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Thanksgiving Day
| INTRODUCTION -------------------- Graduating from high school, I weighed in at 220 pounds on a 6' frame. Right out of high school, I went into the working world as a cashier at a buffet. There were some "perks" to this job that I was really excited about, like unlimited soda on the clock, 75% off meals, and "quality control" every 4 hours. During the time I worked there my weight increased to 250 pounds. Now, two years later, I am back down to 220 pounds. Why did this happen? At that point, I still wasn't a "gainer" and my financial circumstances meant I had to cut back on all the extra eating. But about 6 months ago, I moved in with a group of guys who are all around my age. I'm 20, Jordan is 20, Cole is 22, Mike is 21, and Steve is 24. Besides getting to live with other guys who shared similar interests, I noticed that everyone in the group had some amount of a belly on them. It didn't take me long to realize that Steve's awesome cooking and Mike's well-paying job (very, very well-paying) were a combination for lots of really good food always being within reach. Every morning breakfast was served at 6am with everything you could want: waffles, pancakes, sausage, eggs, bacon, French toast, oatmeal, and all the "extras" to go with it. Second breakfast was at 10am, and that was simply polishing off whatever food was left from breakfast, and grabbing some cereal if we were still hungry. When lunch rolled around there were subs, burgers, hot dogs, fries, hot chicken and turkey wraps, and PB&J. At about 6pm supper would roll out: steaks, "bottomless" pizza, pasta, breads, and some sort of tasty desert. The "bottomless" pizza usually gets munched on into the long hours of playing Halo 3 online, and I haven't even mentioned snacks. Within 30 minutes after a meal is over we start to snack on chips, candy and cookies until the next meal comes. All this to say, when I moved in with the guys, I started eating a lot better than I even did in high school, and I thought I ate a lot then. One of my favorite holidays of the year happened just a few days ago: Thanksgiving. This year, I was especially excited because I always challenged myself to stuff myself until I absolutely couldn't eat another bite (it's the only day of the year where my family encourages it), and I knew exactly what was coming. At home, I had the usually day of food to look forward to, plus Steve's Thanksgiving platter. On top of this, I had planned a trip to my parents house to join in on their dinner, and after that head to my grandmother’s house for a third dinner. THANKSGIVING DAY -------------------------- I woke up and started with my usual routine. Go to the bathroom. Use the toilet. Step on the scale. Shower. Today, the scale read 240. I had gained 20 pounds since I moved in with the guys a few months ago. After getting dressed and getting ready for my big day of eating, I went downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast. I was the last to arrive, but only behind by two minutes. Steve: "So, what are everyone's plans for today?" Jordan: "I'm just gonna chill here all day. I don't have any family around." Cole: "I'm eating dinner here, then going out to my grandparent's house for a family gathering." Mike: "I've gotta hit the road right after breakfast to visit my family. It's about a 4 hour drive." Me: "Well, I'm eating here, then eating with my parents, then eating at my grandparent's for the family gathering." Steve: "Whoa! That's a ton of food, Zach!" Cole: "Yeah! What're ya up to?" Me: "Every Thanksgiving I challenge myself to eat until I can't eat anymore. All my family is in on it and all the guys in the family place bets on how many pounds of food I eat. I weigh in right after I wake up, and text my weight to all the guys. Then, right before I leave the family gathering, there is another weigh in." Mike: "Wow, that sounds interesting. How long have you been doing that?" Me: "About 5 years now, I think." Jordan: "Wow, I should start something like that, it's sounds fun!" Me: "You don't know the half of it. If no one guesses within 5 pounds, I get all the money in the betting pool. It's kind of like me saying "I bet I can eat more than you think I can." I haven't won yet, but I think this will be the day!" Steve: "Well, the way you've been eating lately, I don't think that will be a problem!" The rest of breakfast consisted of the regular conversations: what's going on in the world of Halo 3, what new movies are out, what new desert is Steve inventing. After breakfast I went up to my room took a short nap until "second breakfast" started. At second breakfast no one talked much. It was the point in the day where we just chilled and caught up on Facebook and stuff on our iPhones while we ate. Since we all lived together and didn't see any reason to split up anytime soon, we all jumped onto a family plan with unlimited everything. It was a lot cheaper to split that than pay individual bills. After second breakfast I went back up to my room to work on a short novel I was working on. It was a science fiction about and alien race that was allied with Earth and suddenly had to evacuate their planet due to a meltdown of the planet's core. While I worked on writing my novel, I always had chewy chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk handy. Whole milk, I might add. Anything else is "white water." Finally, Thanksgiving Dinner #1 came. I loaded up my plate with some of everything that Steve had cooked up. Not one or two plates, but three. Then 4 slices of pie with whipped topping. During the whole meal everyone ate a bunch and talked about fun it is to eat so much once a year. After that was over, my shirt was starting to feel a little tight. I looked down at my stomach and it was definitely starting to push out just from the food I had eaten so far. I went upstairs and changed into a shirt that was a size bigger. I also packed a duffle bag for the rest of the day. I would need two more shirts (one bigger one after visiting my parents and one bigger after visiting my grandparents/family gathering), a camera, and some snacks to eat while traveling. I got everything packed up and headed out to my parent's place, about a 30 minute drive. The whole drive I had a large container of Nestle Chocolate Milk and different varieties of cookies and pastries that Steve had made for my travel (and also for Mike). I pulled into the driveway and parked my car where I always did, just at the end of the sidewalk on the back side of the house. When I walked in the back door, my nose was flooded with great smelling food, my ears were flooded with my mom's excited greeting, and my spine was nearly crushed by my dad's bear-hug. Dad: "Wow, son! You've gotten even bigger since we say you a month ago! Steve must be really feeding you guys pretty well." Me: "Yeah, he is!" I said, as I patted my belly. Mom: "Well, I hope you saved room for some of my food in the big belly, there's a ton here and your dad and can't eat it all, so someone's got to." Me: "Mom! There's thing called leftovers, ya know!" Dad: "Not when you come around! Remember last Thanksgiving? Besides, you supposed to be eating as much as you can for the bets all us guys are placing." Me: "Don't worry about that, I'm ready to rock for a long while." I dropped my bag in the living room and we headed to the kitchen to load up our plates with food. My mom makes absolutely the best home-made mashed potatoes with beef gravy, and that's always the first thing to disappear. I also really dig into the rolls, turkey (of course), ham, and all the other goodies my mom fixes up. My parents never were big eaters, my mom only had one plate, and my dad had two plates of food, but I kept going long past that. We sat around talking and laughing as I kept eating and eating until finally I was so stuffed I couldn't get up off the couch to get anymore food. Dad: "So, are you saying you can't eat anymore food, or you can't get up to get more food." Me: "Buuuuurp. The second one." Mom: "I'll go get you another plate." My mom came back with the 6th heaping plate of food, and a smaller plate with a very generous slice of chocolate pie. I finished those off and had to change into my shirt that was the next size up and loosen up my belt a couple notches. (I intentionally wore pants a couple sizes too big and then belted it to fit). I finished off that last bit of food and realized my dad was right, no leftovers in this house! We sat around and talked for a while more until I felt like I could get up, then decided it was time to head off to my grandparents house for the family gathering. Luckily for me, my parents drove so I could relax on the way there and try to rub my now very distended belly into accepting more food upon arrival. I tell you what, my belly was maxed out. It was tight like a drum and I still had lots more eating to do. After driving a while, we finally arrived at my grandparent’s house and were greeted by about 20 other people. All the women gave hugs and all the guys punched each other in the shoulder, and the event was officially started. It was tradition that everyone grab a plate and randomly grab food from the buffet in the kitchen. Because of the number of people and seating arrangements it wasn’t plausible to sit everyone at one table and pass around bowls of stuff. So, I headed up the line, just like every year, and started piling grub onto my plate. Following me were my cousins Chris (18) and Tom (19), then my dad, uncles, and grandpa, then the women went through. Christ and Tom always loaded up their plates exactly the same as mine, and went back to the buffet with me as many times as they could. Usually they would only last for two and half rounds of food, plus desert, but this year they went four rounds. Me: "Chris and Tom, you guys are really packing away the food today!” Tom: "We’ve been training for about a month now.” Chris: "I’m thinking this is going to have to be it, though. What do you think, Tom?” Tom: "Yeah, I’ve eaten about as much as I can shove in my gut for one sitting.” Me: "Wow, I’m really impressed with you guys! I always wondered if I was going to be the only Thanksgiving Day Eater in the family. Maybe next year we can mix up the game a little bit, and the dads and grandpa bet on which one of the three of us eats the most?” Tom: "I’m down if Chris is up to it.” Chris: "Looks like we need to start training for next year then!” The chatter continued around the room, and eventually I was the only person left eating. I slowed down from my "dinner shoveling” mode to "grazing.” The end of day weigh in was in about half an hour, and I was really starting to hurt, but it was a good hurt, like I really pushed myself and accomplished something today. Uncle Bob: "All right, men! It’s time for the final weigh-in!” Grandpa: "Was the starting weight?” Me: "240 pounds, right when I woke up this morning.” Dad: "Okay, Zach, hop on the scale.” It was a digital scale, so it did a little graphic affect while it calculated my weight. It felt like I was waiting forever for it to decide on a number, but it was probably only 5 seconds. Uncle Bob: "All right, here it is! 263 pounds!” Tom: "Whoa, dude! You ate 23 pounds of grub today! That’s killer!” We headed back to the living room and got out the betting chart. Each person put $30 into the pool. I was excited to see if I won or if one the guys guessed close enough. Grandpa: 12 Dad: 14 Uncle Bob: 9 Uncle Jack: 14 Uncle Levi: 13 Chris: 15 Tom: 16 Me: "Sweet! I get the $210 jackpot, no one was within 5 pounds of the total!” We spent the rest of the evening laughing and talking and rubbing my belly. I gave extra attention to Chris and Tom as they were very interested in learning how to eat as much as I do, and they as picked my brain about the latest release of Halo 3. I went to sleep that night feeling very full, but very proud and anticipating the Christmas gathering. Source: http://www.bellybuilders.com/messageboard/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=18043 | |
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