I lost 10 lbs. In 7 days.
That is both awesome and frightening to write.
It’s not because Soylent is some sort of miracle diet food. It’s because I hate the stuff so much I don’t eat it.
I have been taking in about 1000 calories of Soylent a day. My maintenance caloric intake is 3000, plus whatever exercise I do. Which gives me a calorie deficit of 2000 a day, or roughly about a pound every 2 days. The extra 4 pounds is probably water weight and a lack of crap in my system.
Surprisingly, I feel great! Much better than I normally do, in fact. That says a lot about the diet I normally eat. Apparently getting 50% of the daily recommend nutrients you need is more effective for your health than eating a ton of crap. Who knew?
Physically things are going well, but mentally it stinks.
Everything smells good; we went past the tire section in the Walmart and the smell of rubber made me hungry. Rubber. As in, chomping on a truck tire was something my brain thought would be more pleasant than drinking more Soylent.
I’m learning I have much more discipline than I once thought. For example, on my first day my friend wanted to go to Carl’s Jr. Here is what she ordered:
Which do you want, the left or right?
She had the Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger and a large fry. I had Soylent. I must have looked like a dog staring at people food, but I didn’t cheat or crack. Even though I really, really wanted to.
The next night was pizza night for my family. Again, only Soylent for me. They got to have delicious home baked pizza, with its delicious bubbly cheese and nice crispy crust; the taste of pepperoni intermingling with glorious red sauce in a orgasmic interplay of amazing flavor that OH MY GOD I WANT TO EAT PIZZA SO MUCH RIGHT NO-
Ahem, needless to say its been a struggle. But I haven’t broken yet and I don’t plan on it.
This also taught me a lot about why I want to eat. I find myself walking into the kitchen for no reason at all, but normally I’d find myself grabbing a snack. I’m having trouble finding reasons to hang out with people now, because food was my excuse to get together. I’ll have to try and get some actual hobbies now. Or become a reclusive hermit.
I’m also a comfort eater. I fill the crippling existential void in my soul with French fries and ice cream. Now I have to stare straight into the abyss. But at least it forces me to deal with it directly, which means it actually gets fixed. Or slowly wearing me down and destroying me. But optimism!
Overall, even though I’m a bit miserable and close to stealing happy meals from kids, I’m glad I’m doing this. The scientist in me finds this fascinating, and I am learning a lot about how I tick.
I’m hoping that enthusiasm will carry me through next week. Wish me luck!
– Shaman
So, I did something kinda dumb.
Back in October, I decided to buy a box of Soylent. Soylent is a meal replacement drink, designed to give all of the nutrients you need to survive. It was designed by some silicon valley CEO that was too busy creating the future to be worried with base needs like eating and happiness. You ever wish that you could fill your self up like a car (hopefully not literally)? Not me, but I am a sucker for weird things like this.
I tried it out for a while. It works, but it tastes like pancake batter. Just straight pancake batter. As in, mix up a water bowl of it next morning and chug a bit and you have the taste of Soylent. Flavoring it makes it better, you can have pineapple pancake mix, or orange creamsicle pancake mix.
Overall, its a cool concept. If you are an eat to live type of person, it takes a lot of the effort of cooking out, and it is more healthy that fast food. If you are not that type of humanoid creature and you enjoy food, then this stuff is a nightmare. It is boring, bland, and uninspired. I could like on it if I needed, but I wouldn’t want to.
All that being said, I ended up accidentally ordering 4 more boxes. I signed up to an automatic subscription and forgot to cancel it for 2 months. Stupid 15% off.
Those 4 boxes have been sitting in my house for a couple of months now. Unopened. Untouched. Unloved. They might have even stayed that way.
But while listening to Penn Jillette’s podcast, he mentioned something interesting. He recently lost a ridiculous amount of weight ridiculously fast. I’m not planning on doing his super vegan, magic power diet (I don’t hate myself that much. Yet.), but he mentioned that for the first two week of the diet he could only eat potatoes. Unappealing, but enough to live.
He stated that his diet guru did this because he wanted to change Penn’s taste palate. By being forced to eat only potatoes, you will eat pretty much anything else by the end. On top of that, it helps you become aware of boredom eating, social eating, etc., which I found very interesting.
Now, I think nothing but potatoes can be a little risky. They aren’t very nutrient diverse. Although I doubt a month would be enough to kill you, you’d probably feel pretty crappy at the end. I will save that venture for my trip to mars.
But I do have something as bland as potatoes, but much healthier. I have that unloved and neglected pile of Soylent. So, in a moment of extreme masochism, I decided that I will spend 4 weeks eating nothing but Soylent.
Yay…
I have set some rules for myself.
– No more than one bag a day, with no flavors or additions. Blandness is the point of choosing Soylent, and the one or less back a day should ensure I have enough for the challenge.
– No calories from any other sources. That includes juices, soda, really dirty air, etc. My life is now Soylent.
Pretty simple, right?
Now, I am going to be posting about my progress each week on Friday. I was going to do daily, but you can only bitch about self imposed challenges in so many ways. A week gives me times to get something of substance.
So… ready, set, go!
– Shaman
Shame on The Universe 