Chapter 15 - his own, personal challenge

Red awoke the next morning, before his alarm clock, his stomach was rumbling so bad it hurt. He had no idea why he was getting so hungry in the mornings, he clutched it and it felt softer than he was used to. He had a lot of time to get to work this morning, so knew he had time to stop off for food when he rode in.

Leaving the house, he had just over an hour to get to work. He took a slight detour to find the local chain fast food restaraunt which he knew did a breakfast menu, although he had never tried it before.

He arrived at the entrance, it was a generic looking family friendly establishment coloured with blocks of reds and yellows. He chained his bike up and went in. There was not much of a queue, but he stood back anyway looking at the menu. It was generic cooked breakfast food, waffles, baguels, pancakes, etc. showing on a pictoral menu, with the food posed to look as appetising as possible. He also noticed the pictures of the food showed in small writing the calorie comtent of the food. Red was starving and now this made him curious, could he eat an entire days calories for breakfast? Judging by the high fat content of the food on offer, he thought this was very possible. He looked through the menu and did the maths. Sausage, egg and cheese baguel were 650 each, the pancakes were 600, waffles 550, hash browns 450... Then the drinks, most of the iced lattes and mochas were around the 700 mark.

He arrived at the counter and asked for, "two breakfast baguels, plate of pancakes and an iced chocolate mocha." The woman behind the counter took his order and printed him a number. He double checked the calories... 2,600. A full days, plus extra. Today he wondered if he could reach 10,000. He remembered the 3500 rule, if you burn 3500 calories more than you took in, you lost a pound, he was now seriously contemplating whether the reverse was true.

He took his order and found a seat outside, he sat alone and away from the staff and other customers, he felt a little embarrased eating all this alone, anyone watching would have assumed this to be a breakfast for at least two people. He unwrapped the packets, it actually smelled good and his stomach gurgled again in anticipation.

He ate the meal quickly, he felt surprised by how little effort it seemed for such a dense, calorie laden feast. His stomach had stopped rumbling, so at least he knew he was somewhat full, he was also glad he did not have too far to ride to get to the office.

As he pedalled, he was very aware that his stomach was sloshing, he felt it rise and fall with every motion, he felt more sluggish than he was before breakfast and took it quite slow.

He arrived at the office ten minutes early, he quickly changed and went to the canteen and to the cending machine. He gazed at the chocolate bars, he did not know which were the most calorific, but he took a guess on the peanut butter bars, he knew peanut butter was supposed to be fattening so figured it be a winning guess. He put the coins in and pressed the button three times. He pocketed them and took them to his desk.

Sat down, he took out the bars and hid them in his top drawer. He checked the nutrients label, turned out each one was 500 calories. An extra 1500 by lunchtime was doable. He had just shut the drawer when Carla came in. She approached and gave him a very small hug, she probably did not want the whole office gossiping.

"Hey Red, crazy weekend, I am still buzzing! have you recovered?" She said.

Red shook his head. "Think I need to sleep for the day, i feel so low energy."

"Ah, thats too bad! stay awake til lunch and we'll go somewhere nice again." She smiled and wandered over to her own desk.

Red turned on his computer and booted up his emails, it was going to be another long grind of a day.

By lunchtime, he had finished the chocolate bars. This was too easy. He checked his email and saw one from Carla asking to meet for lunch. The two met ten minutes later by the front door.

"I need a salad, I am so badly lacking in nutrients." She said.

"Oh? where did you have in mind?"

"Theres a super cute vegan cafe we can head to. Hope you dont mind, you're probably craving green stuff too!."

Red agreed and Carla drove them to a tiny cafe, with lots of potted plants growing on the tables outside. The cafe was nearly full, but they managed to find a table for the both of them pretty quickly, they chatted about work and browsed the menu.

Red was surprised Carla took him somewhere healthy, but she seemed pretty clear that she wanted a bit of a detox. He looked through the menu. Luckily they all had the nutrition value, sadly they were much lower fat than his breakfast. He calculated that a falafel sandwich (450) with sweet potato fries (310) salad (120) and dressing (180) with a large glass of fruit juice (260) were his best chance... just over 1300. Carla had picked falafel burger with undressed salad.

The food came and they were chatting more.

"So, I want to go away this weekend, I feel like an adventure, you want to come with?" Carla asked, her eyes widening like a pleading puppy.

"Yes, that would be fun. What do you want to do?"

Carla shrugged. "Hoped you would know somewhere, you've lived here much longer than me."

"If it was me, I would probably go to the dirt rally."

Carla looked unimpressed and shook her head. "No chance. I really meant somewhere we can go away for the night!"

"Oh!" it dawned on Red that she was probably asking him on a date. "There's a historic mansion that rents out bedrooms. Very posh, but very expensive, it has its own art gallery of portraits from the eighteenth century."

Carla rolled her eyes. "You really think I want to look at paintings of grumpy old men in stupid clothes from 300 years ago?"

Red thought that was a good idea. He paused. "Okay... Spa, beach or Ren Faire?."

Carla looked contemplative. Red hoped he could use psychic influence to push her to picking the latter, he heard they let you ride around on a horse, whilst wearing virtual reality goggles these days.

"Beach!" She exclaimed.

Red tried to hide his disappointment. "Yeah, the nearest one is only an hour by train, we can do some wildlife photography."

"Less looking for seagulls, more cocktails and sunbathing?"

Red looked blank.

"Okay, we can do both!" she relented.

"Alright, I'll see if I can book something this afternoon."

They finished their meals, discussing potential plans and headed back to the office. Red felt pleasently full, but not bloated and sluggish. Maybe having some nutrition was good.

Back at the office, they went back to their desks. Red snuck out a few minutes later to the vending machine when the canteen was empty, he did not want anyone to see him doing this. He picked out three caramel bars this time, not wanting anymore peanut butter, 475 each. He could get through that by the end of the day. He was shocked by how easy this felt.

He worked on more spreadsheets and slyly emailed Carla about vacation plans. They settled for a restoration cottage a couple of miles from the beach, Carla agreed to rent herself a bicycle. so they did not have to drive.

They finished the day and went back to their homes. Red skipped the supermarket, knowing he needed a takeaway, but wanted to look online to see who delivered.

Back home, Red took off his clothes and changed into sweatpants and left bis shirt off. His belly curved out from below his pectorals and rounded out to the point where looking straight down, he could not see his sweatpants waistband. After days of this, he wondered how much it would flatten out if he ate normally for a while or how much was going to stay.

Be slumped on the sofa, took out his phone and downloaded a takeaway delivery app. He looked through the options, burgers, kebabs and pizzas. He really did not want anything full of greasy carbs, he knew he would not be able to manage that. Further down he saw "Sushi." He opened the menu. He picked out a sumo sized tofu katsu curry (1300), five rainbow rolls (400 each) and two mochi balls for dessert (350 each) and ordered.

Be lay on his side, watching the television when the food arrived. He answered the door and collected his food. He had forgotten to put on a t shirt, he thought he saw the delivery driver take a look between his gut and the bag before handing it over.

He sat on the couch with the food resting on the coffee table, it looked like a feast. Each sushi roll was packaged individually and the katsu came in a cardboard bucket. He picked up the chopsticks and began to eat. Each bite went down, he tried to pace himself to give his stomach chance to keep up. He was starting to struggle through the curry, the rice was more filling than he expected, every bit he took made him feel bigger and bigger, his stomach tighter and tighter. It had been easy going so far, but now this was tough. By the end of the curry, he was belching between almost every mouthful and his whole body felt warm, but he persevered, eventually devouring everything in fromt of him. He collapsed in his seat, he felt too heavy to sit back up and by now his stomach had rounded out into an almost perfect hemisphere, it was slightly stained with curry and soy sauce, he did not have the energy to wipe it off. Hiis belly button was stretched so tight it had changed shape, it was elongated and shallower. He was struggling to breathe a little and sweat was running off his forehead. He lay on his back, listening to the television for ten minutes until his breathing returned to normal and he found the strength to open the window.

With trepidation, he pulled out his phone and opened the calculator, he struggled to remember some of the values, but he hoped he made his goal. He pressed the "equals" sign and up came 10,845. He let out a relieved sigh, he had made it, with extra, too.