Day 4: Soylent

I remember one fellow saying about Soylent that by the 4th day he had all sorts of energy. Well mine must translate into no sleep. Part of that is being constantly woken at night by my daughter coughing for the past week so the mama worry instinct has me ready to jump up. But my mind did not want to slow down last night. I'm not entirely sure that I slept at all, and I'm not sure how I'm awake at the moment. Considering how tired and bad I felt the other day, this is new.

Past 2 days I have not been able to finish my daily allotment of Soylent. I've been able to down 3 of the 4 glasses from the pitcher, but I'm so full still that the fourth has just been too much and I haven't needed/wanted it.

In the realm of TMI, that's a lot of fiber. If you know anything about gluten allergies one of the symptoms is bowel problems. So I guess I'm getting a taste of what it's like for them to operate normally.  It's a clue that this might have been the problem all along. Also the way I bounced back from being sick was encouraging.

As traditionally, I took Morgan to MacDonald's yesterday after gymnastics. While she ate, I drank my coke and although there was a moment where a leftover fry looked good, I felt full and less interested in snacking.

Socially it's a bit strange. Going out to eat was the thing we did with friends. Now it's become "I'll watch you eat", which is honestly far better on my wallet which can only stretch so much when I've got to buy my daughter new clothes because nothing fits anymore, like yesterday.

So far I'm pleased, and no weird dreams about food when you don't sleep. We'll see if I have any more energy at the gym today. It will be easier to recognize changes when we get back to our normal schedule.

Day 3: Soylent

Because my daughter so loves the boxes.

Yesterday was rough, however the culprit was not Soylent, but the remnants of the bug my daughter had last week hit me. Some extra sleep and I'm actually feeling okay today. This is something to note because I have always had a crazy immune system. My immune system attacked and killed my thyroid. If someone around me is sick for 3 days, I'll be sick for 3 weeks. I spent most of this past winter sick as a dog.  So the fact that I'm feeling pretty okay today is a bit miraculous. I'm tired still, but not the horrible that I had yesterday, including a notable absence of cough which I normally have even when "healthy".  Whether the credit goes to the Soylent or the extra sleep is debatable, but I'm glad to feel better today. This gives me hope that maybe some of my crazy allergies are food allergies and can be avoided. *crossing fingers*

One thing I have noticed is that I almost never dreamt about food, but now I am, which is rather amusing. Cue the cartoon Pinkie Pie drooling over a cupcake. Although the dream actually involved waffles so I guess the cartoon mascot should have been Donkey from Shrek. Apparently my subconscious misses the variety, but my waking self is satisfied and quite alright with the new diet. My wallet is quite happy about the change too! It sure has cut the budget on food down, and goodness knows in this economy that saving money is a must.

Yesterday was the first day I truly had nothing but Soylent, and I'm feeling content about it in general. I've noticed that the daily allotment is actually about 4 glasses a day instead of 3, but that works out okay, since I tend to get hungry around 3pm so it works out fine.

My husband took an extra thermos into work today to let some of his fellow code monkeys taste it. One of my friends said it tasted a bit like almond milk. In truth I could care less about the taste, since I try to drink it fast and move on. It's not something I would sit around and sip, although I've jokingly called it "Mudder's Milk" in reference to the Jayne's Town episode of Firefly. But I can't see it served at a bar.  Although it would be certainly nice for some restaurants to start carrying it. Talk about fast food!

Soylent: Day 2

Husband, Trenton, proud #SoylentPioneer

Yesterday we had company come in from out of town, which meant that at one point we had to feed them. It was our first day of Soylent and my husband and I have 2 completely different approaches. I'm expecting a lifestyle change that needs to be integrated into my life, but my husband is in full scientific experimentation mode.  We both had Soylent before we took our friends to one of our favorite local restaurants. I shared an appetizer of cheese with my friends, but I was stuffed afterward. Trenton only had water. So it will be interesting to see if easing into foodlessness is better than going cold turkey.

Our plan to start a new schedule was thwarted however by a virus. Maladies have no respect for routine. Our daughter was up most of last night with coughing fits which meant nobody slept well. It's hard to get a baseline for energy or other changes when things are already abnormal. But so far nothing unusual, it's not much different than Slimfast. There's nothing out of the ordinary to report, but then that might be because I had some solid food last night as well, even though it was minimal.

Nothing unexpected so far. I haven't spontaneously dropped 30 lbs but I haven't gained either. And I am used to feeling like crap thanks to my thyroid so if there's any change there, I wouldn't know. My husband has a far more extensive blog on the experience, which you can see here http://experimentaloutcome.tumblr.com/. He used his google glass to record opening the boxes and other processes that might interest others.

Addendum 6:00pm: I am not feeling so well at the moment, but I've heard that the first 4 days are the worst.  However my daughter had a fever of 104 last week, so not sure what the culprit is also combined with lack of sleep. So that might be completely unrelated.

Trenton and I have both noticed that our general body odor is different and we feel like we are detoxing, sweating more, etc.

Soylent: Day 1

OMG! It's HERE!!!!

The long awaited Soylent has arrived. Different from Soylent Green, it is not made from people. Instead it is made from fish oil, rice protein, and oat flour. For those concerned, you can look at the list of ingredients here.

One of the things I am most excited about is that it is also gluten free and it has been theorized that many of my health issues are gluten related.  If you have ever tried to go gluten free with a normal diet, then you know the frustration at gluten being added to the most random things like Soy Sauce. Things you wouldn't imagine having it, have been added for flavor. So it's nice to have that portion of my life be simplified. I don't have to wonder what I'm going to eat, or take some long break from working to prepare and consume.

My skeptical foodie friends cannot comprehend my excitement over Soylent.  My daughter Morgan exemplifies that excitement in the picture to the right, even though she will not be partaking in it. She was just excited that the boxes made her a nice stage. We've offered her to taste it, but she has no interest and adult nutrition is different and more consistent than that of a growing child.

In some ways Soylent reminds me of the black broth that Spartans lived off of, although it was made from pig's blood, which I can't see being incredibly appealing.

After eating my last meal for a month last night at the Cheesecake Factory, my husband and I waited till today to start Soylent together.  We mixed it up last night in a container to chill over night, so this morning I had my first taste of it. It wasn't bad, but the rice protein does give it a chalky texture.  However neither of these things matter much to me as I'm used to sucking down Slimfasts whose tastes I hate with their sickly sweet or strange overkill flavors. At least there was none of that, and my body is used to liquid diets thanks to Slimfast too, so I doubt that I will have the greater transition like my husband. In fact my body seems to have far more issues when not on a liquid diet like Slimfast. So I have high hopes for Soylent, which is basically like formula for adults.

Several of my curious friends are watching me as their Soylent guinea pig, while others who have far more refined diets are I think watching to make sure I don't keel over dead. It will take time to see what the final verdict is, but so far it's doing pretty good.

I am still drinking Coke for a while, although drinking more water. I plan to get used to giving up food before I quit Coke.  One thing at a time.

It will be interesting to see the differences between my husband and I. So far my appetite is fully quenched and I have no residual hunger after the first dose this morning.  I keep staring at the jug I have it in, wondering how I'm going to get all of that in me by the end of the day, but it went quicker than I thought. I've used the same container for tea in the past and emptied it in a day so I think it just looks like a lot. Divided up into 3 meals it looks like it will be one full glass at a time, which is no big deal.

So here's hoping that Soylent is the key to healthier living at a reduced cost.  If it is, it could help a lot of people stretch their paychecks without having to worry about food. It could help others make speedy meals and get back to work, knowing that they were getting everything their body needs.  Who knows maybe this will be the future for hospital food, airlines, or even welfare instead of food stamps.  Most people are attached to the classical forms of feeding, but if people can move past that it might be the key to some of society's problems. Perhaps that's too optimistic at this point. So we'll see in a month if I'm still as hopeful for it. So far, so good though.

Ineffable Experience

Since April is Sexual Assault Awareness month, this seemed an important topic to blog about. Recently, I've been listening to iTunes U Berkley Cognitive Psychology lecture while doing the exercise bike, which spawned this morning's post.

It's interesting how so many psychological concepts are compared to color blindness. 

Previously it had been in comparison to psychopaths with emotions and their limited spectrum. 

“A high-scoring psychopath views the world in a very different way,” says Hare. “It’s like colour-blind people trying to understand the colour red, but in this case ‘red’ is other people’s emotions.”

This morning it was comparing it to experience, and explaining that you can know all there is to know about something but the intellectual content cannot equate to the ineffable experience. Such as a color blind person might have all the education and quantitative data applying to color theory in art, and the physical workings of the eye, as well as an understanding of light and refraction that produces color, but still not be able to comprehend the actual experience of seeing red and the emotional impact that experience causes.

It all boils down to the common saying "You had to be there". There are in essence some things that cannot be explained. They can only be experienced. It is said that wisdom comes from experience. Experience comes from making good choices. Making good choices comes from making bad choices.  

“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.” 

― Rita Mae Brown

In truth, I only got a B in Psychology in college, and that was after the second time I took it, dropping the class on the first go round.  However even with that initial grasp and a mother who was a sociology major, most of the psychological concepts about abnormal psychology did not click until I had experienced being in its presence. The random theories and their creators were trivial to the mostly unavailable content of coping with the constant onslaught of abuse. It is in many ways a very small and very personal war, learning to defend and protect yourself in a very hostile environment.  No text could prepare a person for the experience. It is so different from normal healthy human interaction, and taken in small doses may seem to be normal until the bigger picture comes into view.  But when attempting to have healthy relationships after having been in unhealthy ones for so long, you find the healthy ones to be what's foreign and feels unnatural. You find yourself on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Throughout my life, I've had a burning desire to understand "why".  And after marrying a psychopath and seeming to have a certain "type", I had to know "why". Why was I making these choices? Why was I allowing myself to be abused? And why do they do what they do?  If knowledge is power, then it was the mechanism with which I was able to regain that sense of power that had been taken from me. I took the immense information of experience that was uniquely mine, as all experiences are, and I did something with it, by trying to understand it and learn to defend and avoid it as much as possible.

However, afterward, I found myself in a strange position, because having experienced emotional, physical, and sexual abuse in several forms, my understanding deepened, but the effort to explain the experience and its consequences certainly felt ineffable.  While I could tell others the events and facts, any depth of understanding was limited to those who had been through similar experiences.  Those who had not, simply could not understand, and often that was the core of most victim blame that I received. All they could do was compare it with their own library of experiences, and to them, sex was a good thing that people wanted, and they could not equate that to the vastly different experience of being raped.  Or though they may have been in spats with significant others, they had not experienced the devastating effects of constant emotional abuse.  At the end of the day, they were abuse-blind. They had not experienced it themselves and therefore could not imagine what that would be like or its effects, and even imagining something was not the same as experiencing it for yourself.

At the end of the day, even two abused people have vastly different experiences. A person's relationship to the abuser is a mixed bag, each with its own fallout. One of the horrible things that the competitive world tries to do is label one as being worse than another.  Such as, you were molested, at least you weren't raped.  But it is the worst thing that person has experienced and still has much the same effects, with the addition of the experience being minimized and invalidated, creating new and different problems. It is especially damaging for those inexperienced in abuse to label such things on someone who has experienced it. They can not possibly know. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and when actions are extreme, their reactions are as well. This is why there exists Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. When traumatized, there is only so much the mind can handle, and often it will do all it can to keep from experiencing the same trauma again.  Which can result in avoidance of reminders, which make one relive that ineffable experience. The abused may also possibly re-enter similar situations to attempt to exercise more control over something that was completely beyond their control. Ultimately continued abuse is a pattern of what is familiar.

If you are with someone who has PTSD, just remember that they have a vast library of experience information that you do not that might fuel what some consider an over-reaction, but it is simply a reaction to something that was extreme, making their response extreme. Often they need to be reminded that you are not that person and that they are safe now. Although some of us would love to explain it to you if we could, the world is colored differently to someone with PTSD. The best thing you can do, is just be aware, and trust that sometimes, we might see something that you don't.

The Smoker Incident

In a conversation with a friend, today, I told one of the family stories that still brings a smile. It was one of those that needs to be written down. Allow me to regale you with a most interesting birthday dinner.

It was my 20th birthday and my father had recently acquired a new smoker for flavoring meat. Eager to try it out, he offered to do something special for my birthday and smoke steaks. My father is and was an avid beef lover. At the time, however, it was very low on my list.  This did not register with my father. Neither did him offering me coffee every morning, since becoming a teenager. Every morning I declined and said I did not like coffee.  Now that I'm 37, he has actually learned this and offers me a coke instead, so kudos for that. 

Cooking a steak for my birthday dinner was not a huge enough event to indelibly write the anecdote to memory so much as the smoking of it. When one thinks of smoky flavor, it conjures thoughts of hickory or other flavorful options ... not ... pine. So that was the first interesting aspect of the smoking incident.

The side dishes are where the story gets interesting, because my father decided that they were getting cold waiting for the steaks to smoke. He figured that putting them in the smoker would warm the rolls and the aluminum wrapped baked potatoes. Perhaps that would have been all that happened if he had put the baked potatoes on the top, but they were on the bottom, close to the flame.  The aluminum on the potatoes caught fire and soon the steaks were not only smoking in pine, but aluminum.

This was not common knowledge to those at the table, when dinner was served. My brother's friend, Shawn, was the first to take a bite when he was asked how it tasted. After a strange expression, he said, "I don't know, my tongue is numb." This is apparently what happens when you smoke a steak in aluminum we soon discovered.

I thought surely that the rolls would be fine, not knowing that they too had spent time in the smoker, where they became hard as rocks. I bit into one, and could bite no further, as my teeth got stuck. 

Luckily the potatoes were fine on the inside.  And we were all thankful that I had an ice cream cake, so it didn't end up in the smoker. Poor Daddy, it wasn't his finest hour, but it is a funny memory. It's the thought that counts :)

Soylent

Picture from Soylent Blog

At long last, it looks like Soylent is on the way. My husband and I had been following the research of Rob Rhinehart, and contributed to the kickstarter. The orders were delayed a couple times, but at long last it's shipping out.

NO SOYLENT IS NOT PEOPLE!

The name was a joke based off Soylent Green though. "Soylent is a simple and affordable nutritional drink that has everything the healthy body needs." What that means is that it's basically a vitamin that you drink with everything your body needs in it.  Think of ensure, but better. This is intended to supplement all food, which is just what Rob did, trying it out on himself first. The results have been pretty darn awesome health wise and even IQ wise. It's amazing the benefits of complete nutrition.

It's not here yet, but in preparation for a liquid diet, I've been on Slimfast for the past couple months. I haven't weighed myself, and without a thyroid weight loss is a rough road, but it's working very very slowly.

My thyroid was removed when my immune system decided to attack it and I had a growth develop that blocked my vocal chords. I lost my voice for 2 weeks and went in, to discover the problem. I have Hashimoto's which is an auto immune disease, generally in conjunction with a faulty thyroid. Recent reading revealed that there is a connection between Hashimoto's and a gluten allergy, which is its own level of hell. If you've ever tried to shop for food without gluten in it, you discover that they put it in things that you would never guess. Soy sauce of all things! Just when you think eating rice is safe!

This is one of the selling points of Soylent for me, since it is gluten free. The other thing is that I'm just not a fan of eating, and if I'm going to eat, I'd rather go without than eat something I hate.  When I'm in the middle of artwork or some other project, the last thing I want to have to do is take time out to eat and then have to get back into the mode.  This usually results in quick food prep, which isn't always the healthiest option. Slimfast is the one diet that I've been able to successfully adhere to, because I suck down a drink and move on with my life.  So I know because of this personal  preference, that Soylent would be a good option for me.

The problem with Slimfast is that it has a diarrhetic in it and can lower your electrolytes. Soylent is not for losing weight, it's to replace eating.  Because of its nutritionally complete nature, many testers of the product report healthier living, and that's what I want. With the thyroid, I've kinda given up on regaining my once svelte figure, but I'm tired of feeling like crap all the time.

With other changes and habits I've formed, I hope to be able to reclaim my life somewhat. I make myself do pushups and sometimes sit-ups every time I have to stop and take a bathroom break.  Working on other healthier adaptions as well. So here's hoping that this will be the start of a new chapter in my life, a healthier one.