experience

My Experience so far with Ketogenic soylent (2 weeks)

This entry is part 5 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

Well, I’ve been doing ketogenic soylent for 2 weeks now, sounds like time to write down my experience so far. I looked at various recipes and QuidNYC Ketofood seemed to be the most popular, was fairly simple, and didn’t sound horrible. I noticed that there was an “Induction Phase” variant with mostly the same ingredients and both used stuff I already had (Potassium Citrate, Choline etc…) So I decided to buy the ingredients to make the Induction Phase recipe, and planned on getting the stuff I needed for the “Ongoing” recipe in a week or so.

The Induction Phase DIY soylent is the most awful stuff I have ever tasted in my life.

I’m still not sure if it was the Soy Lecithin granules, the Chia seeds, the Psyllium Husk powder or what but I don’t like the flavor at all. By the end of the third day I was experiencing a gag reflex from the smell. At that point I didn’t care how long the induction phase was supposed to be, I was ready to move on (frankly I still don’t know how long it’s supposed to be) so I ordered the Coconut Flour, Raw Cocoa and other ingredients that would move me over to the ongoing recipe. I ended up on the induction formula for 7.5 days. There are a few things to note: One of the key components of most ketogenic diets is MCT oil. This stuff is crazy expensive and isn’t something most people are ready for in the quantities specified in the induction recipe. It’s Medium Chain Triglyceride oil and it’s made from Coconut Oil but is liquid even when refrigerated. MCT can more easily be turned into ketones and it will get you into ketosis quicker and more effectively than using any other oil. Did I mention it’s expensive? It is and it’s something you can’t swap out for something else, like MOAR canola or olive oil.

If I was going to start ketosis again I would skip the induction recipe and go straight for the ongoing one.

Since I didn’t have a control group I can’t say definitively what was caused just by going into ketosis and what was caused by the nasty experience of hating what I was drinking. I can say that a commonly known side effect of ketosis is the “ketogenic flu” where going into ketosis will make a person exhibit flu-like symptoms. I started on a 4 day weekend and am exceptionally happy that I did. Another common side effect is constipation, I apparently bucked the trend and went the other way (likely thanks to the oil is my guess). Took about a week to get into the <5 on the Bristol Scale (and I’m done with this subject now).

OK, so the induction recipe and experience was awful, how’s the ongoing… going?

The change in the recipe flavor was massive. I have no way to describe the induction one, the ongoing is overwhelmingly coconut, chocolate and cinnamon (in that order). I added a tiny amount of stevia to help the taste be less bitter (raw cocoa FTW!) and it now tastes an awful lot like a “Mounds” bar (Almond Joy without the almond) that somehow got the sugar taken out and was put through a blender. If I don’t swallow it directly I end up with a mouth full of coconut that’s entertaining to chew for a bit; I usually swallow it directly though.

How long am I planning on continuing this madness? For a while. I’m down 13 lbs in these 2 weeks and it’ll be “fun” to keep it up during Thanksgiving and Christmas.

By |2016-10-13T07:28:28-06:00November 6th, 2014|Weight Loss, Soylent|3 Comments
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The Nuclear Option: Ketogenic soylent.

This entry is part 3 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

I started consuming People Chow back in January 2014 for a variety of reasons, but primarily to lose weight. Initially it did an excellent job of doing just that with around 14 pounds going away over about a month. The main reason for the loss was I was exceptionally good about only eating People Chow with maybe 100-200 calories of other stuff a week. Unfortunately I didn’t continue losing weight because I got lax in my adherence to People Chow only. I did do a fairly good job of maintaining my weight for the next several months with a sharp uptick more recently due to a bunch of parties. I had been planning on trying a Ketogenic diet for some time and the imminent Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas trifecta of overeating seemed like a good time to start.

The last year in review

The last year in review

It’s pretty easy to see where I started People Chow, where I failed utterly to lose weight in mid-October (thanks Dreamforce parties) and where I started Ketogenic soylent. The most fun was one day when I weighed 4.2 lbs less than the day before (yes, that would be water).

Last Month

Just up-to and the start of Ketogenic soylent

I’m going to do a series of posts about my experience thus far with Ketogenic soylent, Ketosis and other factors. Let me clarify one thing though: doing a ketogenic diet, using soylent or regular “muggle” food is kinda a big deal and not something you can or should do willy-nilly. If you go for ketosis, you’re going to run into “ketosis flu” which feels a lot like having the flu. It’s a difficult diet to maintain with all of society blissfully chowing down on sugar and carbs. Let me put this into perspective: if you’ve heard about Atkins, South Beach or any other carbohydrate restrictive diet: those are modified Ketogenic diets (though they emphasize protein too much). The closest thing I’ve had to candy for the last 2 weeks was a single raisin that I ate without thinking.

Anyhow, be ready for some Ketogenic diet, ketosis and ketone information; whether you want it or not!

 

By |2016-10-13T07:28:30-06:00November 4th, 2014|Weight Loss, Soylent|1 Comment
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Vacationing for a week (mostly) on DIY soylent

This entry is part 35 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

This week I’m down in Arches National Park helping my dad do a nighttime photography workshop. Mostly my job consists of running around and setting up lights and carrying stuff (though I did press the shutter for him a few times when he was light painting, I joke that I’m going to claim copyright on those ones).

[print_gllr id=636]

A week of DIYWe’re living out of a hotel room which has made for some interesting logistical issues. I brought a week worth of People Chow and a bunch of blender bottles but I still need to wash the containers. Before I left, my wife told me to bring along a small container of dish soap and I wish I would have done that along with a scrub brush. Instead I’ve had to use washcloths and whatever soap I can source. Soap is absolutely necessary because of the oil. Hot water will get much of the residue but you need something to get the oil off and only soap will do it.

As expected, eating soylent has been (except for needing to wash the containers) exceptionally convenient. It’s also forced my dad to stick to his diet since I’m not eating fast food with him (though I did make an exception and had biscuits and gravy with the workshop group this morning =). I’ve found that the kind of hiking we’ve been doing works fine with soylent, I’ve been mixing up enough containers to last me however long we’re going to be out and either mix it with a bunch of ice or refrigerate it for a few hours to get it cold enough to last. Tonight we’re going to be going up to Delicate Arch just before sunset and staying until around midnight so I’ll drink a blender bottle of people chow around 4:00pm and bring one up with me to drink while waiting for the sky to get dark enough.

This experience has been good for an additional reason: next month I’m going to be going to San Francisco for 7 days for the DreamForce conference. I’m planning to pack about 8 days worth (just in case), a little in a carry-on and the rest in a checked bag. I’m also going to bring a little soap and a brush =)

By |2016-10-13T07:28:30-06:00September 17th, 2014|On Tour, Preparation, Soylent|Comments Off on Vacationing for a week (mostly) on DIY soylent
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Really good video from Australia

This entry is part 33 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

There’s a really well produced news story about Soylent and soylent (DIY) at http://www.sbs.com.au/thefeed/blog/2014/08/12/soylent-meal-replacement – might be an easy way to tell people what the whole soylent thing is about (sourced from Reddit).

By |2016-10-13T07:28:30-06:00August 12th, 2014|Soylent|Comments Off on Really good video from Australia
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Just tried Soylent (the official)

This entry is part 25 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

Someone was nice enough to sell me 2 days of official Soylent a while ago and I’ve been looking for an opportunity to try it. So I finally mixed it up today.

Official Soylent in the bag

Official Soylent in the bag

Yep, smells like a yellow cake mix. The directions on the bag say to put the powder into the pitcher you get in the starter kit, then fill it up with water. I didn’t have the starter kit so I had to search around to find how much water to mix with the powder. I found instructions for mixing it in a blender: 1 liter of water, 1-2 cups of ice (nice mixture of imperial and metric measurements there!), the powder and the oil. So I mixed it up in a blender following those instructions.

Mixing Soylent

I did have an issue with dry powder clinging to the sides and had to get out a big spoon to get those going, aside from that the blending was good. The ice is recommended if you’re planning to consume it immediately; so I poured some in a glass and took a drink. My first impression is that I like people chow with a touch of cocoa powder much better. Maybe it was that I was expecting a smoother mouth feel but it actually seemed grittier than the copious amounts of corn masa in people chow. From experience I know that if I try to mix up people chow and drink it down that fast, it’s not going to be very good and 30+ minutes “thinking about what it did” (but in the fridge, not the corner with a dunce cap) does wonders for (S)oylent. So I cleared a space in the fridge and will try it again in a bit.

Yes, it blends.

Yes, it blends.

Update: several hours later I tried it again. The texture was somewhat better after having sat in the fridge but it still wasn’t as smooth as I would like. It’s also way too sweet tasting for me. I also got the Gastro-Intestinal distress many people have reported, though it came on pretty quick so I can’t definitively say it was from Soylent; but the oat flour gets a vote of no confidence from me. I’ll be sticking with people chow.

By |2016-10-13T07:28:33-06:00July 13th, 2014|Soylent|Comments Off on Just tried Soylent (the official)
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My thoughts on (s)oylent

This entry is part 18 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

Over on the Soylent discussion forum, Nicole Goodkind asked for people’s thought on Soylent. I emailed her and decided I might as well put it up here too.

 

Some people on the forum and reddit get uppity if you call the DIY soylent “Soylent” with a capital S and I’m not cool enough to have gotten the real stuff.

I saw the kickstarter campaign back when it first happened and initially thought it was a joke campaign somebody put together with a relabeled energy bar labeled “Soylent” as a play on the movie. I though “dangit – I should have thought of that!.” It was nearly 2 weeks later that I realized that it was an actual thing with a real product that wasn’t a joke. I talked with some friends at work about it and I got pretty excited when I saw the Ars Technica series on it. I wanted to order some but didn’t want to pay $250 for a month and didn’t want to wait.
New Years Day 2014 I finally decided I was going to DIY it, mostly as a way to control calories and lose weight. I researched a bit and arrived on the most popular recipe “People Chow” as the one I would go with. I drove around to vitamin stores in my local area trying to find all the ingredients but being a holiday I was stymied in my efforts. I ordered what I hadn’t been able to buy locally off Amazon and waited a few days for the stuff to arrive.
My family has been supportive, mostly because I’m not drinking soylent 100% of the time. I did that at first and still try to stick to it as much as possible to lose weight; but it’s hard to pass up a really nice dinner that I’ve cooked for the wife and kids. When we have a big get together I don’t even worry about it; why would I eat soylent when there’s bbq chicken or broccoli covered in nacho cheese?
The convenience of mixing up a cup of powder in a blender bottle is the nicest part (see my post at http://www.people-chow.com/tile-is-done-its-soylent-timetm/ or my post at http://discourse.soylent.me/t/soylent-at-delicate-arch/12948 ). For counting calories it’s ideal – I put in my exercise, add “Low Cal People Chow” for breakfast, lunch and (usually) dinner and I’m done. I recently changed my method for measuring the ingredients and now I’m doing a week’s worth of meals in 15 minutes. I feel better than I did before I started and my blood work was rather good last check (http://discourse.soylent.me/t/2-months-lab-results-most-looks-good-except-vitamin-d/11820) except for a vitamin D deficiency that’s easily fixed with a supplement. I’m planning on continuing on DIY soylent for quite a while (years or longer). Back in March I bought a bunch of bulk ingredients and computed that I had spent $500 so far on the endeavor but had enough ingredients to last me until early June (yep, still true – it’ll be time to reorder some stuff in about 2 weeks) and $100 a month for food is a pretty good figure.
Recently I’ve been investigating Keytogenic DIY soylent. I first heard of the concept when my son was having seizures and going on a keytogenic diet was one of the proposed treatments. Trying to manage that kind of diet (little to no carbs, all fats and protein – think Atkins-ish) sounded like a nightmare and we were able to control his seizures with medication that he’s since grown out of. But with soylent, the prospect of doing a major and radical diet change like that is more about picking a recipe, modifying it a bit for my requirements and buying the new ingredients I don’t have already. It’s a complete paradigm shift in the way *I* look at food. This is, however, one area the current official Soylent falls short: the customizability. You’re on a sodium restricted diet? Soy Allergy? Vegan? Wheat intolerant? I’ve seen recipes for all of them. Rob and the rest of the Rosa Labs crew has, however, talked about the possibility of different formulations in the future.
I don’t know if Soylent (or soylent) is THE future but I suspect it has enough traction that it’s going to be a food option for the future. I’d love to get my widower father-in-law on Soylent since he doesn’t cook much more than Mac and Cheese since his wife passed and rarely eats veggies. He’s a perfect case for it – I’m just not sure if he could handle the taste of the official (I’m certain he wouldn’t handle mixing up the DIY). One of my work buddies likes the idea of using Soylent for a shelf stable emergency food – sounds like a perfect application. I highly doubt “muggle” food is going anywhere but Soylent is great option for easy, convenient, unremarkable meals.
By |2016-10-13T07:28:33-06:00June 18th, 2014|Soylent, Preparation|Comments Off on My thoughts on (s)oylent
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2 months Lab results, most looks good except Vitamin D

This entry is part 15 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

(I originally posted this at the Soylent Discourse Forum and forgot to post it here on my own blog, so here it is)

I started on DIY (People Chow) in early January. Didn’t get blood tests to start (I know, very unscientific of me). Looks like I need to increase my Vitamin D.

lab resultsSince getting the test my doctor put me on a 5000 iu Vitamin D supplement. I’m also getting more sun.

 

By |2016-10-13T07:28:37-06:00March 20th, 2014|Soylent|1 Comment
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DIY soylent Week 3 – baked soylent and deficiencies

This entry is part 12 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

On Saturday I tried my hand at baking soylent. I attempted 2 recipes: cookies and muffins. The cookies are rather bland, the muffins are better but way too much work. I might make the cookies again but with some baking powder as suggested in the comments. Here’s how they turned out:

Soylent Muffins ready to bake

Soylent Muffins ready to bake

Soylent Cookies

Soylent Cookies

Cookies Baked

Cookies Baked

Close up of the soylent cookies

Close up of the soylent cookies

The cookies come off silicone baking sheets better than greased aluminum foil (if you have the baking sheets). I ran into a problem with the muffins: the recipe calls for x and y ingredients for every cup of soylent mix; yeah well, I missed that part and only put in .5 cups applesauce and 3/4 c milk for an entire days worth of soylent. It didn’t mix well. Double checked the recipe and found I needed 3X more of everything. After I had the right amount of stuff, it mixed up OK but took forever to cook thoroughly. I wasn’t overly excited by the taste and work required to make them. The cookies on the other hand were easy to make (still took forever to cook – 30 minutes!) and are just like a thick, dry, corn tortilla. I had cooked 2 days worth of soylent so I split it up into 8 bags and am substituting a “meal” of muffins and cookies for 1/4 of my soylent every day until it’s gone.

 

This has been an interesting week (health wise) to say the least.

To start off with, I was prescribed an oral steroid to help with some tendinitis I had in my Achilles tendon – and I’m not sure what that did to my overall health. It did make sleeping difficult which was further exacerbated by having to wear a boot that would keep my plantar fascia and Achilles tendon extended all night long. It’s also supposed to make me irritable or something.

Next we have a nice cold/flu/whatever that set in just before the weekend and continued up through yesterday. Being sick stinks. Being sick when you’ve started out a new diet and are skittish about what may or may not be going on with your health really stinks since I had nothing to compare it to. In addition to the normal stuffiness, I had the unpleasant side effect that my soylent all of a sudden tasted like chalky metal and only like chalky metal. It was exceedingly difficult to drink, especially Thursday – Saturday. Ultimately what got me through was doing something that Max had suggested quite some time ago: a little bit of stevia and some cinnamon. Suddenly soylent was (somewhat) palatable again and I’ve continued with adding those to my mixes. I discovered that if you are using pure stevia you need hardly any at all – like somewhere between 1 and 0.5 grains of rice size. I accidentally put in about 1/10 of a teaspoon into a blenderbottle of soylent and literally gagged when I tasted it; way too sweet! Being sick also put a halt to my workout routine which also stopped my weight loss. I’m currently sitting at negative 10 pounds since I started. Next week should be better.

I also encountered my first nutrient deficiency: Calcium (and likely potassium too). Since the formulation only gives me a little over 100% my RDI of calcium and potassium; if I skipped 1/4 of 1/2 of my daily soylent for more than a few days in a row due to eating “muggle” food and being full I was ending up severely deficient in calcium. This manifested its self initially as an ache in my calf, which then moved on to be an ache in my quads, then both legs plus a nasty headache that felt like dehydration. The next morning I was all set to go buy some “citrical” or something when I realized “duh, I have all the stuff for that here!” so I added extra cal/mag citrate and potassium citrate to that day’s soylent. Like magic I was fine. Since then I’ve been eating all of my daily soylent no matter what, which was a little hard after eating 7-layer dip during the superbowl and getting full on that. People in the community warned about not eating all of the soylent but did I listen? apparently not. I guess the moral of the story is: if you don’t plan on eating all the stuff every day then adjust your recipe down so you’re still getting the right nutrients.

By |2016-10-13T07:28:37-06:00February 4th, 2014|Soylent|1 Comment
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