Back to the Weekly Grind (Not Really)

When I mention "weekly grind" I mean that halfheartedly. I had a brotein shake for breakfast and a brotein bar for lunch. As a sort of plot not so much twist but more of a slight bend I had another brotein bar after the gym as well as a brotein/amino acid shake. 

This was done to allow me to eat less for dinner aka allow me to not have to eat 1.5 pounds of plain meat.

This turned out to not be the case, however, as I mixed it up a little bit. I was tempted in to trying a red velvet truffle that Sidney's sister, Callie, made last night. Apparently, she made these "because [she] was bored." Well, why weren't you ever bored when I was bulking???

Anyway, she said it was basically just red velvet cake mixed with cream cheese. Whatever it was, it was unbelievably good. It was nice, but it really tested my self control. Luckily for me, my self control was the victor.

But just look at this thing...

Meanwhile, my actual dinner was done cooking. I threw a pound of ground turkey into a pot and cooked it. Interestingly, once it was done cooking, it only weighed 9 ounces. Nearly half of it had cooked off.

!!!CAUTION!!!: BroScience inbound.

The way I look at it, the fat is what cooks out and is then later drained. The brotein doesn't go anywhere. So, in essence, by cooking this down from 16 ounces to 9 ounces, I've essentially concentrated the brotein while simultaneously reduced the amount of total calories by eliminating some of the fat. According to the package, 16 ounces of turkey contained 880 calories from 68 grams of fat and 76 grams of brotein. Ignoring the fact that this adds up to 916 calories, I essentially lost a lot of the fat. But not wanting the hassle of trying to figure out how much fat was lost, I simply entered the original stats into MyFitnessPal. If anything, it's an overestimation of calories, but that's better than underestimating them.

To complement this turkey, I also had a black bean burger with onions and ketchup on one slice of bread split in half.

It was actually really good and also had 17 grams of brotein. Works for me!

A Return to Chicken

But don't be fooled! My return to chicken was gloriously triumphant. I didn't eat it plain and dry like last week. Oh no, far from it.

For breakfast, I had some chicken salad made with shredded chicken breast, some mayo, a few hard boiled eggs, and a little celery. It was so good I almost cried.

Later for dinner, I had some more chicken. This time, it was 12 ounces of grilled chicken with peppers and onions. I added some Guy Fieri wing sauce and let my taste buds take me away.

I also had a "salad," and I use "salad" loosely to mean a bowl of spinach with some shredded Parmesan and some shredded cheddar.

After eating these two dishes, I realized I still needed about 1,000 calories. So I had another 10.85 ounces of chicken, this time with but wing sauce and honey mustard.

This was so good that I actually did cry. In fact, I balled my little eyes out. And I'm sorry, it was just so nice to eat chicken that actually tasted good for once!

I ended the day with an experiment. Having ever the scientifically inquisitive mind, I decided to perform a dessert experiment. First, some background. Mrs. E's has these chocolate chip cookies with chocolate stuff in the middle. Chips Ahoy makes these chocolate chip cookies with chocolate stuff in the middle. I decided to compare them.

The verdict: while the Chips Ahoy cookie was good, Mrs. E's wins.

No More Chicken! Does that mean I cheated?!?!

NO!!!




I had three hard boiled eggs for breakfast.

It was actually really nice to have something other than a brotein shake for breakfast. Like seriously.

The next thing I ate was a Jimmy John's Turkey Tom Unwich. This was essentially deli turkey, mayo, and some kind of cheese wrapped in lettuce.

It was interesting, but it was actually really good. It may just be that anything other than brotein shakes and plain chicken would taste fantastic, but whatever. This thing tasted good, and it wasn't a whole lot of calories. My best guess (via MyFitnessPal) places it at 285 calories. If that's right, cool. If not, oh well. I'm sure it's close enough.

For dinner, I had some pan-fried burgers. Three to be exact. Each with cheese. And a little bit of onions. Two on a couple pieces of toasted bread and the other one plain.

Again, these tasted exceptionally good. Maybe because they weren't chicken, by maybe because they were just good.

I had a salad to accompany these burgers. It consisted of spinach, a hard boiled egg, and one serving of shredded Parmesan cheese.

I had a couple of butter roasted peanuts and another chocolate covered almond, and that was all for the day.

Still More Chicken (But wait, there's more!)

But I have a surprise plot twist! For breakfast, I had a brotein shake. Wait, that's not a plot twist. Here, l-let me try again. After the gym I had a brotein bar. Shoot, that's not really a plot twist either.

Alright alright, one last try. 

For lunch, I had a CRUNCHY CHICKEN CHEDDAR WRAP!

Yes! That's a proper plot twist! I ventured into the newly-opened DeBruce center to acquire this gem. And while I didn't see any Original Rules of Basketball, I did follow my own Original Rules of Crunchy Chicken Cheddar Wrap ordering. I had nearly flawless technique.

Let's go through a rundown of how to order the best Crunchy Chicken Cheddar Wrap from Brella's at KU.

1. Cheddar Jalapeno Tortilla
2. Crunchy Chicken
3. Shredded Cheese
4. Pepper Jack Cheese
5. Bacon (if available)
6. Spinach
7. Red Onions
8. Chipotle Ranch Dressing
9. Splash of Hot Sauce

And that't it. That's the secret formula. 

Now, before my regular readers (you know who you are) start squawking about me cheating yet again, think again. I only ate half of this thing (read: the most difficult thing I've ever done). Doing so was actually a win-win for me. Sidney had mentioned a few days ago that she was in the mood for a Crunchy Chicken Cheddar Wrap (made to my specifications), so I surprised her with the other half of this one. She was happy. But also, this allowed me to stay within my calorie limit for the day.

So, with this in mind, for dinner I had a bag o' chicken. Plain chicken. Cold chicken. 0.9 pounds of the stuff.

It was a real struggle to get through this chicken. While on the way to my parents' house from Sidney's, I sat in the passenger seat and ate chicken. It's a 45 minute drive. I started before we left Sidney's house, and I finished about 5 minutes before we got to my parents' house. Like I said, it was a struggle.

When we got to my parents' house, I needed some salvation from the depths of chicken. I saw some freshly cleaned blackberries, and I started sprinting.

I ate a few of them, and then I saw the chocolate covered almonds.

Again, I ate several. That was it. That was the end of a day that included a highest high and a lowest low regarding food.

Yet More Chicken

There's an extremely non-diverse pattern establishing in my diet. Let's see if you can spot it.

For breakfast, I had my brotein/BCAA mixture.

For lunch, I had my brotein bar.

For dinner, I had 1.5 pounds of chicken, this time with hot sauce instead of ketchup.

Now, nowhere on this bottle of hot sauce does it say that it's spicy. And I'm sure this is because it's not spicy. It's actually "wing sauce." But that sure didn't stop me from sweating profusely throughout my meal!

Other than the chicken, my lack of willpower today led me to eat several other things.

Let's start with this goulash soup.

This was made from leftover goulash. Having carbs, I attempted to limit myself as much as possible. I feel as though I was pretty successful.

Second, we have zucchini noodle peanut sauce stuff.

It was delicious, but, lacking much brotein, I again limited myself.

I was also, at the behest of the people in my environment, eventually persuaded to try a brownie made from a "gourmet" brownie mix. The general consensus, and one shared by me, was that it probably wasn't better than much cheaper boxed mixes and definitely not as good as scratch brownies.

Confession No. 1: I had a chocolate covered peanut while waiting for my chicken to thaw in the microwave. Well, it took awhile to thaw, so I had another one. Unfortunately, it took quite awhile, so I had a third. That's where it stopped.

Confession No. 2: On the way home from school today, I had several Sour Skittles. These are the same Skittles that are leftover from several weeks ago from the movies, and I keep the bag in my car door. Not too much damage done, but still.

Fettuccine Alfredo

After my morning brotein shake, my brotein bar, the gym, and my brotein/BCAA mixaroo, I figured it was time for a temporary change of pace.

I had the leftover chicken from the previous two nights, which didn't really amount to much.

But it would do.

I was again bombarded with chocolatey confections by Sidney, and I was forced to capitulate. This was the result:

I savored every second of it, believe me.

And finally, I decided that today would be a prime day to finally enjoy my Fettuccine Alfredo from Sunday's dinner at Anthony's.

It was so, so, so good. I really think that it's just as good if not better than the Alfredo I had in North Carolina. I'm not quite ready to definitively call this the winner, but dang it was good! Given, however, that this was a side, and given that I had indeed eaten a portion, however small, at the restaurant, this wasn't that much food. Which also means that it wasn't that many carbs.

And that was all I ate today. But since I had the various brotein supplements throughout the day, along with the chicken, I still ended up with about 140 grams of brotein for the day. Not bad for a day involving a peanut butter cup and pasta.

More Chicken

Albeit not a whole chicken, I ate what may have well been a whole chicken. But more on this in a minute.

I started out with a brotein/BCAA combo shake.

Then I had a brotein bar for lunch.

When I got home, I started on dinner. I pulled out one of those packages of chicken breasts, defrosted it in the microwave, sliced them up into strips, put some seasoning on them, and grilled them on the George Foreman.

I calculated that, after the brotein shakes and bars I'd consumed earlier in the day, I'd need about 24 ounces of chicken to reach my daily brotein total of 185 grams. So be it.

After all the strips were done, I measured out exactly 24 ounces of chicken. Here's what that looks like.

This is literally just 1.5 pounds of chicken on a plate. I knew this would get hard to eat near the end, so I loaded up a bowl of ketchup. I love chicken and ketchup together, so I was excited.

As you can see, I got around 100 grams of ketchup. I was aiming for 102 grams since that would be 6 servings and 120 calories of this particular ketchup, but this scale only goes in increments of 5 grams. So I did my best to BroScience it.

I ended up using every last bit of ketchup, and to be honest I probably could've used a bit more. This was not only because it tasted good, but because after about a pound of grilled chicken, it's just hard to keep eating it. It's funny how something that tastes so good at first can taste so bad after 1.5 pounds...

Anyway, after this chicken and ketchup, I still had over 700 calories to spare, so I indulged in a sweet treat.

Ridicule me all you want, but at 90 calories, Nerds Ropes are one of the best treats you can get. Plus, I just love them anyway. They're just so good, and I can't explain why. I mean, it's just a bunch of Nerds stuck to a squishy rope-like thingy. Whatever it is, it's delicious!