We gorged ourselves on IHOP's All You Can Eat Pancakes and discovered why it was a horrible idea

• IHOP is giving away free pancakes in celebration of National Pancake Day on Tuesday.
• We visited IHOP for a different promotion: the All You Can Eat pancake deal, which ended in mid-February. This year, the promotion cost $3.99.
• While nonstop pancakes may sound like a dream come true, it ended up being our sugary nightmare.

We at Business Insider love a good bargain — especially when it comes to food.

So when we heard about IHOP's All You Can Eat pancake promotion, we immediately began dreaming of syrupy stacks. 

Little did we know, our flapjack fantasy would fall into pancake perdition.

Here's what it's like to spend five hours in a New York City IHOP — and why this delicious deal may not be as sweet as it seems.

SEE ALSO: We went to Red Lobster for its 'Endless Shrimp' promo and stayed for 8 hours — here's what happened

We arrived at 10 a.m., ready to pile on the pancakes.

This location in Manhattan's 14th Street is open 24 hours, which means you could roll in at 3 a.m. and tackle the All You Can Eat challenge. The deal runs through January into mid-February.

After our triumphant Shrimpsgiving at Red Lobster, we were feeling confident about this day. How could a day full of pancakes possibly go wrong?

We settle in and prepare to order.

While you can order just pancakes, the promotion offers five different combo plates to start. Kate decides on the egg combo, which comes with two eggs of your choice and a side of hash browns ... plus infinite pancakes. Hollis chooses the sausage and egg combo, consisting of four sausage links, two eggs, and hash browns — and of course, pancakes galore. 

Interestingly enough, ordering simply pancakes would cost $9.99, the same price as Hollis' sausage combo, and a dollar more than Kate's egg combo. 

While perhaps this should have raised suspicions, we brushed it off and concocted a brash motto for the day: You stack 'em up, we knock 'em down. 

While waiting for our order, we took in the scenery.

Above us was a rather eerie and foreboding image of a child dwarfed by an absurd pile of pancakes. It was interesting to say the least.

The soundtrack pumped us up with countless '80s power ballads and anthems, and we felt as if we could take on the world — or at least 10 pancakes. 

Our friendly and attentive waitress told us the most impressive All You Can Eat showcase she had personally witnessed was 10 flapjacks. But the man who completed this astonishing feat "looked bad" by the end, she said. 

"What do you mean?" Kate asked with a hint of anxiety.

"Bad."