3rd Recovery Day

The 3rd recovery day, just as Day 1 and Day 2, went well. This morning's weigh in: 146.8 pounds. So each weigh in: 154.4 then 147.8 then 146.8! That third number surprised me a bit, but it's all good.

For the third day I kept the calories consumed pretty low again. Nice!

Eats:
1. Bowl of bran flakes w/ skim milk - 350 calories
2. 80 ounces of water - 0 calories
3. Clif Bar Mojo - 220 calories
4. Lunch: Lean Pocket - 290 calories
5. 5 fudge striped cookies - 250 calories
6. 32 ounces of Gatorade G2 - 80 calories
7. A 33g serving of Veggie Straws - 150 calories
8. Medium orange (seedless!) - 80 calories
9. 2 servings of beef jerky - 160 calories
Calorie total: 1580

Workout:
15 minutes on elliptical w/ arms
Weights - overall body emphasis on reps over weight
10 minutes on elliptical w/ arms

Recovery Day #2

My 2nd recovery day, just as Day 1, went well. I kept the calories consumed pretty low again. Nice!

Eats:
1. Bowl of apple-cinnamon toasted oats + a bit of granola w/ skim milk - 410 calories
2. 80 ounces of water - 0 calories
3. Mango yogurt - 180 calories
4. Medium banana - 110 calories
5. 5 fudge striped cookies - 250 calories
5. 32 ounces of water w/ sugar-free Hawaiian punch mix - 10 calories
6. A 28g serving of Veggie Straws - 130 calories
7. Medium orange (seedless!) - 80 calories
8. Turkey, lowfat cheese on a tortilla (60 + 50 + 180) - 290 calories
Calorie total: 1460

On Day 1 I weighed in at 154.4lbs. Day 2, 147.8! I expect that to go up a bit and settle around 149.0 but we shall see.

Recovery Day 1 in Review

My 1st recovery day after the punishing day of eating contest/TdB went well. Calories consumed were pretty low, and the workout felt wonderful.

Eats:
1. Bowl of apple-cinnamon toasted oats w/ skim milk - 390 calories
2. 80 ounces of water - 0 calories
3. Key lime yogurt - 160 calories
4. Medium banana - 110 calories
5. 32 ounces of water w/ sugar-free Hawaiian punch mix - 10 calories
6. Protein shake (scoop of powder, 1.5 cup skim milk, medium banana, vanilla yogurt) - 130, 135, 110, 150 = 525 calories
Calorie total: 1195

Workout:
30 minutes on elliptical w/ arms
Weights - overall body emphasis on reps over weight
5 minutes on elliptical w/ arms

Digging the Smash

If you have not eaten at Smashburger, go there now. Today I had the Spicy Baja:

Spicy Baja: Pepper jack cheese, guacamole, lettuce, tomato, red onion, chipotle mayo and fresh jalapeno slices on a chipotle bun.

And they have a new menu item: fried green chiles.

They are really good. Cut thin. Lightly battered. Not greasy or oily at all. Killer. The tub of spicy chipotle sauce is not needed at all. In fact I think dipping the chiles in the sauce takes away the chile flavor. Again, killer.

Rock the Tot #3

The 3rd annual Rock the Tot tater tot eating contest at Bar Louie started innocently enough...


But ended like this:


The tots were prepared MUCH better than last year when each basket devolved into a soupy mixture of cooking oil and potato pieces. Last year was more a hands-only potato soup eating contest.


But as you can see, the tots were almost perfect. Very oily but soft and pillowy potato puffs.




There were 8 of us eating. 2 guys puked during the 6-minute eating.

The trophy

Getting ready

Listening to the rules. 6-minutes of eating followed by a 5-minute waiting time.

1st basket set. Each basket was 1lb.



And we're off. Technique: single tot, two-fisted.

Ugh, woe is me

My 3rd basket. Ate 1/2 of it.

Weighing

Not gonna do it.



Just one touch of the hardware...



The 8 who ate.

This was maybe the contest non-win that really hurt. Most of the other contests I have not won have sort of been due to some factor beyond my control. Be it the other guy eating better than I expected, or some environmental factor, or whatever. But this tot contest was mine. I was ready - I had good practice runs, and I was ready. Going in, 3 pounds was so possible - both time-wise and capacity-wise. True, I did not do any practice runs over 90 seconds but I knew what was going on. Based on the totals at the Rock the Tot contests last year, 3 pounds would take it.

But I didn't swallow well from GO to STOP. Mouth stuffed all the time. My final second cram sucked because there was no room. I think I lost it there. Though the whole eat was pretty bad. Like last year, I did get 2nd. Last year was a heart break (losing by .1 ounce. Yes, .1 ounce!) but not winning this night really stings because I had great practice runs, I was ready, and there was a trophy up for grabs. Damn.

Winner had 2 pounds 10 ounces. I scored 2nd with 2 pounds 8 ounces. I am unsure of the other totals, but I know that nobody had over 2 pounds or less than 1 pound.

Damn.

Videos! One of the beginning. And the other one is the end of the contest. T-bonz was pissed at me. I deserved it!

KFC Double Down

It's finally here! Debut day for the Double Down sandwich at KFC!

Getting ready

Guapo and I are set. He ordered the combo meal with a fried Double Down. I got one fried Double Down and one grilled Double Down. Each sandwich is $4.99!

And for that $4.99 you get two slices of white cheese, two strips of bacon, and the special Colonel sauce, which are all in between two buns. The buns are not your run-of-the-mill bread. They're chicken breasts! Great concept, but this doesn't work for me.

Guaps snuck the first bite

I started with the fried Double Down. It actually wasn't too bad. The cheese wasn't too good, the bacon was flavorless, the sauce is like Thousand Islands, and the breast buns, though juicy (read: oily), were too thick and do not smoosh down the way bread buns do.

Oily?

So, each separate part of the fried Double Down is really less than stellar. On to the grilled Double Down to see if it's the same.

Uh, here it goes.

This look says it all.

Last bite. Couldn't come soon enough.

Actually the fried sandwich is "better", well relatively, than the grilled. But the official KFC nutritional information - calories - for these sandwiches has got to be WAY off. 540 for the fried and 460 for the grilled?!? My guess for the fried: 2 X 100 cheese, 100 sauce, 200 bacon, 2 X 300 patties. Um, that's 1100 minimum. Grilled, I would guess the same as fried except the patties are maybe 400 or 500. So 900 or 1000. No way they are 540 and 460.

Ugh.

Big Badass Burrito

Yeah, by that look you can pretty much guess how my attempt went. It was my 2nd try at the Big Badass Burrito Challenge at the Sahara Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. But I did eat a bit more than last time, and it ended much more positively than last time.

Before beginning

In between there was lots of chewing and swallowing. An hour and a half of it. There were a couple of other guys eating with me. They had no real shot. The guy next to me ate for maybe 30 minutes or so and ended up taking the leftovers in 3 to-go boxes with him.


I pretty much hit a point at 75 minutes into the eating where I couldn't stuff anymore in me. I picked at the burrito for another 15 minutes until time ran out. 6 pounds starting weight. A little over 1 pound left.

End

There is a great gallery of photos here that show a lot more of what went on. T-bonz took some great shots. The red neon lighting makes for some challenging photo conditions but she found a way to get some good ones.

I'm now 0-2 against the B3. Dang it!

New Smashburger in Vegas

A Smashburger opened in mid-March in Las Vegas! We just happened to be there a few days after it opened...

The burger that's only available in Las Vegas: the Sin City burger. Fried egg, applewood smoked bacon, American cheese, grilled onions, haystack onions, egg bun, and smash sauce.

We ordered the sweet potato smashfries. Tossed with rosemary, olive oil, and garlic. Usually they are very good. Here they were oily and limp. Yuck!

My Sin City burger. The egg was fried, but too long for me - too bad the yolk was not runny.

If you live anywhere near a Smashburger and have not gone to eat there yet, GO! There's no nutrition info available about their food - so it's probably safe to say it is so very bad for you - but go and eat there anyway!

Wall of Fame at Johnny McGuire's

Here is a photo of the Wall of Fame at Johnny McGuire's Deli in Las Vegas:


I had not noticed this before, but the plaque is titled their "Wall of Shame". Interesting. I guess eating a 24" sub sandwich could be called shameful.

My time of 28:22.27 is posted as 28:223:27. Fine.

"Jason" in 14:40?? "Tom" in 10:42?!? Yeah they must have said 'hold the meat' and 'hold the vegetables'!!!

Pink's Video

Here's a link to a clip of video shot by T-bonz of me taking a couple of bites of the Polish hot dog with chili, mustard and onions at Pink's Hot Dogs in the Planet Hollywood Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

Pink's in Las Vegas

While in Las Vegas to attempt the B3 burrito challenge at the Sahara, one must-go was to Pink's Hot Dogs in the Planet Hollywood Hotel & Casino.


There were a few crazy concoctions but I decided to go with a traditional one:

Polish with chili, mustard and onions

Planning my bite

OK. Go. And the side of fries.

Open mouth. Insert hot dog.

1/2-dog bite

Cleaning up the fallen

Pre-lick

All gone.

Overall, not that impressed. A tasty enough Polish chili dog, but nothing really phenomenal about it that you can't get anywhere else. Meh.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Yesterday it was off to Nederland. Every year they celebrate Frozen Dead Guy Days. Long story short there is a guy in Nederland who has his dead grandfather in a shed behind his house. He is kept nice and cold via dry ice - how nice - in hopes that he can be re-animated one day. Me, T-bonz, and Mommye went not for the dead guy but for the rocky mountain oyster eating contest.

Last year at the rocky mountain oyster contest I ended up 2nd. The RMOs were baked last year. Scary. In 2009, there were two qualifying heats and the top 2 from each heat went on to the final round. I was 2nd in my heat, and 2nd in the finals.


But that was last year. This year, I really was hoping the RMOs would not be baked but rather fried. Baked are faster than fried, yes, but you tasted WAY too much, uh, you know. When I got there, I found out they would be fried! And, the format of the contest would be 3 qualifying heats, and the winner of each heat would go to the finals. As last year too, not the ideal format for me because first-to-finish comes down to swallowing size more than anything and that's not my strength.

In the qualifying heats each competitor had a plate with 3/4 pounds of RMOs fried in strips. I was in the 1st heat with a normal guy, plus a BIG guy, and a guy who had won a couple of these before. I got a spot at the end of the table so I could watch them as they ate and react accordingly. I do not know how long I took to finish - it seemed like forever - but I got a good start and stayed narrowly ahead and won the heat by edging out the previous winner. The big guy was not even close. The RMOs were very chewy and the breading was pretty thick. I had to get down a lot of water to choke them down.


The big guy and the previous winner

Heat #1


Heat #2. A dunking Asian Sensation. Some dude who broke the RMOs into small bits. Neither of them won. The winner was a guy, who like me, just ate and chased with water to swallow them down.

In heat #3 there were three women and three other guys. The women did well, but the winner was a guy who could pretty much put one in, chew a couple of times, and swallow it down. He didn't really have to hit the liquid. Uh oh.

Goatee guy won heat #3

Heat #3


About 20 minutes after my heat, the three winners of each heat took the stage. For the final round we each got a plate of 1/2 pound. On go, the winner of heat #2 wasn't a factor. It was me and the heat #3 winner going testicle-to-testicle. I think he was toying with me. It had to be funny to see me furiously biting and watering and chipmunking and then him calmly putting the RMO in his mouth, chewing a couple of chews, and swallowing it down. Half of my final RMO was fatty, or gristly, or veiny, or something. We both finished our plates at the same time, but I had a bit stuffed in my cheeks so he cleared first and won.

But I don't feel too bad about it because the winner is in the Army. He recently got back from Nam. I mean, the other quagmire, Iraq. He served 2 consecutive tours. So while I've been picking dingleberries off my butt he's been making life and death decisions.

Before the finals

In the finals

Finals over



2nd place

I will upload some video too.

Thanks to T-bonz for getting some good photos and video despite the conditions. Inside the pub the lighting and the raucous crowd made for some tough photo-taking conditions.