Man Attempts Waffle House Challenge After Losing a Bet and It Doesn't End Well

Sep. 10 2020, Updated 1:22 p.m. ET

Being on the losing end of a whimsical bet is a lot more fun than it sounds. Sure, it stinks when your pals end up being right and you're forced to participate in whatever hilariously humiliating machinations were originally stipulated for said wager, but there's something tremendously character-building about persevering through such a humbling experience. Cyrus Witting may have just had that with the Waffle House Challenge.

What is the Waffle House Challenge? Honestly, it sounds delicious.

Look, Waffle House is the greatest accomplishment of our species. Barring any severe natural disasters or the actual apocalypse, the sit-down restaurant is always open and ready to provide the most comforting of comfort foods that are absolutely delicious at bargain-bin prices. If there is a God, then I'm thoroughly convinced that on the Day of Judgment, all of us will be saved from hell when Joe Rogers and Tom Forkner are asked what they did for humanity.

Once they tell the Creator as to what they used their faculties to produce for our miserable kind, we will all be ushered into paradise, our sins expunged by the saccharine salvation of Waffle House syrup. For the rest of eternity, we'll dine on steak and eggs and hash browns loaded with chili, diced tomatoes, and jalapeno peppers, chased down by strawberry waffles with endless cups of coffee.

Cyrus, however, didn't seem too elated about the prospect of eating endless Waffles himself.

The sports broadcaster lost in his fantasy football league and, being the loser, had to spend 24 hours in a Waffle House as per the challenge's requirement. There's a way to reduce your sentence in the restaurant, however: you will have an hour shaved off of the time you spend there for every single waffle you eat.

Sounds easy, right? Heck, I could work out for an hour and a half, smoke a bowl and probably be outta there in 45 minutes.

Maybe Cyrus doesn't have the same love for the delicious comforts of Waffle House that I do. Or maybe he didn't have someone in his corner to appropriately gameplan for the punishment, but he didn't have the best of times in attempting to complete the challenge.

At first, he waits an hour to "settle in" to the challenge before ordering up six waffles, which he plans on eating completely dry and will only "dip" into syrup in order to help lubricate the food on its way down.

It turns out, however, that this was a poor strategy. I don't know how much you know about waffles, but, you need to let those bad boys soak with some butter and syrup before chomping down.

Cyrus' plan wasn't working too hot and he managed to only pound five waffles while waiting there for an hour and a half. I say "only" but I honestly never ate more than one waffle myself at a Waffle House, but in my defense I had it after clearing a whole steak and eggs and hash brown plate. With two cups of coffee and two diet cokes (because I'm healthy like that). So I think if I got myself in the right mindset, I could easily polish off 20 of the things in a four-hour period.

Cyrus live-tweeted the entire affair, assuring everyone that no one else was eating the waffles and letting everybody know that yes, he did tell the Waffle House staff about the challenge and they were rooting for him.

I wonder if you could wheel a treadmill in there and bang out a two-mile run every hour or so to work up an appetite? On second thought, that'd probably just make you regurgitate all of that deliciousness up on the floor, and Waffle House employees have enough to worry about as it is.

In case you were wondering, I also did the math on how many calories are in 23 Waffle House waffles, which would be the number you'd have to eat in order to get out of the place in an hour. And how many miles you'd need to run to burn them off. Note: the calorie differences are significantly different between plain waffles and those buttered and syruped.

Plain

• 23 x 314 = 7,222 calories (around 8 hours of light running for my body calculations)

Butter and Syrup Waffles

• 23 x 460 = 10,580 (Just under 12 hours of light running for my body calculations)

Wittig ultimately was able to consume 12 waffles and spent 12 hours in the Waffle House as a result. He thinks that his choice of drink, Sprite, has more to do with his inability to sleep that night more than the fact that his stomach was filled with dry waffle batter.

Even though it was a "war of attrition" on his part, his love for Waffle House hasn't waned.

Why would it? Waffle House is the best.

Update: No, you're not crazy, those waffles he was eating are most definitely thicker and bigger than traditional Waffle House waffles. I do think he'd have been able to eat way more of the regular Waffle House waffles. I am even more confident I could complete this challenge.

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