Soylent: Weeks 3-6

It has now been 6 weeks since I started drinking Soylent, I think. Time is kinda fuzzy for me but I think I did the math right. Week three I lost a whole 0.1 pound, but that was the week after Halloween and I got three bags of candy. Week four is when I first started noticing changes. My eczema has improved, especially on my problem ankle. No matter what I do I can't get it to clear up permanently. I will start a new treatment and it will clear up some but in a few weeks it will be all scaly again. During week four it was similar to what it's like when I start a new treatment. I know from when we were TTC that DHA helps my eczema so I figured that's what was happening. I also noticed a few items of clothing fitting better. That week I lost another 1.2 pounds.

Around the end of week four I was starting to tire of the taste. My knee had also improved so I didn't need it as much; I was able to go back to my normal diet for the most part. Week five I actually gained weight but I'm not sure how much. I didn't write down my before weight as MFP always tells me "you've lost x amount since your last weight in!" I guess I figured it would do that for gains too, only without the exclamation mark maybe haha.

I decided at the beginning of week six to try and change things up a bit. I mixed in 1 tablespoon of creamy peanut butter in my 18 oz of soylent/ensure. This was apparently way too much! I had to keep diluting it with more soylent and ensure because all I could taste was PB and the texture was not appetizing. I do think I will try it again, but maybe start with 1 teaspoon instead. I also messed up my knee again trying to move the TV and plug in an HDMI cable when we don't have an HDMI slot. >.<

My clothes are still fitting better and my eczema is still improved. The weather has been changing over the last three weeks, and normally during this time I break out pretty terribly on my hands. I have special gloves to wear at night that I can't take off in my sleep to keep from scratching my skin off. Other than one teeny spot below my thumb and another at the base of my ring finger my hands are completely fine! I think my ankle is smoother than it has been in recent memory. It still looks bad, but I think it's just scarred and always will.

I think it has to be more than just DHA for this big of a change. There must be something else in Soylent I was deficient in that I'm now getting enough of, and it's kept my eczema at bay. I think if nothing else this would a reason to continue drinking it. I have recommend my little sister who has worse eczema than me try it for a few weeks and see if it helps her too. I don't know if she will though.

I lost another 3.6 pounds this week (week 6), bringing it up to a total of 8.4 pounds (which is 4% of my starting weight). So even with Thanksgiving I lost all I gained last week plus some. I didn't get this to lose weight but it's certainly nice. I have to think my metabolism is happy that I am eating (or drinking) food more often throughout the day rather than forgetting to eat for hours and hours. Plus the lower carb count certainly helps! I know this can't keep going forever though, especially since I can't exercise. I am already mentally preparing to plateau.

Soylent: First Two Weeks

I mentioned Soylent briefly back in May or June after we ordered it, and it just got here a few weeks ago! Yes, they were back ordered a lot and still are. If you order now it's supposed to take 2-3 months to ship but re-orders are only supposed to take 1-2 weeks. I haven't tested that yet to see how accurate it is.

But anyway, I'm sure you're wondering what Soylent is and why I would want to drink people. From their website:

Soylent™ was developed from a need for a simpler food source. Creator Robert Rhinehart and team developed Soylent after recognizing the disproportionate amount of time and money they spent creating nutritionally complete meals.

Soylent is a food product (classified as a food, not a supplement, by the FDA) designed for use as a staple meal by all adults. Each serving of Soylent provides maximum nutrition with minimum effort.

The reason I am interested is because with my health it is hard to get the nutrition I need. Basically I eat like crap. Most days (almost all) I don't feel up to doing any actual cooking so stick to things that merely require heating, like canned soup or popcorn. On the occasional day I do feel up to cooking I can't use fresh ingredients instead being stuck with canned or frozen. If I were to go grocery shopping in order to get fresh things I would no longer have the spoons to cook! On good days I eat a lot of carbs and processed food, and bad days are even worse. I know when you eat better you feel better, but I'm stuck in a catch 22: I can't eat better in an attempt to feel better unless I already feel better. Plus I know a lot of my problems simply will not be solved by dietary choices anyway. In short this is much better nutritionally than I already eat and also less work, without being crazy expensive ($9-12 a day depending on type of order).

There are a lot of nutritional drinks out there, what makes this one better? Several months ago I started keeping around some store brand Ensure, and it's the nutritional drink I have the most experience with. Soylent has at least 100% DV of the micronutrients you need, with only a few going higher than that - the most 171%. If you were to drink 2000 calories of the store brand ensure, you would get a wide range of micronutrients from 64-480% DV! Soylent has a 50/30/20 carb/fat/protein ratio while the store brand ensure is more like 72/10/16 (I know that doesn't equal 100, I rounded down). Carbs are a problem for me with PCOS so if there is an easy way to eat less of them I'll take it. Soylent only has 6g of sugar per day with 27g fiber whereas ensure has 176g sugar and 0g fiber! Plus soylent is dairy free and the ensure is not. I haven't done all the math for other nutritional drinks but at a glance none of them have been as nutritionally complete as soylent. The only issue nutritionally is sodium as it doesn't have quite enough, but it's fixed by just adding some table salt when you mix it.

Okay now that the introduction (that I meant to post about separately months ago) is over let's talk about my experiences. After I got it I made the pitcher seen above out of one pouch and one oil blend as directed. If you eat nothing else this pitcher would be one day's worth of nutrition. My first impression was mixed. The taste was not bad at all but the grainy texture was quite problematic. I will warn you though I am quite a picky eater and have texture issues with other foods as well. I read online that if you let the powder blend "soak" overnight, add some salt, and don't add the oil blend until it's soaked the texture is better. There was nothing I could do about the oil blend at that point but I added the salt and didn't have any more until it had soaked.

The texture definitely improved the next day, but it was still off-putting enough that I couldn't see drinking quite a bit of it on a regular basis. I added some of the ensure I keep around to my cup of soylent and the texture improved tremendously. So I took out a blender bottle and added one carton (8oz) of ensure to 8oz of soylent and shook it up, which was definitely drinkable. For reference that is 494 calories. For that first pitcher I had one blender bottle a day for a few days, with some family and friends trying some as well. I ended up pouring out some of the pitcher as it says it's only supposed to sit for a few days and I wasn't sure I'd know if it started to go bad. From then on I only made half a pitcher at a time.

With the next (half) pitcher I upped it to 10oz soylent/8oz ensure, and either I could have done that the whole time or I had acclimated to the texture a bit as that was fine as well. For reference that is 555 calories. I had between 1-1 1/2 bottles a day for the rest of the week. It seems satiating enough and I didn't feel exceptionally hungry, but I don't get normal hunger cues anyway so YMMV. I didn't really notice any changes in, well, anything that week but I wasn't really drinking that much either. At the end of the week I weighed myself and lost 0.8 pounds, anything less than a pound I generally believe to be within the margin of error and not a real loss/gain unless it is sustained.

Around the end of the first week I injured my knee which I wrote about before. Unfortunately it still isn't better more than a week later. This was, however, a perfect test for soylent! Something like this is really needed when I'm even less mobile and have even fewer spoons than normal. I stayed at the 10/8oz ratio for a few days, then went up to 12/8oz (as much as my blender bottle will hold and 615 calories), then went back down to 10/8oz. The 12/8oz was perfectly drinkable and I didn't notice much difference so that's not why I went back down. Store brand ensure is actually cheaper than soylent at $8/day and with my recent healthcare costs that we can't afford I figured this was a good compromise between nutrition and cost. I was drinking about two bottles a day and thus getting about 2/3 of my calories from the blend, with one meal or a few snacks of solid food. I did notice a small digestive change but it's kinda TMI and not a big deal.

I weighed myself yesterday and lost another 2.7 pounds. That's not much, but with my PCOS, thyroid issues, lack of mobility, etc any loss is a big deal. It also means that my previous 0.8 pound loss probably wasn't a margin of error thing as I've actually lost 3.5 pounds in the last two weeks. I think there are a few things that could explain this:

1. It's just water weight/bloat. Maybe I'm ingesting less salt (even though I am adding the recommended amount to my soylent now), or ingesting less gluten as I know gluten can affect endo bloat. The mix I've been drinking is mostly gluten free with some cross contamination as far as I can tell. I don't feel like I have a gluten allergy/insensitivity but it could still affect weight.
2. I'm definitely eating less carbs, and it is well known carbs affect weight when you have PCOS. 
3. Because I've been stuck in bed/on the couch for a week I'm not snacking as much and thus not eating as many calories. 

Chances are it's a combination of all three. Let's give it a few more weeks before celebrating to see if it goes back up, as historically it almost always has. Plus I know it's bad but I'm going to get some half-price Halloween candy today. =P Other than the weight loss and the small digestive thing I haven't noticed any changes. I don't feel any better or worse that I can tell. My clothes don't seem to fit any different. I'm not sleeping better or worse. 

It definitely passed my test as a spoonie solution as long as you have something to cut it with. I feel like I could drink 2/3 soylent to 1/3 ensure now without any texture problems as long as I had some water to drink afterwards. I think eventually I could get so used to it I could drink it straight. It has been sooo incredibly convenient to have when stuck in bed. Unlike previous times I haven't sat here starving because I didn't have the spoons to make any food and no one else was around/awake to help me. So in that case it has met my expectations. I plan to keep some around and would recommend it to others with chronic health problems that keep them from eating the way they might like. 

In a funk

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I feel like I'm in a funk right now, especially when it comes to blogging. Like I don't really want to talk about how I'm doing in specifics. I don't know why because since I started this blog having it as an outlet as been extremely helpful. I hope I come out of it soon.

 I got my blood work redone last week. My thyroid has improved but my TSH is still abnormal. Last time it was 11.75 and now it is 7.5 (normal is 0.04-4 if I remember correctly). So they've increased my meds from 50mg to 75mg and will recheck in a few months. They were supposed to run a couple other things at the same time but they didn't tell me the results over the phone. I'm choosing to think that means they came back fine. =]

I've had a lot of problems lately with nausea, especially at night but increasingly all the time. Before nausea meds were on an ass needed basis but now it's pretty much everyday. I dread taking my nightly meds because that always makes it worse and night is bad already. I tried taking them in the morning but they make me too sleepy for that. Not taking DHA and niacin helps but I need them. I've also been prescribed Gatorade for the electrolytes (or coconut water but that's gross) because I've had more problems with my restless legs. Starting to drink a 12oz bottle everyday has cut down on incidents quite a bit.

A few weeks ago we decided to give something called Soylent (it's not people) a try, but it takes 10-12 weeks to ship. I plan to do a whole post on that and why we want to try it once it gets here. But one of the good things about it is I wouldn't need to take DHA, niacin, or drink Gatorade anymore because it has all those things in it. We got some of the not so healthy meal replacement shakes from the store until then. Just to sort of get used to drinking a "meal" instead of eating. They aren't really a meal though, they're only 250 calories. That's more like a snack. Anyway some days I will have one of those as breakfast, and then last night I had the bright idea to use one as my night time pre-meds snack. I have to eat before taking my night time meds or I will throw them up. It worked really well! I didn't take my niacin or DHA because I'm a terrible person, but I was able to go to sleep fine without really experiencing any nausea. This is something I will definitely continue to do.

From Left to Write: Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin

Sometimes objects and belongings become more than what they seem. Your grandmother's bracelet, a souvenir from your favorite vacation spot, the outfit your baby wore home from the hospital, we don't keep these things because of their inherent value. We keep them because they are physical memories. We can't siphon our memories from our minds into a pensieve unfortunately, being muggles and all, but we can infuse objects with them to be triggered later.

My husband and I met on the internet. At the time we lived about 7 1/2 hours away from each other. I remember the first time he came up to visit me. Seeing him with my own eyes wasn't what I expected. There were no fireworks or angels singing, it just felt right. Like home. I didn't run and jump into his arms and then spend the weekend in a crazy whirlwind of romance. We went to Walmart because he forgot something important like his deodorant or toothbrush.

While we were checking out I noticed some chocolate Skittles, which were new at the time. Skittles happen to be one of my favorite candies so he offered to buy them for me. I wasn't hungry so I put them in my purse for later. The thing is, I never did eat them. I just forgot about them while he was here and couldn't bear to eat them once he had left. They were the first thing he had ever bought me.

I still have them. They expired in January 2008. They sit on a shelf next to my I Love Lucy memorabilia and paperclip collection. Technically they are worthless now and should really be thrown out considering how old they are but they are irreplaceable to me. I see them and smile about how far we've come and remind myself not to take my husband for granted. Once there was an expiration date on our time together, but there's not anymore and for that I am thankful.

This post was inspired by Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin where she runs a nine month experiment to create happier surroundings. Join From Left to Write on January 6 we discuss Happier at Home. You can also chat live with Gretchen Rubin on January 7 on Facebook! As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

My Thanksgiving Contribution - Apples in a Blanket

I'm not up to doing a lot with Thanksgiving this year, but I've found a desert so easy even I can do it! I'm calling them Apples in a Blanket. I wasn't going off a recipe or anything so didn't use exact measurements but I used one apple (cut into 8 slices by an apple slicer), one thing of crescent rolls, one tablespoon of butter, about one tablespoon of brown sugar, and about half a tablespoon of cinnamon. 

Then I put it all in a microwave safe bowl and stuck it in the microwave for two minutes, stirring every 30 seconds or so. The apples won't be in the oven long enough to cook so they need to get pretty soft first. I think next time I'll do three minutes because they were still a bit firm. 

Then I rolled out half the crescent rolls and spread the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon sauce on them. If you do all of them at the same time they'll be too gooey to roll up later. You can use a pastry brush if you want but I just used the back of my half tablespoon. 

Then stick an apple slice at the big end of each crescent roll.

Roll them up and then do the same thing to the other half of rolls.  Spread a little more of the sauce on the top of each one.

Cook them in the oven according to the crescent roll directions. I think mine were in the oven for 11 minutes. Give them a minute to cool and that's it, they're done! Easy peasy! 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone from me, Josh, Scotty, and Dobby!

June Challenge - Coffee

One of my first ever Instagram pictures!

Generally I don't like coffee. It smells fantastic but tastes super gross. I'd much, much rather have tea. When I do drink coffee it has to have enough sugar, milk, chocolate, caramel, vanilla, etc to no longer taste like coffee. The only coffee drink I crave is the Java Chip Frappuccino, no whip. I even learned how to make a pretty good version myself! It's fairly simple but I try not to keep chocolate chips in the house so end up paying the money for a real one pretty often. Well, by pretty often I mean about every two months haha. My version also makes four servings which is another reason I don't make them as often. Here is the recipe I use if you want to try it for yourself!

Ingredients:
- 1 cup double strength chilled or room temperature coffee (I use Seattle's Best Level 4 because that's what Josh drinks)
- 3/4 cup cold milk
- 4 tbsp chocolate syrup
- 4 tbsp chocolate chips
- about 2 trays worth of ice, crushed
- whipped cream, optional
- more chocolate syrup for drizzle, optional

Directions:
- Put everything except the optional stuff in the blender
- Blend =D
- Pour into glasses
- Add optional stuff, if desired

June Challenge - Favorite Snack

Hmm... This one is a head scratcher. I've already written one post about my love of bread, so no point doing another. Since I'm not even supposed to be eating a lot of bread right now there must be something that's become my new favorite...

An oldie but a goodie is my love of pickles. I love most pickles other than bread and butter and sweet pickles. Blech! My absolute favorite brand is Claussen but it's a bit too expensive to sustain my pickle habit so we save that for special occasions or get it on sale. My next favorite, surprisingly enough, is the Great Value aka Walmart brand. Those are the ones we keep on hand.

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We usually have at least one jar of the hamburger chips as those are the most versatile. Second comes spears (which taste great wrapped in a slice of deli turkey). The whole ones are also great, especially the ones in the smaller jars. As my sister Sierra points out to me often, smaller jars mean smaller whole pickles. Smaller pickles are easier to eat. Unfortunately for me Sierra also loves pickles and will often eat all of mine!

Once we went to Walmart and they didn't have any of the store brand. It was sad but I used it as an excuse to get Claussen. We came back a week or two later and they still didn't have any. At this point I started to get worried. Trip after trip was made to no avail. Finally I had to suck it up and get the inferior Mt. Olive. They eventually did get some more in, and now I'm kind of like a hoarder. I'm always afraid they'll be gone next time so I get like five or six jars at a time. Josh finds this very amusing.

This post is part of Waiting For Baby's June Blog Challenge. You should go sign up so I can learn more about you!

June Challenge - Biggest Indulgence

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I love bread. I'm not proud of it, but it's true. Give me a roll from Golden Corral and I am in heaven! I could probably go there and eat only rolls and come away happy. There are very few things that make me as happy as a good piece of bread. Possibly none. This is not a very good thing for someone who should be low carb! I also love the King's Hawaiian rolls, french bread, the bread they serve at McGuire's (I think it's pumpernickel), soda bread, banana bread (no nuts please), pretty much any kind of bread. I used to go grab a slice or two of whatever sandwich bread we had in the house and eat that as a snack. No butter, jam, peanut butter, anything; just bread. I like to tear the crust off and eat that first, then condense the rest into a little ball. I don't know why or how I got started doing it but in my mind it tastes different I guess. I wish I could go eat a whole loaf of french bread right now!

This post is part of Waiting For Baby's June Blog Challenge. You should go sign up so I can learn more about you!

I fell off the wagon, broke my neck, and got peed on by a passing horse

Ugh, so my "lifestyle change" isn't going so hot these days. I know with my PCOS we need to eat low carb. My DH is far heavier than he should be and low carb as always been helpful to him in regards to weight management as well. For a while we were doing pretty well, but not so much anymore. Not really since my endo started acting up. I just haven't been able to cook the way I know I should. For instance, yesterday my diet consisted of lucky charms, cranberry juice blend, boiled eggs, farfalle in cream of chicken soup, jello, and oatmeal soda bread. /hangs head in shame

so bad, but oh so good

I feel like people are thinking, "You don't have a job, you don't go to school, you don't have kids, you don't volunteer, as a 'stay at home wife' the least you can do is cook an evening meal." I've really been feeling down on myself about this, and I have to remind myself that sometimes having endometriosis IS my job and I'm scheduled for overtime. Being constantly in pain and consequently drugged up is harder than you might think. Some days even just taking a shower and washing my hair is draining. I'm not lazy, I just genuinely do not have the energy to go grocery shopping or cook or even make a meal plan. Some days putting some Stouffer's mac and cheese in the microwave is the best I can do. And to be honest, carbs are freaking delicious. They are my comfort food. It is hard to tell myself no, you don't need a frosty with your spicy chicken sandwich even though I know for that little time I'm eating it I'll be happier.

Thankfully things aren't as bad as they were. I'm still in a lot of pain but I do think it's getting better. More times than not one tramadol is enough to deal with the pain. Sometimes I'm able to go the full 6 hours before taking another one instead of 4. Sometimes when I wake up I can go to the kitchen like a normal person and get my bowl of lucky charms before taking my morning dose. Sometimes I am feeling up to cooking, but because I've felt so bad before we don't have anything good to make. This is something I intend to change as soon as I'm feeling up to it.

Yesterday I looked through my recipe books and online and found a few recipes I can make big batches of. I really think this is key, at least until I'm all the way better. My DH really doesn't mind eating the same thing a bunch of days in a row. He is the farthest thing from a picky eater which works to my advantage. On days I'm feeling better I can make large portions of something for the days I'm not feeling so good. I'm also going to start making lowish carb soups to freeze in individual portions for days I don't feel good. That way we can also have a little bit of variety. I know I can do this.

I'm also going to try and add more physical activity when I can handle it. All the additional carbs and sweets I've been eating combined with a medication that lists weight gain as a side effect has not been good for me. I have a little mini exercise bike thing that fits under my desk. It's basically some peddles with a base to hold them up. I'm going to try and use it whenever I'm reading. It'll be at a slow pace until I know what I can handle and I know even peddling fast it's not a real workout but at least I'll be moving. So yeah that's the plan for now. I hope I am being realistic and not asking to much of myself. I guess I'll let you know next week lol.

As an aside, I can't believe I couldn't find a gif of Gus eating candy! I had to learn how to make my own. It's actually harder than I thought it would be, but hey at least it's out there for someone else to use now. I probably should have put it in full screen first but I didn't even think about that.

Oh and don't forget to enter my OPK and HPT giveaway!