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. 

From Left to Write: The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg

I feel lucky to have grown up in this country, in this time period, with my mom. I never felt pressured to act like my gender or give it up completely. I could play with my tonka trucks and ninja turtles in a frilly Easter dress, or ride my bike in heels. I could play with barbies and my toy kitchen wearing pants and a plaid shirt. I could cut my hair or leave it long, whichever I preferred.

I spent a lot of my teenage years with teenage boys and felt like "one of the guys" without having to discard my gender and literally become one of the guys. I spent countless days alone with one or more boys, often in their bedrooms, without it impacting my reputation. And I didn't need to pretend I was also a boy to do so! When I started dating my husband he could ask me about my sexual history (or lack thereof) directly and believe me even if there had been gossip saying otherwise.

One woman in the book states that it is the wish of ever Afghan woman to have been born a man. When the biggest difference between men and women is freedom who can blame them? I too have often wished I had been born a man but for completely different reasons. So many of my health problems throughout the years have been female exclusive. If I was a man I would not have PCOS or endometriosis. I wouldn't menstruate at all, let alone as heavily and painfully as I do. My weight probably wouldn't have shot up as soon as I hit puberty and it would be easier to maintain or lose whatever weight I did gain. I wouldn't have a dildocam shoved up one of my orifices several times a year or need multiple surgeries to burn and cut off the tissue that causes terrible pain more days than not.

If becoming a bacha posh could have saved me from this I would have done it in a heartbeat, and in that way I can understand why these girls do it. Really I think, more than wanting to have been born a man, we wish being born a woman would not be so disadvantageous. More than once Afghanistan has been ruled by groups wanting to bring feminism to the middle east, and yet so little has changed. If you think about it not much time has passed since our own country has become more female friendly. I must have hope that one day things will change for them, and for me.

This post was inspired by The Underground Girls of Kabul by journalist Jenny Nordberg, who discovers a secret Afghani practice where girls are dressed and raised as boys. Join From Left to Write on September 16th as we discuss The Underground Girls of Kabul. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

Random Thought of the Day

I'm really sick so not doing a full post today like I normally do on Wednesdays. I just had a thought though, and honestly I'm not sure I'd be posting about it on the internet if I wasn't so sick and not thinking clearly.

Sometimes I wish I was a fully transitioned male to female transexual. Is that weird? It probably is. I definitely feel like a girl on the inside, even if I don't do a lot of girly things like wear makeup and horde expensive shoes. But being a biological female sucks! Due to my PCOS I already have too much testosterone than I should and have to deal with things like way too much body hair. There's a very, very good chance I will never carry a child to term in my own uterus. If I had been born male but transitioned to being a female that would still be true but I wouldn't have to deal with PCOS and endo because those only affect biological females. Instead of my natural boobs growing to a gargantuan size (J cup currently) I could have gotten fake ones of the perfect for me size (full C). Obviously being trans comes with it's own problems, especially in the south, but I think I'd rather deal with that than the health problems I deal with now. I could always move and surround myself with people who accepted me, but I can't move away from my endo and PCOS. Plus I already feel/felt like the odd one out due to being kinda asexual. And oddly enough, I think my husband might have been okay with it as long as I had sexual reassignment surgery and everything. Unfortunately though if I was born a male to female transexual things probably wouldn't have been better, as I wouldn't be able to afford all the necessary steps to transition physically any more than I can afford the best treatment for my conditions now. But it's still something I think about sometimes.

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!

Why PCOS Sucks

There are many reasons PCOS sucks, but this is one thing that is irritating me right now. A while ago I was able to get a free eBook of Beat PCOS and Boost Fertility. Having finished 50 Shades of Gray Matter I decided to load it up on my Kindle app and give it a go. So far I'm not super impressed, but that's a post for another day. In the third chapter one of the authors gives a list of all the doctors someone with PCOS should be seeing and why. I'm probably not allowed to reprint the why part but this is the list:

• Internist
• Gynecologist
• Dietician
• Endocrinologist
• Health Psychologist
• Dermatologist
• RE
• Psychiatrist (as your psychologist can't prescribe meds)
• Acupuncturist
• Cardiologist

That's ten doctors I'm supposed to be seeing on the regular! That doesn't even include the Certified Personal Trainer the book said I should have in the previous chapter.