Chocolate Milk

I had two classes today. Conveniently, I had two exams today. No biggie, but that meant my dietary regimen (if I can even call it that) was altered in such a way to accommodate for this fact, to maximize my physiological function and thus increase my performance on the exams. 

Before my first exam (0800), I started off with a couple new brotein bars. The flavors are a little unorthodox, but I won't give anything away. Try them if you wish. But they each contained 10 grams of brotein and 15 grams of carbs. This is a perfect recipe for mental acuity, so I had 2. I also had a mandarin for good luck. 

For my next exam (1100), I had a traditional granola bar, and another mandarin, again, for good luck. 

That was the extent of my food intake for most of the day. I then attended an informational seminar for and a campus and facilities tour of a bromedical school. This was very enjoyable, and, through my enjoyment, I forgot to eat for like 9 hours. So, upon my arrival at my parents' house, pizzas were ordered. 

There were several different kinds, and I won't bother to intimately describe each of them as their individuality is really quite irrelevant to the overarching theme of pizza: carbs with stuff piled on top. 

I ended up having two plates identical to the one pictured above, along with a little ranch on the side. This may not seem like a lot, but after this amount of food, I just didn't want any more. I felt like I made adequate gains, and I was not uncomfortably full. I had just one more trick up my sleeve though.

This is, without a doubt in the world, the BEST chocolate milk. I swear, there is something about it that just makes it irresistible. And I know just what that something is. It tastes just like melted chocolate ice cream, but with the ultra smooth and creamy consistency of whole milk. It is so unbelievably good, which is probably why it is so unbelievably expensive, which is definitely why I very rarely get this milk. But, it's worth it every now and then.

Burn, sugar, burn!

Eating carbs on days that no lifting is done is generally thought to be counterproductive in the quest for massive gains. It is assumed that eating carbs on these off days will lead to the excess accrual of fat. Well, I've decided to run my own little experiment. I can't not eat carbs. I'm trying to get huge, and I feel huge when I eat carbs. That must mean it's working, right?? Follow along as I broscientifically carve out my path to hugeness.

For breakfast and lunch, it was the usual.

These items were dispersed throughout the day in relatively regular intervals. 

Later in the afternoon, I realized that I had forgotten my laboratory manual at home, so I took advantage of this impromptu return jaunt to get some gains in.

I warmed up some of the pot pie noodle filling that was leftover.

And, of course, to go with it I had three wonderful, buttery biscuits.

And, last but certainly not least, I had the remnants of a slice of the skillet cookie. I was all carbed up and ready to fly through my physics lab!

Now fast forward more than three hours. My physics lab actually went longer than the scheduled time, so I was in a a fairly woeful mood. The only thought that could comfort me immediately was the thought of more carbs. Luckily for me, this was waiting for me:

Ahh, yes. Lasagna. Carbs...layered. What better way to consume carbs than in large sheets stacked on top of each other and covered in cheese and sauce? There was only one more thing left to do to fulfill my carb agenda.

Eggy custard with a burnt sugar crust. My favorite!!! Seriously, I think this is my favorite dessert. There, I said it. 

You say ice cream, I say Gelato.

Initiate broken record: I had the usual brotein bar for breakfast, and three cereal bars for lunch/preworkout. After the gym, I had my usual scoop of brotein.

Upon returning to the bro domicile, I ramped up my carb game. I parlayed last night's mac n cheese into a hearty serving of gains this afternoon. I supplemented that with a wheat bun for that little something extra. 

 After eating some mac and cheese the good ole' fashioned way sans bun, I piled some therein and went to town. Not all of the remaining pasta fit on the bun, so I supersetted the sandwich with the plain mac and cheese. It was one of the most productive supersets I've ever done, and I know this based on how huge I felt afterward. I could feel my muscles swell with water from all the carbs I had just ingested.

And if I thought I felt big after this ingestion, I was in store for a real treat this evening when dinner rolled around. Again based around leftovers from the previous several days, it was sure to fulfill my carb quota. With a fresh batch of biscuits at the ready, the next rounds of "pot pies" were on deck. But it gets better. To the filling, extra carbs were added in the form of noodles. It would later become evident that a perfect storm of carbs was brewing.

I had two bowls exactly as pictured above. That's six biscuits and many, many noodles. I was beginning to experience a new level of huge feeling. 

But I still had not reached my peak. Later on, things got even better. Having lifted today, and having not had a traditional sweet dessert on Monday, I was due to have a sugar relapse. Well, less of a relapse and more of return to status quo. And what a beautiful status quo that is. Today, it came in the form of another giant skillet cookie of the chocolate chip oatmeal variety. To add to this, some extremely delicious gelato was dolloped on top.

It was so unbelievably good that I wouldn't've cared if it didn't have any gains whatsoever. Luckily, though, that wasn't the case. This dessert had so many gains that my muscles generated sensations similar to, I can imagine, a water balloon about to pop. What a glorious feeling. 

The War of the Carbs

Somehow, today turned into the Day of the Carb. Unlike the Martian tripods, though, today's carb invaders face no opposition. Indeed, quite the contrary. Every carb that confronted me was welcomed with open mouth. I added some variety to my daily bar regimen with some complimenting citrus.

Besides these three bars and three mandarins, I had an additional bar for breakfast. 

Upon my earlier than planned return home, I quickly found myself at the mercy of the second wave of carb siege. Last night's pool-of-butter biscuits remained in about half their original quantity, and, sitting so near, I could not resist their buttery goodness. 

I had probably three of these moderately sized biscuits. But that wasn't where it ended. A very kind soul offered me some Valentine's candy, to which I exuberantly accepted. I proceeded to eat it all on the spot.

  

I really had forgotten how tasty Reese's peanut butter cups (Hearts, in this case) are.

Carby and delicious as all of this stuff was, it was truly only the beginning. It was barely the proverbial whine of the starter motor to the thunderous growl of a big block V8 engine roaring to life and then bouncing off of the rev limiter near 6,000 RPM. 

What that means is that there were many more carbs to follow. One of the highest taste:effort foods of all time is the dinner that was prepared tonight. See Super Easy Baked Mac n Cheese.

Add to this yet another biscuit and a slice of buttered sourdough, along with a token salad with crunchy carbs on top, and I've got myself an extremely carby day! At least I didn't lift today.

And to celebrate my laziness, I got a second serving of macaroni and cheese, albeit slightly smaller than the first.

In the immortal words of my future mother-in-law: "Moo."

Invisible Gains

I say invisible, but that's really a lie. I began my metabolic respirations for the day on a slightly more starvation sensation, downing a scoop of brotein. Then, for lunch/preworkout, one brotein and one granola bar. Post workout, I had another scoop of brotein, supplemented with three mandarins for some quick carbs (and L-ascorbic acid).

As dinner time neared, I knew I had to make some serious gains to recover from all the leg work I did at the gym. The bread from last night was called upon.

I had this slice, followed by two more slices. I also shared a portion of Sidney's seafood pasta. It was simply mouth wateringly delicious.

I then got the completely unexpected surprise of and additional slice of bread. My procurement of said slice materialized in such a way I never could have predicted. Sidney, constantly professing her love of butter, was quick to slather on a very generous layer of the stuff. She took a bite, and, out of nowhere, proceeded to place the bread on my plate. Answering mine and others' puzzled, confused, and utterly incredulous facial expressions, she explained, to the categorical shock and dismay of everyone in the room, myself included. that there was simply too much butter on the bread. Sure that my ears had just out-and-out deceived me, I double checked her to definitively ascertain that she had truly meant what she had just spoken. Confirming the affirmative, I wasted no more time, and quickly initiated my enjoyment of the single most thoroughly buttered, in terms of sheer thickness, slice of bread in my life.
 

Next, it was time for the actual dinner to commence. Oh no, what I had just eaten was merely a warm up. For dinner, we had so called "pool of butter" biscuits. Essentially, these are biscuits that are made in a pan. The name comes, quite literally, from the fact that, before placing the biscuit dough into the pan, a veritable pool of melted butter is poured into the pan to a visually discernible depth. This makes for some delicious biscuits, let me tell you.

Upon these buttery delights, what I shall call traditional pot pit fillings were generously piled.

I say it ever and again, and shall continue to do so: it is such a special pleasure when the carbs that are making you huge also taste amazing. It really is a win-win.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

In grocery stores, convenient stores, and restaurants across the nation, bros everywhere are attempting to make up for a year of forgotten dates, pointless arguments, and a general lack of character. With flowers, balloons, cards, and a dinner, all can be forgiven and forgotten. At least this is what the bros want to believe or somehow unfortunately do believe. Not being like these bros (hopefully), I didn't feel the need to make up for any past transgressions, for I try my hardest to make amends immediately upon said transgressions. Besides, it's kind of nice not having a year's worth of screw ups to sappily attempt to make up for hanging overhead. In this way, Valentine's Day can be treated more or less like any other day of the year.

That being said, I am a (probably overly) sentimental person. This occasionally equates to me putting excess emphasis on "special" dates (i.e. Valentine's Day). Thus, even though I don't prescribe to the day as a make-up for a year of failure, and even though I believe that thoughtfulness should exist daily throughout the year, I still wanted to somehow signify the occasion of Valentine's Day.

It started with a distantly recent trip to a convenience store. While there on unrelated business, I happened across the perfect "gift" for my fiancée. Her and I have succumbed to the social pressures of using overly graphic emoticons. One of our personal favorites is the "blowing a kiss and winky" face. It just so happened that at this store, near the registers among the other impulse buys, there was a bin containing plush pillows in the shape of a few popular emojis, including the one of personal interest.

And her, being the incredibly sweet person she is, reciprocated with a personal gift of her own. It really was the perfect gift for me.

It was accompanied by an incredibly thoughtful and hand-drawn card. She is incredibly capable of transferring her mental imagery to physical existence. In so many words, she is a very sweet and thoughtful artist.

I couldn't ask for anything more, and I'm incredibly thankful, on a daily basis, for her.

And now, on to the food. Yes, we patronized the construction of Valentine's Day dinner. But really, this was merely an opportunity taken advantage of as an excuse for us to have a really nice dinner. Probably a little too nice, but it was well worth it for the food and company.

Side note: We went to a long-standing Kansas City tradition. For Italian cuisine, there aren't many restaurants that rival Cascone's. Johnny Cascone's, in Overland Park, has an extra-special place in both Sidney's heart as well as in mine. It was a year and two months ago, almost to the day, that, after leaving a jewelry store faced with the prospect of losing the engagement ring she really wanted, that we first dined at Johnny Cascone's. Little did she know that I was capable of the scheme I had prepared for later that night. As the check came and we planned to rush back to the jewelry store to check on the ring's availability, I, in all of my clichéd but thoughtful brilliance, got down on one knee, revealed the ring that I had secretly picked up while in the store earlier that night, and proposed to her. Needless to say, she said yes. But, perhaps more importantly, I achieved my one goal of catching her off guard. It was truly a special night, but, unfortunately wrought with unnecessary nerves, I could barely eat my food.

So, this second visit to Johnny Cascone's was doubly special. It brought back the intense joy from that night previous, and it brought the present joy of me being able to eat all the food that was placed in front of me.

Now, on to the food, and for real this time.

Before anything else, a basket with bread appeared at our table. On that note, this restaurant does it right. There is bowl filled with butter pats already on the table. This way, one can use as much butter as is desired and not run out.

We each had a couple slices, each of mine piled high with butter.

This was some of the best bread that I had ever had, to the point of leading me to question my love of sourdough. I no longer have a clear-cut favorite. It's that good. So, it went bye-bye quickly. Upon observing our empty bread basket, our waiter inquired about our desire for more bread. A quick rule of thumb: never decline additional bread at a restaurant. With that rule in mind, we quickly agreed to more bread. Our waiter did not disappoint!

With our appetizers, salads, and entrées inbound, we did not get through all of this bread by dinner's end, but fear not! It was taken home with us for later enjoyment.

For our appetizer, we got the Calamari Fritti. It has become quite the tradition for us to order calamari any time it is on the menu.

It was a relatively big portion, and, being only the two of us, we indulged in large quantities of squid as food. Also making an appearance is one of my many slices of butter-topped bread.

Up next were our house Italian salads. I opted to keep it authentic with an Italian vinaigrette dressing.

The salad was actually larger than it looks in the picture. I wasn't finished when our entrées arrived, yet I persevered to finish as much of the salad as I could before my willpower was broken. Sure enough, the sights and smells of the food sitting before were too much for me to resist.

What you're looking at is one of their combination dinners, termed the "Italian Flag." On the left is their Famous Lasagna.

In the middle is their Chicken Parmigiana.

And on the right is their Fettuccini Alfredo.

All three were incredibly delicious in their own unique ways. The lasagna was thick and rich, the chicken was seasoned perfectly and combined perfectly with the cheese and sauce, and the fettuccini Alfredo was super rich and creamy.

After this food was so enjoyed, it was time for dessert. I really wanted to keep with Italian theme, so I ordered the cannoli.

In this case, it would actually be called a cannolo, but it was delicious, so I'm not complaining!


Note: Earlier in the day, before I headed off to work at the cafeteria, I had a brotein bar. After work, I took advantage of the complimentary meal offered to employees on the day of their shift. I got fairly lucky with the selection. I had a slice of macaroni and cheese pizza, of which I just previously helped prepare, and a crispy chicken sandwich with a breakfast sausage patty and two slices of pepper jack cheese.