Sunday, January 13, 2008

Eating Challenge #3: Where I Come to Terms With My Mortality

Today I will tell you all the tale of my eating challenge. I decided to tackle the Taco Bell challenge, which was originally 15 tacos in one hour. Seeing as how I was the one who organized and convinced others to participate in these challenges, I decided it would only be fair to up the ante and push myself to the limits of face stuffing. I vowed earlier that, rather than 15 tacos, I would eat 20 in that hour. I was confident coming in and prepared the day prior. Going into the challenge I had not eaten in almost 20 hours and drank copious amounts of water to stretch my stomach. I was as ready as I ever was going to be. I wasn't sure if it would be easier to eat hard or soft tacos, so I ordered 10 of each. I also decided to go without lettuce on my tacos, seeing as how it would just make things messy and trying to eat every bit of lettuce that falls off would be a pointless time consumption. I was confident going into this challenge and with food in hand, I felt I could do this.

I decided I would start with the soft tacos, since I figured they were chewy and thus more difficult to eat when I was really full. I was determined to keep a steady pace and not fall into the trap of burning out early. I made it through the soft tacos with relative ease in about 20 minutes and then moved onto the hard tacos. In the next 15-20 minutes I made it to 15 tacos, the original challenge goal. At this point I was happy that I did up the amount since 15 was actually not very difficult, but I knew these remaining 5 tacos were not going to go down easily.


I pushed on. By now the tacos were getting cold and soggy. The cheese was hardened and were the most distinguishing taste. At around taco #17 the room began to spin a little and the colors in the room around me seemed unusually vibrant and hurt my head. Needless to say, I was not feeling pleasant.

I finished taco 17 and 18. There were just two left. My headache was getting worse and worse and I started getting pain in my sides. I got up and walked around the room for a bit and drank some water. I also showed off my hairy swelled stomach:

After a couple minutes I sat back down at the table and picked up the next taco. With every bite came a wave of nausea. I knew I had room left in my stomach, if I could just get it down. Bite after bite I continued on. By this time I needed to take a drink of water with every mouth full of taco just to swallow it. It felt like I had the flu. I was sweating, dizzy and nauseous. I honestly felt like I was close to passing out and it freaked me out a bit. After 18 and 3/4 tacos I could have no more. I went to the bathroom and did what had to be done.


I was close to glory but fell short by just a taco and a sliver:


This is most definitely a formidable challenge and if anyone is able to succeed at it, they have my respect. I take pride in my effort. I didn't give in and pushed myself to my absolute limit. I said coming in, I'm either going to complete the challenge or puke, I will not quit before one of those two happen, and I made myself proud.

3 comments:

Scholander said...

Interesting. I wonder how much your reaction was a function of just being full, or if there's enough weird stuff in the Taco Bell meat or sauce that it would fuck you up like that.

I'm sure this task is also hindered by the fact that Taco Bell just tastes fucking gross after it gets cold. You probably need to eat really quickly. Do you think you could have paced yourself faster?

phishbone23 said...

I think your mistake was not eating anything prior....you can't just shock your stomach like that.

kevthegreat said...

I went pretty quick, actually. I was 3/4 of the way through after 30 mins. I could have went a bit quicker. If anyone is going to do this challenge, my recommendation is to eat only soft tacos. They don't get as soggy and nasty as the hard.

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