It's a Thai!

What's better, Indian food or Thai food? The answer, quite simply, is neither and both. With such fundamental differences existing between the two, it is only fair to declare this (non) competition a Thai (tie).

For one, Thai food (in the United States) seems more heavily rooted in coconut than does Indian-American cuisine. Without droning on about my personal opinions on coconuts and their derivative products, suffice it to say that, about 8 months ago and seemingly over night, I went from coconut connoisseur to gagging at the smell of coconut. This is unfortunate, because coconut is extremely beneficial to overall health. I have no idea what could have caused this switch to flip, but it did. That being said, many of the Thai dishes at this buffet that featured coconut I was able to eat and enjoy. In most cases, the other flavors in the dish complemented the coconut in such a way that it was actually delicious.

With that mini-droning over, let us begin.

My proficiency in Buffetology once again shined. On my first round, I sampled many of the offerings, in small portions, to determine my favorites. (In counter clockwise fashion starting at 3 o'clock) I started with BBQ chicken, BBQ pork, red curry flounder, sweet and sour flounder, yellow curry chicken, vegetable fried rice, a fried chicken drumette, and some pad thai (in the middle).

On my second round, I got bigger portions of BBQ pork and BBQ chicken. I also tried the highly recommended spring rolls and pork potstickers along with some fried curry rice with pork rinds.

Everything was very delicious, and it's unfortunate that I was able to eat more. Unexpectedly, I got quite full rather quickly. Not wanting a repeat of Korma Sutra, I didn't push it too hard. I did, however, attempt to eat some tapioca pudding.

I say attempted because I was, in fact, unable to eat more than a single bite of this dessert. There was nothing wrong with this pudding, and my inability to eat it was entirely personal. This pudding was served hot, and it was served in a coconut syrup. I'm sure this is a delicious treat for most people; however, in reference to my previous drone, I can no longer tolerate coconut. This pudding tasted to me like eating pure coconut oil, which I used to enjoy. But, sadly, this is no longer the case.

I was still able to finish the meal with something sweet.

But I hate wasting food. I was upset that I had gotten a fairly big portion of pudding and was then unable to eat practically any of it. Luckily, I had a human food disposal service with me. This new device, the 2016 Quick & Ultimate Ingester of Nutritious Nourishment, efficiently gets rid of any unwanted food in a way that is entirely non-wasteful.

I'm not ashamed to admit that this 145 pound dude easily ate more than three times the amount of food I ate. Alright, I'm incredibly ashamed. Do I even get hyooooge?!?!?!?!?!?!?

At any rate, we followed this face stuffing fest with a trip to our Midwest Ford dealer. This is what we found.

Here is the Q.U.I.N.N again, this time in an unnatural environment.

This Ferrari F430 (not a Scuderia, despite the wheels and stripes) is absolutely beautiful. It's got a Rosso Corsa exterior with a beige interior. It's really just perfect. It was previously owned by a member of the local chapter of the Ferrari Club. Needless to say, I've been around this car plenty, but it just looks incredible on this showroom floor.

We followed this little journey up with a trip to the 2016 KC Auto Show. Some highlights...

And, afterward, while we were walking back to the car, we saw this a Ford Lightning with Mickey Thompson drag radials and a bottle of Nitrous Express.

*I also had a brotein bar for breakfast and a Reece's Tree later in the evening.

Sidney disturbingly pointed out that this looks like a nose. I can now only see a nose. I can't even see a tree anymore. Sweet.

Sghetti!

I was bad today. I skipped the gym. But despair not, for I will make up for it tomorrow. More details to come.

But, in light of this skippage, I was able to return home earlier than normal. This means that I didn't need to eat as many brotein bars as usual. In fact, I only had two! One of them was for breakfast, and the other was for pre-lunch.

But on to the good stuff. When I got home, I found leftovers from last night's dinner. I ate them,

Then I met a puppy. This puppy weighed 20 pounds. I might mention this puppy is a Great Dane. His name is Jack Daniels.

Later on, for dinner, is was carbs galore. There was spaghetti, meat sauce, garlic bread, and salad. To the salad I added croutons, Parmesan, and ranch. It was good.

To the spaghetti I added meat sauce and Parmesan. And as a side I had bread. It was good.

I got more.

To celebrate my gym skippage, I had dessert. It was a big cookie. It was good.

I only had a small slice.

With gelato.

It was good.

Brats and Spuds

Thursdays are always rough. The extended hours and idleness really take a toll on my desires to get huge. I take my beloved bars with me, and they perform admirably. They really do get me through the day in decent fashion. But, when finally I do return home and am reminded of the presence of much larger quantities of food, I find it difficult to eat with any kind of restraint.  Luckily, I'm on a get big quest, so I can eat with reckless abandon without much thought.

So without much further ado, let's begin...

...with the bars.

These lasted me all day, until around 2030. That's roughly the time I returned home. At this point in time, I lost all control. I knew what was waiting for me. Last night, Sidney and I made some delicious potato salad. We made it the night before so all the flavors could coalesce and become all the more delicious. This was made to complement the formidable bratwurst. Cooked in beer per tradition, these brats were delicious. Suffice it to say that I ate quite a lot.

This may not initially present as a massive amount of food, but this was probably about 1.5 or 2 pounds of potato salad. I rather smashed it down to make it look like less food in response to the horrified looks from others in my proximity. But believe me, it was a lot.

But not enough.

I went back for a little more.

So after 6 brats and a mountain of potato salad, I needed to parasympathize for a while. Resting and digesting is a wonderful thing.

MMmmmmm

When I went into the pantry this morning to load up on brotein bars, I quickly realized that I needn't pack any for later. I had other plans for lunch/preworkout! I ate two brotein bars for breakfast and headed off for school.

Fast forward to right around noon. Remember those cookies from yesterday? Remember how I said that I had gotten four bags, but that I only ate one? Well, here is where the other three come into play.

Yes, that's right. For lunch/preworkout today, I would consume three bags and six cookies total. This should allow me to go extra hard and lift more and get more huge in the gym. 

You're looking at 6 cookies, 960 calories, 141 grams of carbs, 75 grams of sugar, 42 grams of fat, and a modest 12 grams of brotein.

It's those 75 grams of sugar that I was really interested in. Immediately after eating these six cookies, I walked briskly to the gym, grabbed a bench, and got to work. Call it a sugar rush, broscience, or the placebo effect, but I ended up hitting a PR on bench. This is especially nice since I suffered a minor setback last week. But, no matter! Power to the cookies!

I had a scoop of my waning stores of brotein powder after my workout. 

When I got home, I really bro-ed it up. I found some chocolate chocolate chip cookies, so I ate one to recover. 

I then combined the previous couple of days' meals for a nice and tasty recovery and gains meal. Homemade chicken noodle soup with mashed potatoes...

...was complemented with a little Zuppa Toscana on top.

Afterwards, I had some more recovery and gains for dessert. I grabbed a bowlful of M&Ms.

And although this bowl may not appear to be all too full of candy-coated chocolate, rest assured that is was indeed a rather sizable portion of huge.

I also ended up having another chocolate cookie. So that brings my total on the day to eight chocolate cookies of varying origin. I'm huge, bro.

Szechuan Me Crazy

I was fully prepared to take on the day with an arsenal consisting of the perfect line up of bars.

It was  going so well, in fact, that I decided to supplement my two breakfast bars with a breakfast muffin. This day was looking extremely up!

And up it continued. After my muffin and two bars for breakfast, I had my two lunch bars. These non-brotein bars taste amazing; amazing, enough to almost make me forget or not care that they lack brotein entirely. It is this characteristic alone that had me looking forward to my granola bar snacks scheduled for later in the afternoon. I planned to eat two at 1500 and another at 1800, which would hold me over until dinner. But around 1430 or so, I was offered an amazing opportunity. Andrew (you may remember him from the Epic Buffet Battle) offered to use a guest pass to swipe me into one of the school cafeterias, and I wholeheartedly accepted. I accepted not because I was starving and not because I was sick of the various bars that I have survived on, but because eating at a cafeteria affords the possibility to eat as much as possible. This means that gains are virtually unlimited. But, a little variety never hurt either. 

I got a wrap with chicken, pepper jack, onions, lettuce, potato chips, and ranch. Then I had it pressed. I found some chicken breast, the cafeteria version of Szechuan chicken (which is really pretty good, although it actually is just salt with some flavorings), and some rangoons.

The wrap was actually quite tasty, and the pressing not only adds a nice flavor and texture but also serves to keep the wrap itself together.

After this first round, I went back for more chicken breast, more Szechuan chicken, and more rangoons. I supplemented this round with some ranch.

Having consumed my yearly allotment of sodium, and already retaining at least a hundred pounds of water, I decided I was done. As part of the meal plan, diners at this cafeteria can use meals to procure portable food products. These include cereal and the like, beverages, et cetera. It also happens to include chocolate brownie cookies. Two bags of brownies can be acquired for one meal, and two meals were able to used at a single time. This, as you math majors can confirm, equals four bags of cookies. With two cookies per bag, you can get 8 cookies per day. Andrew was nice enough to gift all four bags to me today. I decided to eat two cookies (one bag) for dessert. 

This would turn out to be the most substantial meal of my day. When I got back home, however, I found freshly made Zuppa Toscana. One simply does not not eat any Zuppa Toscana when Zuppa Toscana is available. 

The Italian sausage-y, potato-y, kale-y goodness was the perfect way to end the day. 

Lo and Behold

Today was not a weekend day. It was, in fact, the first weekday of the week. That means I returned to my more habitualistic dietary tendencies. I had a total of 5 granola bars today. Two for a quick breakfast, two for a quick lunch/quick pre-workout, and one for a quick post-workout recovery and gains deliverance vehicle.

I also had a protein shake after incredibly strenuous workout consisting of only 3 sets of 8 front squats. I had other obligations today that cut my gym time short, but that didn't stop me from eating like I spent an hour and a half at the gym.

When I got home, I unwrapped a doughnut that I'd been saving since yesterday morning. I forewent the doughnut yesterday morning in favor of that eclair cake I mentioned yesterday. But, now it was time to indulge in the wonderfulness that is the Bavarian Cream-filled, chocolate-iced, fried dough pastry known commonly as a Bismarck or Berliner.

Later, for dinner, I ate some delicious beef and broccoli with lo mein in a rather scarfing manner. I was still able to thoroughly enjoy my food, but there was (and never is) any left over. There's more food than first appears, but it still isn't enough to fill me up. It satisfies me, sure, but fill me up it does not. And that's probably a good thing.

On top of this, I ate two crab rangoons. I decided to forego my traditional workout day ice cream dessert in light of the fact that I, in fact, only complete one workout today.

Chicken Salad

I love weekends. I always seem to get huge during them. Take this morning for instance. Instead of a brotein bar, I find this wonderful eclair cake. It was literally better than any eclair I've ever had in the past. I have my amazing mother to thank for that. My only regret is that I didn't eat more than one little piece. 

For lunch, I had a manicotto with Alfredo sauce along with a chicken salad. See, I can eat a salad. Am I doing it right??

I also had a homemade crunchy chicken cheddar wrap with ingredients sourced from the cafeteria. I replaced the cheddar with pepper jack and used sriracha instead of Buffalo sauce.

When I got home, I learned of the unfortunate demise of the rooster that had become such a familiar and comfortable presence in the backyard. His vocalizations in no way corresponded to sunrise, but, without fail, when I would go outside, he would greet me with his territorial screams and hooping and hollering. Unfortunately for him, he got a hankering for the hens, which quickly turned rather dark. If only I could've been there for him, I could've taught him that violence is not a way to a woman's heart. Alas, he learned the hard way that hens are much more valuable than roosters in a semi-domesticated yet still free range sort of way.

He sure tasted good though.

For dessert, I was treated to more strawberry cookies by way of Sidney's sister, Callie. This time, they more so resembled actual cookies and not a giant, mostly ambiguous slathering of pink, strawberry flavored sugar and flour.

Well done, Callie. Well done.