean WISTFUL!


This post was bound to get a little sappy... but I didn't know it would happen that fast! Woo!

On Thursday evening, after work, I drove my ass about 10 hours from Chicago to Tennessee, the whole time contemplating if this decision was going to be at all worth it. Knowing the whole time that I'd be going to a bachelor party celebrating a young man whom I've never known to drink, in a town I'd never had any interest in visiting, all while I was pretty broke and stressed out at work wasn't necessarily a mental recipe for a fun getaway. The drive alone at night cleared my head, it actually put me at ease. It's a place where one can truly be isolated with one's thoughts while seeing sights you maybe never thought you'd see before.

I got a few phone calls from family and friends to keep me company. In this futuristic landscape we live in I've got endless streams of music from my phone and conversations with people far more successful, talented, and intelligent than I to keep pass the time with. Also, on the drive there were strip malls, wind mills, farms, and remnants of old road side attractions (like giant rocking chairs, flea markets, and abandoned motels). Through the south eastern chunk of Indiana a thunderstorm was threatening, yet the rain staved off (THANK CHRIST), which provided this driver with a lightening bolt feast for the eyes! Such majesty, such terror, such worthy entertainment that we lose appreciation of in these lives of routine.

Within this thunderstorm in southeastern Indiana I made my first stop. TACO BELL MawFcklers! (pronounced Ma-fuck-lers) I was eager to get the cheating going so I took my younger brother's advice and went with the cheaper cravings menu items and let me tell you that shit is GAME CHANGING! brrrrap brrap brraap! I'm talking 2 cheesy bean and rice burritos, 2 beefy 5-layers, and a deep dickin' crunk wrap supreme! Was it too much, you ask?! Why yes it was, but it was just me in the car so FUCK IT! Why that order in particular? What else can you eat and drive with better than some burritos and a CRUNCH WRAP SUPREME  beotch?! The road ahead of me was still long, so I trudged on.

I made one more stop and when I did, I only had an hour and a half left until I got to our...CABIN IN THE WOODS (DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN). So I got a coffee and stretched it out and powered through until I arrived at 5AM EST. I was told by Bobby Cheese that I should lock the doors to the car, fore bears are known to open car doors and rummage for food ripping the interior of the cars to SHREDS! So I like locked that car and RAN inside as fast as I could and crashed out for about 5 hours.

When I awoke, BOOM, time for breakfast. Was I going to go light? Maybe an egg and an avacado? NAW BITCH! When we rolled up to Davy Crockett's Breakfast Camp I got me a BIG ASS breakfast quesadilla with, that's right, a side of legit corned beef hash (ALL DAY SON)! I'm gonna get this outta the way all at once cause we went BACK there on Sunday morning before we rolled out back to our respective homes because we liked it so much. That time I got 2 biscuits and gravy...WITH? YOU GUESSED IT! Another side of corned beef hash (BOOM, all WEEKEND Mawfckler!). I honestly can't say which meal I liked more it was all good.

woman depicted NOT a member of
the bachelor party.

"What were some other meals of note?" you ask?! Well LET ME TELL YOU! Friday evening after a couple rounds of EXTREME GO CARTING and a pretty terrifying Mountain Coaster that we controlled ourselves we went to Boss Hoggs BBQ. Not bad, AND almost not even a cheat day meal! There's certainly better BBQ but when is BBQ NOT delicious? Exactly. I had the 2 meat 2 Side dinner. I got beef brisket and pulled pork and for sides: green beans and potato salad. SEE?! If it weren't for the potato salad and the slice of Texas toast it came with it may as well been a week day!

The other meal of note was after we spent all day at Dollywood (the food IN Dollywood was exactly what you'd expect: Wendy's quality fast food at twice the price! YUM-A-DUMB DUMBASSES). Dollywood is a dry theme park so we all got a good bit of drinking in after we left and BEFORE we ate so we needed to fill our bellies. Cheeseman knew a delicious Mexican joint in town that catered a wedding he had gone to called No Way Jose's Mexican Cantina. I ordered a chicken burrito dinner.

"THAT'S IT?!"

FUCK OFF! Little did I know when I drunkenly made the HASTY order that it would be SMOTHERED in queso! Cheeseman really knows how to bring the cheese! Other than that it was really a standard chicken burrito dinner. I've had worse and that queso really shot the whole meal up a few pegs with me. Cheeseman knows what he's doing with cheese so he also got a side of that queso to dip chips into. DAMN was that good shit.

One more thing that struck me a bit odd was that they always gave you a tiny side of "corn pone" or unsophisticated cornbread with you meal. ANY meal. We had it with breakfast and we had it with our Mexican. Good, but strange.

Yee-Haw Brewing

Before I tell you that YES I stopped at Taco Bell one last time on my 9 to 10 hour drive home alone or that YES (Alex Romero) I did drink probably a case of beer while I was there that weekend; I'd like to say that I miss my friends. I wish I could see them more and the same goes for my family. I chose to live in Chicago to pursue a passion, a way or life, and in order to do so you have to sacrifice a lot. For a guy like me, who gets distracted easily, it can take 10, 25, 50 times as long to achieve anything in this life, let alone something as unstable and tumultuous as success in entertainment and media.

What I am trying to get at here is that weekends like the Cheeseman bachelor party trip to Gatlinburg is something that you don't pass up, and I almost did. It's not a distraction, it's a reset. It's a sort of spiritual cleanse that will leave you more clear headed, more driven, and more optimistic on the other side. The distractions are in your routines, it's the NEED for a Starbucks every morning, it's the urge to open facebook real quick resulting in an hour or more of incessant scrolling, it's the 9th beer when you should have stopped at one or none.

Shake your shit up. Create uncomfortable, achievable, goals for yourself and pursue them with 1000 times the tenacity you'd use to simply get through the next day and the next and the next. Find the focus and then give yourself rewards as you achieve these goals.

That's not to say that food should be treated as reward...or treats, nor should time with your favorite people. BUT, if you allow yourself, DEMAND of yourself, time apart from the things you love the most in order to pursue the things that you know will be good for you, well...you come back to and tell me that they don't taste sweeter than ever before, make you laugh harder than when you were a care free little kid, feel safer than when your parents tucked you in at night. Life should be about thrills, highs, lows, indescribable feelings. Give yourself those sensations again.

Gluttony is a tough addiction. Whether it's cigarettes, booze, food, drugs, tv, phones, sex it's there to comfort you, like your routine that sucks years from your life. It's comfort that should scare you, not COMFORT you. Shake it up, set your goals, focus, conquer, and then give yourself one BIG ASS Cheat Day, not as a reward for doing a good little job at your little chores, but because you earned it. Work hard, earn your keep, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, eat like your life depended on it. Laugh like your life depended on it, love like your life depended on it.

ELE,
Zach

Oh yeah, and go see the Hatfield and McCoy Dinner theatre,
 if for nothing else: THIS LADY