It’s time for The Last Supper. 8 Weeks have flew by, and it’s now time for Meal/Visit # 140. After visiting 36 different Olive Gardens across 5 states, I decided to have the final meal at the International Drive – Orlando location, which was the original Olive Garden from 1982 (rebuilt about a mile down the road). The last time I was here was on National Pasta Day. It’s a really nice Olive Garden, and if you are in the area, I would highly recommend this location. The GM, Darrell Sullivan, is one of the best, and the only one I could possibly like more is the one from my hometown of Inverness, FL, Virginia Lesser:
As all good things come to an end, we are going to make the final meal be as amazing and crazy as possible. Here is the inside of the International Drive – Orlando location:
We were given the private room in the middle back, thanks to GM Darrell. We had a party of 11, including myself, my wife Samantha, our daughters Chloe (5) and Olivia (3), my brother-in-law Eric, my mother-in-law Jeannie, my father-in-law Bubba, and our recently found Pasta Pass friend Michael with his wife Tammy, daughter Autumn and son Tyler:
Manager Michael Chirino also took very good care of us, along with the very amazing server below, Anthony:
Anthony came over to take our drink orders, and then asked if we’d like to get an appetizer. As I wanted to go out in grand fashion tonight, for the first time, I opted for an appetizer. But on The Last Supper, you can’t just get one. So I said yes, we will take them all… And after a back and forth for a few minutes of hilarious clarification, we put an order in for the following:
Meatball Stuffed Pizza Fritta, Parmesan Zucchini Bites, Dip Duo [Spinach-Artichoke Dip & Five Italian Cheese Fonduta], Sampler 1- [Parmesan Crusted Zucchini, Calamari, Stuffed Mushrooms (with clams)], Sampler 2- [Fried Mozzarella, Lasagna Fritta, Toasted Beef and Pork Ravioli], Spicy Calabrian Chicken, Garlic Mussels Marinara, Chicken & Cheese Piadina, Classic Shrimp Scampi Fritta, Spicy Shrimp Scampi Fritta & Chicken Alfredo Flatbread. A whopping 16 options.
Everything came out fantastic. I tried a little of everything. 1/8th of everything, to be exact. Let’s not forget I calorie count 🙂 The only thing I noticed afterwards was we had additional Parmesan Zucchini Bites on one of the samplers instead of the Parmesan Crusted Zucchini, which worked out really well as I had the Parmesan Crusted Zucchini from my Veterans Day meal, and I MUCH prefer the Parmesan Zucchini Bites, as this was my first time trying them. Out of EVERY SINGLE appetizer on the Olive Garden menu above, the Parmesan Zucchini Bites are hands down my FAVORITE.
After enjoying our apps, it was time for the main course. I went with Fettuccine, Asiago Garlic Alfredo/Creamy Mushroom & Crispy Chicken Fritta [Half]:
And ofcourse, I had to save room for dessert. If you’ve been following along, you know that I fell in love with the Pumpkin Cheesecake. But as I’m sure you can tell from above, I couldn’t just order 1 slice:
I had a cost savings of $14.89 for my meal:
After getting $2,164.89 in free food across my 8 Weeks of Pasta journey, I figured I could splurge a little tonight. However when it came time to pay, my awesome and generous brother-in-law Eric picked up the tab for our family of 7 check, including all the Appetizers, Meals and Cheesecake. Thanks again Eric! Here he is with his leftovers, hiding his excitement:
Here is my nutritional information for the day:
Only over 326 calories for the day… Not bad at all. A quick 30 minute workout should take care of that 🙂
Overall, this Journey has been incredible. After losing 70 pounds this year before starting this journey, my (accomplished) goal was to evade weight gain despite eating nothing but pasta multiple times a day for 8 Weeks. I met some great people, had some amazing adventures, and ate a LOT of delicious food with 0 incidents. I never had to send a meal back, never had to ask for a manager, and truly enjoyed the experience from start to finish. And today, on the last day of the Never Ending Pasta Bowl promotion, as I’ve been trying for the past 13 years to get my best friend (who lost 80 pounds this past year) Michael Hanson, to go to Olive Garden, finally went:
I would also like to give a BIG THANKS to my beautiful wife Samantha for her help and support across these past 8 Weeks. I greatly appreciate how truly amazing and accommodating you are.
Fingers-crossed for a pass next year.
Final thoughts. As I started this journey on September 25th 2017 at 153 pounds, I am ending it on November 19th 2017, 8 weeks later, at 150.8 pounds. I ate 133,382 calories worth of Olive Garden and according to my fitbit, expended 141,263 calories:
As there are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat, that says I expended an equivalent of 2.25 pounds more than I consumed (141,263 – 133,382 = 7,881 / 3,500 = 2.25). Since I’m precisely 2.2 pounds less than when I started, I think we can say, the math is sound. Calories in vs calories out truly worked well in this journey. My lowest activity day was 1,849 calories burned, and my highest was 3,471, which includes normal daily activity. Eat the amount of calories you burn for any given day, and you shouldn’t gain weight.
And in case you are wondering what I’ll be eating tomorrow. I’ll give you a hint: Leftovers.
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