Soylent Project: Week One

2015-01-13 16.19.54

The choco-banana Soylent

After a full week of a mostly-Soylent diet, I wanted to report on how I’ve been feeling and my overall health.   I’ll start by saying that I have designated one day a week (on professional advice) to return to normal food; that day is Friday, as it’s a social outing night for me.  I also did not stick to a 3 Soylents a day the entire week or weekend, but I did make sure that I had at least one or two Soylent meals on those days.  In short, my log kind of looks like this:

  • Monday: Breakfast and Lunch (Soylent), Dinner (Carne Asada, Beans, Cheese, and Tortilla).
  • Tuesday: Lunch (Chicken, Broccoli, Iced Tea), Snack and Dinner (Soylent).
  • Wednesday: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner (Soylent), Snack (Pollo Asado, Beans, Cheese, and Tortilla).
  • Thursday: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner (Soylent).
  • Friday: Lunch (Pizza, Root Beer), Dinner (Salad, Soup, Lemonade).
  • Saturday: Breakfast (Soylent), Dinner (Pizza, Black Cherry Soda).
  • Sunday: Breakfast (Soylent), Dinner (Chicken, Fries, Iced Tea).
  • Monday: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner (Soylent), Snack (Carne Asada, Cheese, Tortilla).

On each day, I make sure to consume at least 72 ounces of water.  Usually 24 ounces after every Soylent meal or with a regular meal.

Exercise Notes: I had gone to the gym late Sunday night, and I was feeling very sore on Monday.  Decided to skip until Wednesday to give my muscles a change to repair.  I stuck to cardio-only that night and returned to weights on Thursday night (I went a little lighter this time).

As a result of the exercise on Wednesday night, however, I noticed a problem.  I was starving after my workout, and this was three hours after my dinner Soylent.  Given that I burned 900 calories during my hour-long workout, I decided to have a snack.  I ended up staying awake until 1:30am as I ate at 11pm.  Even with the snack, I was still well under my net caloric intake for the day.

The following night when I added my weight training back in, I didn’t feel as bad as I did with the extra protein in my diet from the night before and I didn’t feel hungry after the workout.

On Friday morning, I had my annual physical scheduled.  I spoke with my doctor about the change in my diet, and she had never heard of Soylent before.  I sent her all the proper literature, including the breakdown of nutrients and what’s used to get those nutrients.  She was encouraged by this shift, but was worried about my electrolytic count.  She ordered a full blood lab for (she was going to do this for the physical anyway).  She asked for weekly updates on weight and BP, and I would return in about a month for another blood draw using this one as a baseline.

Over the weekend, I got my blood labs back (this was on four days of Soylent, so far):

  • Weight/BMI: 337 lbs / 49.74
  • Blood Pressure: 131/82
  • Pulse: 80
  • Glucose: Down 15% (Great, because I was worried about pre-Diabetic conditions)
  • A1C: Down a little, but within the normal range.
  • Sodium: Up 20%, but within the normal range.
  • Cholesterol: No change (below 240)
  • HDL: No change (normal)
  • LDL: No change (normal)

After I was sent all this information over the weekend, I got an email from her saying she was happy with the labs, and to send the update on Friday morning.  She recommended that I increase my exercising a bit more.

This morning, I weighed myself and I came in at 331 lbs.  I’m really hoping this is water-weight since I’ve reduced by weekly sodium intake by quite a bit, otherwise I’m worried that I’m dropping weight way too quickly for a weekend.

Recipes

In my last post, I talked about recipes due to the complete lack of flavor that Soylent has.  Again, the Soylent community has been instrumental in trying some of the different things you can do with it.  I’ve done two of the recipes so far, and I had to modify one of them at the request of my doctor.  Earlier, I mentioned the “choco-banana” Soylent that I modified by using Nestle’s NesQuik as a substitute for chocolate syrup.  When I talked with my doctor, she recommended trying a non-sugary alternative as the NesQuik introduced about 12 gram of sugar per meal.  My wife mentioned using cocoa powder instead, so now my recipe has changed to:

  • 1 scoop Soylent
  • 2 scoops water
  • 1.5 teaspoons of the Oil Blend
  • 1 large banana
  • 1 tablespoon Cocoa powder
  • 2 packets of Splenda
  • 6 ice cubes

I took some shots of it coming together, but I shot these when I was still using Nesquik; the concept is the same.  I also tried a another one, this time involving pears:

 

  • 1 scoop Soylent
  • 2 scoops water
  • 1.5 teaspoons of the Oil Blend
  • 3 pear halves
  • 1 dash of cinnamon
  • 6 ice cubes

Unfortunately, this did not turn out as well as I’d hoped.  The Soylent nothingness kind of overwhelmed the pear and cinnamon, which is pretty incredible considering how potent cinnamon can be.  I ended up going back to the choco-banana recipe instead.

Next up: Week Two.

 

 

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1 comment

  1. I’ve never seen any type of shakes like this. I’m, into the everyday meal shakes but this is something else. Interesting stuff

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