THE STELLANATOR SAGA: HOW TO TAKE DOWN A 5LB CHEESEBURGER IN 30 MINUTES

On 4 May 2023, I took on “The Stellanator Challenge”, detailed here

Allow me to give you some spoilers

And here is the video footage

Those of you following my blog know that I am NOT a competitive eater.  This is the first time I’ve ever taken on such a challenge.  To have absolutely crushed it with 15 minutes to spare is pretty awesome, as I’ve now joined a group of 44 (now 45) other people in history to accomplish this at a restaurant that dates back to 1938.  

I wanted to document how I approached this and really just capture this moment while it’s still fresh in my head.  This should prove a valuable text on the subject of training hard and eating big.

MAKING ROOM AND GENERATING APPETITE

It's amazing how much we could all learn from this one man

My dinning time was set for 1930 on 4 May.  That’s much later than I usually eat dinner, and closer to when I eat my final meal of the day (remember I get up at 0345 to train, so I don’t tend to stay up stupid late).  So I knew I was going to be thrown off my body’s natural rhythm for this challenge, but it ALSO meant I’d have a LOT of time to “generate hunger”, and that became my plan.

I took the day off of work, in part to prep for the challenge, but also because my wife had been out of town for the week and I wanted to take care of all the chores around the house BEFORE she got home so we could just spend time together for the weekend.  I rolled all that into one.

Yes: often combining 2 good ideas results in 1 bad one

My goal for the day was to show up to the challenge exhausted and depleted.  I wanted my body to be PRIMED for a LARGE intake of food.  I needed to be starving and in a state where I was ready to soak up every single nutrient I threw at me, along with having a totally empty stomach.

My plan for training was to take on a 2-a-day lifting session, and in between work in chores while wearing a weighted vest.  My plan for eating was to use JUST enough protein shakes that I could survive the training.  This would keep food mass out of my gut but minimize catabolism.

Apparently, these days I need to clarify what the Hell a protein shake is.  That honestly blows my mind, but here: a protein shake is protein powder in water.  Hence “protein shake”.  If you make a shake that has the majority of calories from peanut butter, avocados, cream/milk and 1 scoop of protein powder: you have a FATS shake: not protein.  If you make a shake where the majority of the calories come from sugar (via honey, maltodextrin, dextrose), oats, rice, etc and 1 scoop of protein powder, you have a CARBS shake.  And really, if it’s more than 500 calories, it's a gainer anyway: not a shake.  I clarify this because people heard I was drinking protein shakes for this and thought it was some 1.5k calorie monstrosity vs 200 calories of protein in water.

Doesn't always have to be protein powder

 

Those following my blog know that I’m currently following Jamie Lewis’/Plague of Strength’s “Feast” Program, and it’s ABSOLUTELY brutal.  It’s also what inspired me to take on this challenge in the first place.  I’ll do a full write-up on THAT soon, but for now know that taking on TWO of those workouts in one day was going to do a fantastic job of absolutely depleting me. 

My schedule that week was already messed up, so I ran “Feast” out of order.  I started the day getting up at 0345, eating some egg whites (already breaking from the plan slightly, but I want to have something in my gut before I train) and hit this Squats and Shrugs workout, which you can view the full video of here

But the big highlight is 10 sets of shrug triples, 6 sets of SSB squat triples, then a SSB deathset where I got in 28x250lbs, then some other work.  On top of this, I got in 300 push ups and 300 bodyweight squats, which is a daily requirement for the program.

Already a brutal start to the day, I had a breakfast of 2.5 scoops of Metabolic Drive protein powder after that session, walked my kid to school, then threw on my 50lb weight vest, took my dog for a walk, brought them inside, and then mowed my front and back lawn with the vest still on, resulting in a total of 5.25 miles covered in nearly 2hr and 15 min.

A weighted vest is almost cheat codes when it comes to conditioning.  You can just throw it on and turn anything into a workout, and as far as generating hunger goes, it’s fantastic at that.  Mowing a lawn while wearing a vest is almost like sled work.  

By this point, I was already pretty exhausted.  I decided to take in another shake, as front loading the nutrition and tapering seemed like the right call.  From there, I decided some low activity activity was in order, so I took care of the grocery shopping for the week, committing the cardinal sin of grocery shopping while hungry.  I ended up buying 6 cartons of egg whites, since I’m on a big carnivore kick these days, and earlier in the morning bought 20lbs of grassfed steak tips from piedmontese.com…so at least now I have a LOT of steak and eggs in the future.  

These guys get it

Once that chore was done, the exhaustion was reaching max capacity, so I decided to grab a nap.  Sleep is a GREAT way to pass time when you’re hungry and when you’re waiting for a future event, and in a case like that day where I had more training ahead of me, it was going to be good to dissipate fatigue.  I grabbed about 40 minutes of rest.

Upon waking, I had what would end up being my final shake of the day before tackling what would be my final workout of the day: the Press and Bench workout of “Feast”.  Full workout here

Big thing to note is I try to open up with EMOM log clean and press and biff it on the second set: I had underestimated just how exhausted I’d be at this point.  I pivoted and went with strict 1 minute rests to get through the workout as quickly as possible, because I was effectively trying to outrun how exhausted I was.  I knew that, the longer I trained, the worse I’d be.  I had zero glycogen in me at this point.  So as you can see in the video, I am blitzing through rest periods.  When it was all done: so was I.  I had originally thought I might get in some heavy bag work or sled work on top of this, but after this workout I knew that all I had left in me was some walking at most.  So I walked to pick up my kid from school and then just called it.

I made my kid dinner, which, once again, sucks when you haven’t really eaten all day, but it DOES help drive the whole “generate hunger” thing.  I was starving at this point and STILL had 2 hours until showtime.   I decided to try to pass the time by watching some TV with my kid, but eventually settled on another nap.  By the time I woke up, it was time to roll, which was awesome, because I was about to eat my arm.

IN TRANSIT

I’m sorry, this is self-indulgent, but I want to remember it.  It was a 20 minute drive to the restaurant and I had picked out the PERFECT song to kick it off: Jimmy Buffet’s “Cheeseburger in Paradise”.  My kid and I jammed out to it, and I asked them what they thought would be another good one.  They picked “Gaston”, from Beauty and the Beast, which was also a great choice, since he talks about eating 5 dozen eggs and I had to eat half a dozen of them to get through the challenge.  After that, I went with Weird Al Yankovich’s “Eat It”, then circled back to “Cheeseburger in Paradise” to finish it out.  It was an awesome time.  We were excited and just having a blast.

EATING WITH “BAD INTENTIONS”

Holy cow I can't believe this photo exists

We get to the restaurant, they have me sign a wavier that was hysterically written, then bring out my burger.  The presentation is grand, the locals gathered around and wanted photos, and it gave it a chance to cool down for a second.  I’m told that I get to decide when the timer starts, and I can break down the burger first before that happens.  I’m given 3 plates, which is great, because you’re not going to actually be able to eat a 3’ tall burger and breaking it down allowed me employ my strategy: eating with bad intentions.

“Bad intentions” comes from Jack Dempsey, one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time, who engaged in one of the most BRUTAL matches of all time against Jess Willard

When describing his approach to boxing, Jack said you had to fight with “bad intentions”.  Jack wasn’t boxing with the intent of winning a boxing match: he was there to HURT the other person.  His intentions were bad.  It wasn’t about winning a sport: it was about FIGHTING and, in fighting, about inflicting MAXIMAL HURT.  In doing so he won matches, sure, but he won BECAUSE he was hurting the other boxer so much he beat them.  Mike Tyson would co-opt this strategy to become one of the most feared heavyweights of all time (irrespective of if you think he was the best, he definitely ranks amongst the most feared, having “won” many of his matches before they even began because the other guy had effectively given up).  

Why am I talking about this?  Because I approached this challenge with bad intentions.  Back when I did MMA and wrestling, I wasn’t good at either, and I’d approach each match with the mindset that I had ALREADY lost: I was just there to make sure the other guy KNEW he was in a fight.  I wasn’t going to win: I was going to send the dude home with the belt AND a broken nose, 2 black eyes and some fractured ribs, while I got to sleep peacefully in my bed defeated but not beaten.

So instead of strategizing how to best win this challenge, I came in just wanted to enjoy it as much as possible.  So I lost $55: whatever.  I was going to FEAST.  I earned it.  So I went after the best parts of the burger first which, in turn, would also go down the fastest, because your stomach has a timer, and it’s all about beating THAT.

I took on the patties first, having to hunt for them through a forest of onions.  I prefer white cheese to yellow, but the patties honestly went down so fast that it wasn’t worth discriminating.  I take on the first 4 in about 4 minutes, hitting a brief snag because I talked in the middle of one, swallowed some air and had to belch to make some room, but otherwise they pretty much vanished.  I was 7 minutes into my 45 and already the “burger” was gone.

It absolutely was!

From there, I went after the eggs.  I have a bottomless appetite for eggs.  That said, I’ve been eating pasture raised eggs for a few years now, and these 99 cent a dozen eggs had minimal flavor to them…but they went down easy enough as a result.  They said there was supposed to be 6.  I could only find 5, but I’m thinking one broke up in transit.

A moment of comedy: my kid asked me if my plan was to go for the bacon next.  I got to respond “Chaos is the plan!”.  Folks: I live this.  It’s not just something I write.

That said, from there, it WAS onto the bacon.  I haven’t had REAL bacon in quite a while, so it was a real treat.  My original plan was to take the bacon, but it between the buns with the peanut butter and make it a sandwich, but I honestly thought I might run out of stomach space before I got through all the bacon, so I decided to tackle it “ala carte” instead.  I inhaled all 12 pieces, but could feel myself slowing down a touch from there.  I now had the bun with peanut butter.

There are a TON of these online

Instead of making the buns into a PB sandwich, I ate them open faced.  I haven’t had “real” peanut butter in like a decade, and by real I mean fake.  The GOOD stuff, with sugar and palm oil mixed in.  It was absolutely delicious, which honestly made this challenge so awesome: I really enjoyed so much of it through out the process.  I wasn’t force feeding myself…until I got through those buns.  There were a few moments where I wished I had some jelly to help break it down a little, but otherwise I really enjoyed it, and the mixed in jalapenos were a nice touch.  But, suddenly, I found out I had about 30 minutes left and all that stood between me and victory was a plateful of onions and some fries.

…oh f**k me, a PLATEFUL of onions.  Suddenly my bad intentions had turned on me.  I like fried onions as much as the next guy, but since this was 6 burgers worth of them, it was like eating a spaghetti dinner of onions with some residual peanut butter mixed in.  But game on: I grabbed my fork and went to town, and the first half of it actually went down pretty smooth.

…but folks, it’s worth keeping in mind I’ve been doing basically carnivore keto for weeks now.  I haven’t had a veggie in a while, let alone a nightshade, let alone a few POUNDS of them.  I could feel the poison building up toward the end there.  I don’t intend to ever do this challenge again, but if somehow I did, I think BBQ sauce would have been a gamechanger here, which they offer at the restaurant.

It was painful getting through the end there, and I was finding my limit, but once again I saw I had a TON of time left, and all I needed to do was get through my order of fries and I’d be set.  A big of comedy here is that the waitress came by and asked if I wanted a refill on my Mountain Dew and I specified "DIET Mountain Dew".  I even pointed out to myself how silly it was to care at that point.

When your burger is even bigger than the meme...

I was beyond “bad intentions” now and was fighting to actually win, so that meant out came the ketchup.  Ideally, I’d go without, but I needed a food lubricant to get to the end.  I kept drowning the fries in ketchup with every bite, and was trying to find ANY space in my guts to get them in.  Each bite was agony, but I could see every fry vanish and knew it meant being closer and closer to winning.  Once I got in the final bite, the most painful part of the challenge started: having to wait for 10 minutes at the table before I could be granted victory.

That 10 minute wait is for obvious reasons: they don’t want you just stuffing yourself and then puking it all up.  For one: that’s disgusting, but it also doesn’t meet the intent of an “eating” challenge if you’re just renting the food.  But man: I HURT for those 10 minutes.  I could feel every single one of those goddamn onions in my gut, and all the ambient smells kept triggering my gag reflex.  The stomach has a timer, and I had reached mine, and now it was letting me know what a bad decision this had been this whole time.  

Imagine how I'd score!

…BUT, those that follow me KNOW that I can endure pretty much anything, and I tapped into that skill and waited out the clock.  When it was over, I graciously accepted my victory, paid for my kid’s fried ice cream, left a 100% tip for that to celebrate my free meal and t-shirt, and drove home VERY slowly, as I was worried that sudden movements and bumps would send all that food out of me.  I safely made it home, sent my kid to bed, and laid on my back for 3 hours until I finally felt at peace enough to sleep.

And I got up at 0445 and still trained.  Because that’s what we do.  It was a 1.65 mile weighted vest walk, followed by 300 push ups and 300 squats in under 9 minutes, and then I fasted for the majority of the day after that.  I didn’t start feeling hungry until about 2100 and, in turn, didn’t eat until that point, and my body has been passing nothing but onions…but I am victorious.

LESSONS LEARNED

The drive home is the other half

* If you wanna eat big, you gotta give your body a reason.  If I just showed up to the challenge on a normal day, I’d have tapped out stupidly early.  I basically trained for 5 hours in a day under a protein sparing modified fast so I could put away 5lbs of food in 30 minutes.  If you’re not pushing the training, you won’t be able to push the eating.

* I LOST 3 lbs the next morning, and still had my abs.  All you folks freaking out about 1 bad meal ruining your progress, please take note.

* Eat the good stuff first!  If you’re looking to gain at least.  Your stomach has a timer, so eating the palatable stuff first will mean more room for the other stuff.  Going about it the other way, trying to save a “dessert” that you earn after eating your veggies just means less net food consumed total.

* Food lubricants.   I’ve brought that up before, but sauces, seasonings, etc, can go a long way to make food go down smooth.  

* Don’t be afraid to get messy!  You can see I eat most of this meal with my hands.  It’s barbaric, and it’s FUN!  Try to work in some handhelds into your nutrition sometime.  Ribs, wings, drumsticks, etc.  Tap into those primal urges!  Embrace your inner berserker.

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Thanks for reading!  It was fun to write.  Feel free to drop a comment or question.