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

Didya Miss Me Like I Miss Cheat Day?!

GOOD DAY Cheaters! I know, I FUCKING KNOW! I missed Memorial Day weekend Cheat Day! I get it! You had nothing to read ON Memorial Day! Well you shouldn't have been reading anyway, you should have been HONORING THE TROOPS! If you were gonna read anything it should have been WWII books or anything by Tom Clancy. You don't want to hear about that Cheat Day anyway, because that Cheat Day was meh on account I ended up kind of spreading it out into a Cheat Weekend, as I ate a bunch of fruit and cheese on Memorial Day.

Now I say LAST Cheat Day sucked but this one kind of sucked a fat one too. (How do you KIND OF suck a fat one?) Oh, you'll find out... It Sucked as in it was HIGHLY uninteresting, so I'm going to try to gussy this post up with as much flowery language as I possibly can. As you know I've got to start with the weigh in! I am down 8 pound from 2 weeks ago! This means I have been sub 250 for 2 weeks straight. It feels good too. I HATE 250lbs. 250lbs feels FAT. Soooooo FAT. Fatty Fatty Buttcrack!


I accomplished this 8 pound loss by OF COURSE sticking pretty decently to the slow carb diet but ALSO biking hard miles along the lake shore trail daily, and pumping out some daily push ups. I hope to further my work out regimen as time goes on and weight gets harder to lose!

"ZACH! SHUT UP AND TELL US HOW YOU REALLY LOST DEM POUNDS!"

Alright, pushy asshole! I REALLY lost "dem pounds" but waking up Cheat Day morning and walking my thin sexy ass down to the local grocery store, Mariano's. At Mariano's I bought this skinny-mini a chocolate glazed cinnamon roll thing! Do you know what I'm talking about? It like curls around, there's no hole, it's ALL FRIGGIN DONUT! Right? Can you picture it? I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of it because I ate it too fast and too hard! It looked something like the thing to the right. But that's not all I got at Mariano's...

I also got a bagel that was covered in toasted cheddar/asiago cheese and jalapeños. I bought this bagel because I was fixin' on fixing me up a bagel breakfast sandwich back at home! I also got some sliced munster cheese to add to that bad boy. This breakfast sandwich may have been one of, if not THE best sandwich I ever personally crafted for myself. Aside from the delicious bagel you're talking scrambled eggs, hard salami, Frank's red hot, and of course dat munster cheese was melted onto the bagel AND onto the eggs, it doesn't look like much but... mmmmawwwwgggggg. Sweet mother of mercy I want another one RIGHT NOW!

I didn't get to go anywhere new this past Cheat Day. I KNOW, I'm a failure! Well if you're so smart tell me where I should go next week! I dare you! And I'll tell you how friggin right or wrong your were! Where DID I go? I'll give you 3 guesses...

No, not Chuck E. Cheese! Dorks, I'm an adult!

No! Not Fudruckers! GROSS!

WHAT?! God you're stupid, it definitely wasn't Chili's! Although that's my favorite chain restaurant so I'll award you half a point for that.

IT WAS TACO BELL, DER! I did it again! I HAD TO! It was on my way home from my mid-day improv class. And there's only one way that Taco Bell tastes any better than usual and that is after being SO funny on a Cheat Day afternoon. I got the usual...

You know what the usual is! YES, you do! I'm not explaining it again! Go back and read like literally any other post and you'll know what I ordered! Jesus! I will say that I need to re-evaluate how I order Taco Bell. Right now I get 4, that's right 4! premium items which makes my bill an obscenely high amount for one man at Taco Bell. This ain't the right way to go about things when we all know it's the same 3 ingredients inside each menu item anyway, whether it's off the "Cravings Menu" costing only a dollar or off the regular menu costing $3 to $8.

The funny thing about this trip to TB is that while at the Bell my sweet lady Liz had gotten back from her gig and started making us quesadillas with the left over tortillas from last Cheat Day's breakfast burritos, what was left of the morning's munster cheese, and the remaining kabobs from Memorial Day. Did I eat one after stuffing my face full of Bell less than an hour prior? You bet your hot tits I did! AND I dipped it in Tostitos chili con queso. MMM, disgusting and delicious....and disgusting.

After that there wasn't much else I consumed that wasn't beer. I drank a bunch at my friend Andrew Campbell's improv show then we went to Nick's on Wilson to drink a few more beers. We got pretty drunk but left before 1AM like responsible adults! Here's the beers I drank:


5 High Life Tallboys
2 Shiner Bocks
1 Old Style Tallboy
1 PBR
2 Three Floyds Alpha King

Is that a lot? Prolly, but FUCK IT, cause I biked home, avoiding rain, and I didn't get ANYTHING ELSE to eat! How do you like dem apples! I'm a responsible drunken Cheat Dayer! That will also help me lose weight quicker is having a nice lil'cut off to my shenanigans in the evening. 200lbs here I come! Is 200 to low for old Zach? Do you think I'd be awkwardly skinny? I am quite tall and generally I have a large build. If I have a bunch of muscles it might be REAL hard to get to 200. What do YOU think?! This is an open forum here! Leave a comment! Also take care of yourselves! Take care of each other! And eat like your life depended on it!

ELE,
Zach

Propagandhi Crushes And So Does Cheat Day!

WHADDUP YA CHEATIN' SISSY MARYS! Zach here, losing weight and takin' names! I weighed in at 257.8 pounds this Saturday morning and I'm feelin' pretty alright about it. This ain't a sprint I guess, it's more of a marathon I reckon. I will begin to try new tactics: more exercise and less of the fattier foods if the weight loss stays this slow. But you know what I'm not doing, is layin' off of CHEAT fuggin' DAY. My weigh in means that since the first weigh in I have lost 5 pounds. And I need to lose 57.8 more until I achieve my goal. And 5 pounds a month is NOT going to cut it! Anyway, that's not what ya'll are here for!

Chipotle

YOU are here to learn how to cheat day! But ya know, I've been thinking. If any of ya'll are interested in the diet I want to first give you one huge hint. If you have to eat out, which you will: go to Chipotle. I know, I know...e coli. WELL RISK IT! What you do, on non-cheat days that is, go in you get a SALAD. NOT a bowl you fat tub of horse shit! Get the SALAD, tell those fucking college kids NO RICE fuck wads! BEANS, and fuckin' LOTS OF EM. Yes throw some DElicious fajita veggies on there. "WHAT KINDA MEAT?!" DEALER'S CHOICE DIARRHEA PEDDLER! Ya know what?! Make it DOUBLE! Every fucking salsa you got. Don't even THINK about touching corn, cheese, or sour cream! But you better DUMP on that GUAC. Then throw a little extra lettuce on top, I'm losing weight over here! It's delicious and it works for slow carb. It's honestly one of the best things you can get out on the diet that I have discovered so far. Know of anything else from anywhere else?! GET AT ME!

Jack's Pizza

Now lets get to cheat day M-Fers! I woke up early-ish, around 8:30, as my lovely and talented girlfriend had to go teach. I needed to get up anyway because I had to get my ass to an audition. WHICH I NAILED, not that you care. But before I did I had to get my CHEAT ON. After my weigh in I went straight to the freezer and popped about 4 thin mints. On may way out of the freezer I grabbed a watermelon outshine bar (YES, totally not allowed on the slow carb diet! BS I KNOW). I then made an entire frozen pizza (Jack's) and ate the whole thing. Let's face it, those Jack's frozen pizzas are a single serving anyway. Now, having abstained from carbs for a while this combination did a pretty rough number on my gut. But, I have a job to do dammit. I got to my audition crushed and then afterwords I realized something...

I had left my tickets to the Propagandhi show, which was THAT night, at my god damn office, which is down-fucking-town, YUCK. But then, a giant light bulb went off in my mind on my commute to my office to retrieve the tickets. They just opened a god DAMN TACO BELL close to my office. Well, it was still breakfast time, and I don't get to Taco Bells for breakfast a lot, and it's actually pretty good. Look, it's no REGULAR TACO BELL, BUT, it's the shit as far as major chain breakfast goes. Have you HAD a breakfast crunch wrap or a breakfast quesadilla?! They are big FAT ASS TITTIES, I'll tell you that much! GO GET ONE. Going on a road trip? Get a Bfast Crunchwrap! FUCK McDs DOUBLE FUCK B. King. Hit up your local Bell.

ALL BUSINESS!

I snagged my tickets from my office and headed back home. Now, let me take a minute to acknowledge that I get home around noon. Which means between the hours of about 9AM and Noon I eat girl scout cookies, 2 Outshine Bars, an entire frozen pizza, 1 breakfast crunchwrap, 1 breakfast burrito, and 1 breakfast quesadilla. That's gluttony folks. But, HEY, that's cheat day.

So, moving forward, Liz got home from her teachings! And she was HUNGRY. SO, ya know what I said? CHAT DAY DON'T CARE! That's RIGHT! And we took our asses on down to FORK in Lincoln Square. Neither of us had been before and it was a place that we passed often when it was jam packed with people. So, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it.

Fork's Logo

I can't leave out the fact that she brought me haves of cookies that she got from a fancy cookie place, I forget what it was called. If you want to know leave a comment and I'll find out for you. BUT I ate them on the walk to Fork. One was s'mores flavored (delicious but I didn't quite get s'mores) and one was Mexican hot chocolate flavored (delicious AND tasted JUST like hot chocolate). YUM-A-DUM DUM!

Pretzel Bites and a small bit of cheese

Fork has a high end diner vibe. It's pretty quality. The ambiance is nice, the bar is expansive and well stocked, and the menu is quality and medium to pricey. Because I was not that hungry I ordered...pretzel bites with beer cheese...yes I know it IS what I ordered from Eris last week, but hear me out! I like to compare dishes I love! SO FUCK YOU! They were good, ALMOST as good as the Eris beer cheese, HOWEVER, the Eris beer cheese gave you an appropriate amount of cheese. The cheese that came with Fork's pretzel bites was minimal, though the pretzels were better, so...ya know!

Hangover Helper

LIZ on the other had ordered the "hangover helper" which was fancy biscuits and gray. She also made a bold move and replaced the bacon that was on it with candied pecan bacon! UGH, god it was delicious. Biscuits and gravy is always delicious. It's one of my favorite dishes, but it's hard to get biscuits in gravy in Chicago as good as you can get it in the south. Over all Fork was delicious but pricey. The location/service/atmosphere is laid back and nice.

After that I didn't need shit else for a while! Though between the time we got back from our lovely outing and our separate shows we were to go to I did have another Outshine Bar, a couple more cookies, and some chips. I met my good friend Andrew Donnelly at the G-Man Tavern next to the Metro where the Propagandhi show was to be. I hadn't been drinking, but this weekend I broke it. I went ahead and ordered myself a bourbon on the rocks as well as a beer and a shot at G-Man (possibly the best jukebox I've ever seen). All of that was very delicious to me as I hadn't had it in a while. Propagandhi fucking SLAUGHTERED! I MUST say this. If you like punk/metal/hardcore do yourself a favor and GET INTO THIS BAND. I had a few more beers at the show. Enough to go back to TACO BELL when it was all over!

Propagndhi

In a nut shell

In Wrigleyville on a Saturday night AROUND midnight. Andrew and I went on over to the Taco Bell to eat some BS and experience the culture. (If you've ever been to the Wrigleyville Taco Bell at night you'll get that joke). I got myself my favorites: Cheesy Gordita Crunch with a Doritos Locos Taco, Chicken Quesadilla, and a Crunchwrap Supreme. Andrew got some stuff too, fuck it I don't remember. We also saw a ton of drunks, the line begin to swell, people walk in and decide they could deal with it, and shitty bros as FAR AS THEY EYE COULD SEE!

I would never say this to anyone in civilized conversation and if you ask me about this in person or digitally I will deny it. BUT, on my way home from Taco Bell, I stopped at 7-Eleven and got some taquitos. I've got a problem people. Which is why Cheat Day is the way for me! Give myself a day to be a glutton and then CUT. THAT. SHIT. OFF! Cheat days going forward will hopefully not be quite as bad as this one if I want to get to 200 by August. Although, MY GOD is it awesome! And BOY is it fun! But I've got to be better. Now take care of yourselves, take care or each other, and EAT LIKE YOUR LIVES DEPEND ON  IT!

ELE,
Zach

Cheat Day is Epic Again!

From the movie "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story"

Cheat day was fat TITTIES this past Saturday cheaters! Now let me tell you 'bout it!

I did the right thing and quite literally had NOTHING to do all day on Saturday. I woke up late (like 10AM these adult ass days), weighed myself real quick and I lost weight! So it's ON LIKE DONKEY KONG! I weighed in at 260.6, which means I lost 3.2 pounds from last week and 2 whole pounds since week one.

www.gsoh.org

Having seen this I went straight for the freezer where Liz was stashing some of them girl scout cookies everyone's been talkin'bout. She bought three boxes for us to crush/share for cheat day. They are always a treat, but here's a hot take for you. Girl Scout cookies are the cookie equivalent to the McRib. They are great and all, but they would sell like shit if they were available all year round, just sayin'. We ate a sleeve out of a full box of Thin Mints and what was left of her Samoas as well as what was left of the new S'mores cookies she purchased earlier in the week. PRO TIP! Microwave them S'mores cookies for a few seconds and them shits get straight POPPIN'!

The cookies did a number on our Slow Carb tum-tums so we lounged about for a while before heading to make our Super Market run for the week. Here's another hot take for you. IF you cheat day people, IF YOU FUCKING CHEAT DAY, it is HIGHLY recommended you go and do your grocery run ON cheat day. Not only will you take care of your weekly groceries, but you will get to pick WHATEVER you want to eat that day. I picked out a donut (chocolate glaze with sprinkles) as well as some nacho fixings so I could make a plate to eat during the Kansas Jayhawks v Texas Tech Red Raiders. CHEAT DAY BONUS: Kansas beat Texas Tech securing their 14th straight conference title, a new NCAA record.

www.kansascity.com

frinkiac.com

After the game I took a very short nap and then Liz and I went to meet our friends Rob and Erin at the new Chicago Cider Mill & Brewery call Eris. This will be my local Chicago review for the day. I believe Eris opened at the beginning of this month and it claims the descriptor "Chicago's first cider house." Now if you are a Cheat Day Don't Care FAN, you know I ain't drinking and you know Cider ain't my drink even if I was, this means our pals Erin and Rob selected this as a destination. Turns out it was a great selection regardless of whether or not you're drinking because the food was delicious. If you are interested in how the cider was, I will give the recommendations of Erin and Rob.

Beer Cheddar Dip

To start we ordered a Savory Popcorn from their bar snacks section and a single order of Beer Cheddar Dip which came with 3 pretzel rods. The Savory Popcorn is not executed as well as it sounds on the menu. However, if I was pounding back ciders I am sure it would be just the right thing to be shoving down my fat face between gulps. What WAS executed perfectly and possibly beyond was that Beer Cheddar Dip. It quite possibly could have been the best cheese sauce/pretzel rod combo I have ever tasted. It was too good, too good and too small a portion for 4 guests. Here's a tip to any restaurant. Give 4 god damn rods. I know, I get it, you want to sell another order and it worked hook line and sinker on our dumb asses! BUT, just give us 4 god damn rods, it's not costing ya'll that much more! ASSHOLES!

Hodag

For our main course Liz and I split The Hodag off of the Hand Held Delights section of the menu. "SPLIT?! You skinny lil'bitch!" Well, look you A-holes, not only were Liz and I stuffed already from earlier, but I was dead set on hitting up one more place on this cheat day (more on this later). The Hodag was basically a gourmet Chicago Dog. It was a bacon-wrapped smoked Polish sausage, grilled french roll, carmelized onions, brown mustard, house pickled vegetables, and cilantro. It came with VERY good fries on the side. Not a bad price either at $13 as it had OBVIOUSLY fresh ingredients.

Rob got The Burger, also off the Hand Held Delights section of the menu. And he tells us, he says, that the burger was DELICIOUS! I believe him. It looks and sounds delicious. The burger comes with Sharp Cheddar (my favy fave), bacon jam, and is on a brioche bun. It was simple and delightful and again fresh ingredients! Erin got herself something off the First Bites list for her entree, the Crispy Duck Tacos, which came as 3 tacos. AGAIN, give 4 you assholes! If we had been sharing them we would have been pissed! The Crispy Duck Tacos included duck leg confit, white corn tortilla, Asian cabbage, vegetable concise, and wasabi creme. She enjoyed those as well.

The Crispy Duck Tacos

The Burger

Over all the food was delicious and fairly priced we thought for how fresh the ingredients were and how inventive, yet simple, the dishes were. Aside from the 1 hour wait!! (Holy hell) the service was top notch as well. As for the cider, Erin got three small pours and I will attempt to remember which she got and which she liked best now. Erin got 5oz pours of Chai Dar (Cider and tea, Unfiltered and fancy), Van Van Mojo (Blueberry cider dry-hopped with Mosaic. Just what the doctor ordered), and Pedestrian (Modern dry cider blended for everyone. Trip, fresh, and pleasantly tart like a glass of Granny Smith). That was easier to remember than I thought. She ranked them:

1. Pedestrian: "Who doesn't like a granny smith"

Ciders

In a close 2nd. Van Van Mojo "The Blueberry is VERY nice and sweet"
And in a DISTANT 3rd. Chai Dar "Bland, the chai tea doesn't cut it for me"

Now, I promised you a bonus section, and if you are affected by my vast social media presence you'll already know what it is...Maw'Fuggin' TACO BELL. For dessert Rob, Erin, Liz and I stopped at Taco Bell on our way home where I got and ate a chicken quesadilla, a crunch wrap supreme, and what I believe is the single best item in all of fast food the cheesy gordita crunch with a doritos locos taco instead of a plain hardshell! Always good! Always cheat-tastic!

@finchzj on Instagram

@finchzj on Instagram

BOOM! DID IT! THAT is how you cheat day! YES I was hurting, NO I do not have regrets! Now lets think of how I'm gonna top that next Cheat Day! Until next time: take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and eat like your life depended on it!






ELE,
Zach Finch

Liz enjoying the Hodag

Don't Over Extend Yourself

Sup Cheaters! Post 2 coming at you! Let's start with the business breakdown. I am embarrassed to say that I mother fucking GAINED a pound from last Saturday! I KNOW! Duh FUQ?! I honest to god stuck to the Slow Carb diet to a T! When I weighed in Saturday morning at about 8:45AM  the scale landed at 263.6. I had to check 3 times and sure enough it stopped there every time. THIS IS BULLSHIT! But, I think I know what went wrong.

Skinny Face Selfie

FIRST OF ALL I didn't take a pre-weigh in DUMP. "HUGE mistake you big dumb IDIOT!" I know I know, LAY OFF! Also, I ate a few too many peanuts the night before, delicious peanuts. I understand that weight fluctuates and that this doesn't NECESSARILY mean I'm getting fatter, in fact I know I am not. My face has already begun eating itself. However, to wake up with a sunken face and feeling all the energy of an 18 year old and to see that you GAINED a pound after forcing yourself to eat nothing but complex carbs, healthy fats, meats and vegetables all week is a serious downer.

THE PERKS of this butt fucking diet are endless, however, regardless of what some scale tells me. As I mentioned previously, the boundless energy that I have obtained having not only stripped myself of carbs but also of booze for the month is a godsend. It is honestly incredible. I feel much lighter over all, I don't just pass out or crash any old time at any old place, and I am a LOT more focused on accomplishing things. For instance, I have taken up this blog again, I have started a second podcast beside Chooch Chat called The Poopcast and we are also well on our way to producing the second season of a web-series I started with Tony Giamichael called A Bit Touched. Not only that, but on this particular cheat day I booked myself two different auditions for theatre shows which served as the bread of a Chooch sandwich this past Saturday.

Poopcast Pilot Click Here

This brings me to the title of this particular blog entry. DO NOT over extend yourself on cheat day. My non-food related schedule this cheat day was as follows: Audition 1 at 10AM, 11 AM A Bit Touched read through, 12PM Chooch Chat recording, 1:30PM A Bit Touched rewrites, and then all the way to Evanston, IL at 4:50PM for Audition #2! That's a slam packed day leaving little time to relish in Cheat Day activiy, i.e. gorging yourself on what you need, carbs, cheese, sugars, and LOTS OF THEM. Of course, I say this now, but wait til you hear what I managed to eat on cheat day regardless, cause I was DAMNED if I was going to let that one little pound keep me from cheating my DICK OFF!

Upcoming Chooch Chat Episode Click here

I woke up with enough time before the audition to eat about 6 double stuffed Oreos and a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. After that I reverse-desserted by slicing up some sharp cheddar cheese and slapping it on Triscuits. This really fucked my stomach up which, now that I am thinking about it, didn't do me any favors at audition 1, I DID botch it a little...womp womp. After audtion 1 I had to bike my ass over to our Chooch meeting as fast as I could. Luckily where we meet for the Chooch Train is stocked with deliciously cheat-a-rific foods! While there I ate a smorgasbord of old valentines heart-shaped jelly cookies, chocolate pound cake, oranges (reminder: not allowed on the slow carb diet), candied oranges, various Italian breads and cheeses, and finally rotisserie chicken sammies on hawaiian rolls with cheese and sauces! GOD DAMN! My mouth is watering, I knew I shouldn't have complained earlier in this post.

I had to RUSH out of the Chooch Meet to get to audition 2. I slipped and fell on my ass in the snow as I hopped in an Uber to get up to Evanston on time. I nailed the second audition and got myself a call back, which completely made the entire over-extended day justified. Getting a call back is the equivalent to a firm pat on that back with an "attaboy" in the acting world. I left the 2nd audition to go watch the WVU @ KU Men's College Basketball game and eat the shit out of some Sarpino's Pizza. I know I promised a Chicago restaurant review last week so I guess will be reviewing the Sarpino's pizza chain's delivery.

Sarpino's Website

Sarpino's is actually an international chain headquarted in Singapore. It's US headquarter's is in the Chicago adjacent Lincolnshire, IL. It's U.S. locales include:

Chicago metropolitan area (23 stores)
Minneapolis–Saint Paul (10 stores)
Kansas City metropolitan area (8 stores)
Greater Houston (2 stores)
Greater Austin (1 stores)
Atlanta, GA (1 store)[4]
Clive, IA (1 store)
Fort Lauderdale, FL (2 stores)
Moorhead, MN (1 store)

It's fine pizza. Probably better than Domino's and as good as Pizza Hut and Papa John's. It's nothing to write home about and it is affordable enough. It is what it is. It does the trick. Any other cliches I can throw out to let you know that it's mediocre? Bottom line is that it is carbs, cheese, grease, butter, ranch dressing, etc. Pizza is essentially the perfect cheat day food and Sarpino's did it this time. Next cheat day pizza I'll be looking for is some Jett's Pizza. Also, just a heads up I WILL be eating Taco Bell next week, so get ready for that. Alright cheaters, until next time: take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and eat like your life depended on it!

ELE,
Zach Finch