On January 22, Larry Shea made a bold claim. If golfer Scottie Scheffler won the PGA tour, he’d eat his words — or rather, Wendy’s chili.
The idea of betting against himself came about after Shea, a 55-year-old bar owner in upstate New York, complained to X that Scheffler “is not winning.”
“He never does that when he starts off this hot,” Shea wrote. “I guarantee it.”
He continued his X-post, adding that if Scheffler won, he would do something outrageous. Kind of like eating nothing but chili from Wendy’s for a month.
Scheffler won. Shea kept his word.
“I have no idea where Wendy’s chili came from when I sent the tweet,” Shea told HuffPost Wednesday on day 23 of the 31-day diet. “Sure enough, the golf gods didn’t care about my attitude, and he won that week, predictably as Scottie Scheffler, the greatest golfer in the world.”
“So it was crazy, but a nice argument that I took too far,” he acknowledged. “And once you say something, I’m confident you’ll support it. So that Monday was Day 1, and I’ve been eating nothing but Wendy’s chili every day since.”
“It was physical and mental torture,” he said.
To explain himself, Shea said he is active on “golf Twitter” (Twitter has now been renamed X) and likes to have fun. After he placed the bet, the post received about 400 likes within 20 minutes, he said.
“Wendy’s chili is delicious,” Shea told HuffPost. “I’ve said that before.”
When he used to eat at Wendy’s, his order usually consisted of a bowl of chili, along with a cheeseburger and some fries. But the bet meant Shea could only eat chili for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and he couldn’t eat crackers or cheese as a side dish.
A large chili at Wendy’s is 370 calories. Shea said he didn’t set out to lose weight, but since starting this chili diet he has lost about 22 pounds, about a pound a day. (We will note that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not recommend losing weight that quickly; rather, the health agency suggests a rate of about 1-2 pounds per week.)
On January 27, Wendy contacted Shea on X: “So how are you doing lol.”
While the company did not respond to HuffPost’s question about the nutritional value of a chili-based diet, it did say that Wendy’s has been supporting Shea all month with freebies and “lots of encouragement.”
The company is also taking advantage of the publicity, telling HuffPost that on February 26, National Chili Day, Wendy’s will offer a free small chili with any $5 purchase.
Along with the chili, Shea has been drinking water – about 4 liters a day to compensate 1,400 milligrams of sodium in chili – and black coffee.
He said the attention was nice, some of it from the students who frequent his bar and like to call him an idiot, but that’s about it.
“But physically I’m not even hungry anymore, I’m just in a constant state of about 75% strength,” he said. “The power of concentration, I’ve lost it. I’m dragging. I really have to motivate myself when I have things to do.”
Shea said he usually buys the chili nine bowls at a time because it “reheats really well.” Even though he buys it at the same Wendy’s every time (he’s been seven times in total), he said no one from the fast-food chain has noticed it yet.
The chili was tasty considering the frigid weather in Binghamton, New York, which has seen record lows in recent weeks.
His digestion isn’t too concerning either, he said. He poops about twice a week, something his doctor friend told him not to worry about.
“I haven’t been to a doctor, but I have a friend who is one,” Shea said. “He said, ‘No, that’s fine, as long as you don’t have any stomach cramps or anything like that.’ He said, ‘That’s normal,'” Shea said.
The first thing he’ll eat next Wednesday, when the bet is over, is a fried chicken sandwich from a friend’s restaurant, The Kitchen Counter, which Shea calls the “best fried chicken sandwich in America.”
He said this is probably the craziest bet he has made against himself. However, a few years ago he bet that for every social media like he got, he would bet $5 on a “really nobody golfer” who likes Shea. He ended up losing about $6,500 on Carl Yuan.
“That was painful,” he said, “but having said that, you make a statement and….”
