Day Six

I realize I didn't make a post yesterday. Nothing really exciting happened. I didn't experience any side effects or anything and Soylent continues to be a fairly pleasant experience for me. As of now, I have two pouches left. So there will probably be only a couple more posts here. Now, on to today's update.

Impressions

For today, I tried something a bit different. I had a bit of Soylent when I woke up (about a cup's worth). A little while later, I had a meal-sized portion. But I had some real food around lunchtime. I wouldn't say I was really craving it, but it gave me an excuse to see how a diet only partially based on Soylent would work out if I decide to go that route. It went alright. But fast food was probably a poor choice. I got hungry again around 8 or 9pm and had a full serving of Soylent for dinner. When I was finished, there was still a bit left in the pitcher, but not much. So it's likely that I went over 2000 calories today. Tomorrow, I'll be back on only the Soylent.

I'm towards the end of my one week supply of Soylent and I've noticed that it has already become easier to get into the habit of preparing my meals for the next day right before bed. It's also been really nice not to have to worry about what I'm going to make for dinner each night and spend time cooking something up. When I run out of Soylent, that's the part that I'm looking forward to least of all. 

Side Effects

Not really any to speak of, still. I did get heartburn from the lunch, which is to be expected, I guess. The Soylent is very mild in general. I've found that once my body initially adjusted to the new diet, I haven't experienced any side effects, really. All the very minor things I mentioned in my first couple posts went away and haven't returned once I got the mix on the Soylent right. And it's funny that the only side effect that I've had since is from solid food. That said, it does seem relatively easy to switch between Soylent and solid foods as you please without issue.

Day Six Wrap Up

Like I said before, I have two days' worth left. Expect a couple more updates. Today went pretty well. I doubt I'll mix any solid foods into my day for the rest of my Soylent supply. I'm starting to come to some thoughts on how best to use Soylent for myself, but I'd like to save those for my final update in case anything changes between now and then. I could most definitely see this working as a full replacement for all meals, but I could also see a mixed Soylent/whole food diet working very well, too. I've found that I'm more excited about the Soylent in general when it's a work day and I bring it with me. Not leaving my desk and not worrying about buying or packing a lunch is one of the best things about this diet.

As always, if you have any questions please leave a comment below and I'll address it when I can. 

Day Five

Impressions

Today went well. I had a pitcher of Soylent made and ready to go in the fridge this morning. As usual, I filled my 20 ounce cup before work and started sipping on it late morning into the lunch hour. I finished it by 2pm. I do really like having Soylent at work and not having to deal with packing or buying a lunch. I feel like this is the perfect use case for the product. When I got home, I wasn't really hungry so I played some games until around 9pm. Then I had dinner - which was another full cup of Soylent.

The longer I'm using Soylent on a daily basis, the easier it is to drink more of it at once. When I first started, I was sipping throughout a few hours instead of having a "meal" all at once. Now, I'm still sipping, but I'm drinking more at once. I feel fully adjusted to the Soylent and can tell when I want more easier than I could within the first few days. Still, while at home, it's easier to forget that I still have a mostly full pitcher in the fridge that I need to get through. I don't dread it by any means, but unless I feel hungry, I don't think about it. This could be bad because it could lead to me not finishing the whole day's worth by the end of my day. But the longer I use it, the easier it gets to ration it out.

I still like the flavor. I mentioned previously that someone said it tastes like Cheerios and that I agree with that assessment. That's mostly still true. Though, its consistency reminds me a bit of watery oatmeal. As does the taste a bit. Again, if that sounds less than appetizing to you, you can use a blender and add other ingredients to it when you prepare it - like berries, peanut butter, chocolate, etc. I haven't felt a need or desire to do this. But I do hear that using a blender makes it less gain-y in texture. Again, this doesn't bother me, but it's something to keep in mind if you're considering ordering some.

Side Effects

No real side effects to report. Adding the 1/4 teaspoon of salt to the mixture when preparing it has made any headache worries disappear. I highly recommend doing this if you're using Soylent as a full meal replacement and not eating other foods with added sodium. Not to worry, because the instructions that come with the product detail this well. The only mild side effect that I can even mention at this point is when I wake up first thing in the morning, my stomach feels a little off. I don't feel sick or anything. But it's a little more than just hunger. As soon as I start consuming some Soylent once I get to work, it's a non-issue. Your mileage may vary, of course. And I don't think it's an issue. But it's something to keep an eye on as the rest of the week progresses. I've heard from other 30-day impressions that it can take a full week to fully adapt to the diet. While I think I'm pretty well adapted already, it's certainly possible that my body is still adjusting.

Day Five Conclusions

Overall, I'm still very happy with my Soylent purchase. I have three pouches left. I also didn't finish all of my current pitcher today, so it might last me a bit more than the full week. I'll be sure to keep posting updates here as long as I still have some left to use for my meals. As for the morning issues, I don't think it's a problem with the Soylent diet itself. But I personally never eat breakfast. I haven't since before high school except on the rare occasion. So because of the balanced meals recommended, it seems I may be craving a morning meal to get the full benefits of the Soylent. If/when I continue the Soylent diet after this trial run, I may change up my routine a bit and start having 6 ounces or so before I leave for work and see how that goes.

Day Four

Introduction

So I'm on my forth day of Soylent. I'm back on track as of today. All of my meals today were Soylent only. I got the salt content just right now and everything tasted great. I made a pitcher before bed last night and let it sit in the fridge overnight.

I took a full 20 ounces to work today with me. I started sipping on it slightly throughout the morning and finished the rest of it (probably 3/4 of it) at lunch time. When I got home, I had a small "snack" serving size. Then around 8pm or so, I poured myself another 18 ounces for dinner. I haven't felt hungry or anything all day and I'd say my body is fairly well adjusted to the Soylent diet by now.

Impressions So Far

So what do I think? I think Soylent is a great product, but it sure won't be for everyone. As I mentioned before, I don't particularly like eating, cooking, or dealing with food in general. But even I have had a desire to just chew some real food. Mostly, I'd say I've had a desire to snack more than I have to eat a regular full meal, though. Still, I don't mind the texture or taste. In fact, I quite enjoy how it tastes at this point. At this point, I'm thinking that while I could see myself replacing my meals with Soylent, I don't really like the idea of having a small serving of it as a "snack". If I'm hungry between meals, I want to snack on some real food. Or I could just sip on a meal-sized serving for longer so I don't get the urge to snack.

Side Effects

Again, nothing to really report here. All the initial (trivial) issues I had when I started are gone and can be attributed to my body adjusting to the new diet. I have no more headaches after adding the 1/4 teaspoon of salt to the pitcher as the directions included with the product recommend. Nothing else to really report here, but I'll be sure to keep you updated if I do see any side effects over the last few days.

Day Four Wrap Up

Overall, I think it's going well. I can definitely see this as a great thing to have for lunch while at work even if I don't end up replacing all of my meals with it. But I'm not saying I wouldn't consider it as a complete meal replacement, either. I'll have to wait until the full week is up to come to any conclusions, but the further into the week I get, the better the experience has gotten so far. That's it for tonight. If you have any questions, you can leave them in the comments section below. 

Day Three Update

So, as I mentioned briefly in my last post, the batch I made yesterday was a bit too salty. Well, the batch was made later in the day so most of that pitcher was for today's meals. I brought a bottle of Soylent to work with me again like I did yesterday (about 20 ounces). But I couldn't really get through it. It was just too salty to be even remotely enjoyable. Unfortunately, I had no way to make a new batch while at work, so I skipped out on the Soylent when it came lunch time (I did have a few ounces for breakfast though) and ended up going out to a local restaurant. It was my first non-Soylent food since I started this on Sunday. I had a burger. I wasn't even craving solid food at all today, but I didn't want to go without eating anything just to stick to the Soylent diet. I did notice that after just three days of a liquid-only diet, I couldn't eat as big of portions of regular food when I ate that meal at lunch today.

Anyway, after I got home today, I made a new batch of Soylent and let it sit in the fridge for a couple hours. I did drink some Soylent for dinner instead of a regular meal and am now back on the normal Soylent diet (and it's not too salty this time). So tomorrow, I should have more of a regular style update for you all. I didn't have any issues today. Still no gas, and no headache when I woke up this morning. Overall things were going well until I ruined the last batch. That's it for today's quick update. I don't want to talk too much about experiences today when I had other foods in addition to the Soylent. I'll be sure to report back tomorrow night.

Day Two

Impressions

I don't have a ton to update today, but I wanted to give a rundown of how things went at work for the first time. I think Soylent at work is a great idea. It worked out really well. I was able to leave the bottle I've been using at my desk and sip from it all day. I didn't need to stop working for lunch and was able to leave earlier. Plus, having something like that makes getting ready easier. I don't have to make a lunch before I leave for work and if I don't feel like making something, I don't spend extra money by going out for lunch. I think this is the ideal situation to use Soylent in.

For dinner, I had another 18 ounces. When I woke up this morning, I had a slight headache and the Soylent pamphlet said that could be the result of not enough sodium. So I added a bit of salt to the batch today. I added a bit too much, though and it was a bit too salty. Not undrinkable, but not nearly as pleasant as yesterday.

Side Effects

The gas has finally stopped, so it seems my body is already somewhat adjusted to the new diet. But like I said, I did wake up with a slight headache this morning. I'll have to wait and see if my addition of salt to the batch today helped at all. I'll be sure to make note of that in tomorrow's update. I never felt hungry today. The Soylent is definitely keeping me full enough. But I must admit, my cravings for solid foods did get a little out of hand today. It's odd because I normally find eating to be more of a chore than anything, but I thought about snacking on more than one occasion today. Still, I'm going to see this through for at least the week's supply that I have. And the cravings disappeared after I ignored them for a bit. Overall, I've felt good today and less like my body was adjusting to new foods.

Other Thoughts

I'm not sure how I feel about the Soylent-only diet yet. It's definitely more convenient in some ways, but less so in others. Preparation is much easier than cooking a meal. But I don't get hungry as often as I do eating solid food when I'm on Soylent. I tend to make my batch in the morning and fill my ~20 ounce bottle for work in the morning. I sip on it all day and when I get home, it's probably time for another meal to work my way through the pitcher, but I don't think about it because I'm not reminded by my stomach to eat. Not really an issue, but it's something I need to work out a routine for if I'm going to stay on this diet past the one week mark. Beyond that, it's still too early to say for sure what I'll do at the end of this experiment. 

That's it for today. I hope to have more impressions and thoughts about the overall viability of doing this long term as I get closer to the end of my one week. 

Day One Update

Introduction

For those who don't know, Soylent is a meal replacement product. It was successfully funded via Kickstarter a while back and I was a backer. Basically, it's a whole meal replacement meant to give you 100% of the FDA recommended daily nutritional requirements. The goal of the creators of the product is to eventually bring food to the masses cheaply and in the same way that you get water to your home. It's an ambitious goal, but for it to work, it has to be something that becomes very affordable and provide everything the majority of people need and can function on on a daily basis. I'm not sure it's there yet, but it's something that's very interesting to me.

Personally, I don't like to eat. I think it's a hassle. If I didn't need to do it to survive, I wouldn't. It's not that I don't eat, but I don't look forward to it (except on rare occasions when I get some kind of craving or am going out with friends). I don't like shopping for food, taking time out of my day to prepare it, the cleanup afterwards, and all of the money spend each month on food. As such, I don't really have the healthiest of diets. I eat out a lot because it means I don't have to go through dealing with planning out and cooking a meal. Soylent supposedly solves a lot of these issues so I've been anxious to put it to the test. It's still kind of costly right now because it's a brand new product, but demand is high and they're struggling to keep up with demand. So there are a lot of people this kind of product appeals to.

Preparation

Prep is easy for Soylent. As you can see in the picture above, Soylent includes a pouch of powder and a vial of an oil blend (for all your fats and such). Each pouch plus one vial is a day's worth of food (roughly 2000 calories). Preparation involves emptying one pouch into a large enough container (the one above is a part of a starter kit Soylent ships to you with your first order for free) and adding water. Then you shake it before adding the oil and more water to fill to the top and shake again. 

Once that's done, you can either add ice and drink right away, or put it in the fridge for 2-3 hours before consuming. I chose to make it when I woke up this morning and stuck it in the fridge for a few hours. My last piece of regular food today was a donut from Dunkin Donuts I got with a coffee earlier in the day. After a few hours, I was ready to try it out.

Day One Impressions

The picture above shows what the finished, blended drink looks like. I took it out and poured myself a glass. I've since bought an airtight bottle for bringing to work tomorrow. For now, I poured about 8 ounces to start. Make sure you shake well every time you go to pour a glass. 

Initially, I was planning on looking for different things to mix with the Soylent to give it a better taste, but I wanted to try it untouched first. The informational pamphlet that comes with your order gives directions to mix it with chocolate, berries, peanut butter, etc. But honestly, it tastes pretty good. I don't think I'll be doing that unless I get sick of the taste later down the line. It smells kind of malty. It's a pleasant smell with maybe a hint of vanilla. As for taste, I enjoyed it. It's hard to describe, but it's definitely not unpleasant. I actually heard someone today describe it as tasting like Cheerios. I actually mostly agree with that assessment. It is a bit chalky, but it didn't bother me. And I'm sure mixing it better and/or using a blender would solve that if it does happen to bother you.

Now, going from a variety of different solid foods to a Soylent-only diet will likely take some getting used to. But I don't really think taste will be a barrier to entry for most people. I will admit, there were a couple of times today where I craved some solid food. I wasn't hungry per se, but it was an odd feeling knowing that I was full but not having actually eaten or chewed any food. I'm going to keep this in mind going forward and see if the urge subsides over time. But by the end of the day, I had drank all but about 18 ounces of it and wasn't craving any solid food anymore.

Side Effects

It's only day one, so it's too early to say if there will be any issues going forward. But today, I did notice I was a little gassy. I assume it's just my body adjusting to the new diet. I haven't felt tired or hungry after consuming the Soylent, though. I'll have to see how tomorrow goes when I bring it to work. Since Soylent contains a lot of water, you will find yourself going to the bathroom a lot more often (at least, I did). In addition, Soylent (the company) recommends you drink a lot of water in addition to the Soylent since it only provides 1.6L of water. The recommended daily water consumption is 2.7L. So you'll need to drink at least a liter of water throughout the day to stay hydrated (though, this water intake can be done via any source, really). 

Conclusion

So that's it for my first update. It's too early to say whether or not it's effective, but it's been nice today not to have to worry about cooking or going out to eat. Assuming there are no problems later on, I could see this being very viable for my lifestyle. For the purposes of this trial run, I'm not going to be consuming anything besides Soylent, maybe some coffee, and gum (need to make sure my jaw gets a workout since I won't be chewing). However, if I stay on the Soylent diet after this trial run, I could see myself still eating out or cooking a meal a couple times per week for the social aspect of seeing friends and/or if I get a random craving for specific foods.

Anyway, that's it for today. I should have another update tomorrow. It will be interesting to see how things go bringing Soylent to work with me.

First Post!

So today's the day. I received my one week's supply of Soylent on Wednesday but decided to hold off on it until the weekend. I got my starter kit, too and plan on starting a full time Soylent diet today. I don't know how long it will last since I only have one week's supply right now. But I'm thinking I can push that out a bit longer than a week since I normally don't eat breakfast anyway. We shall see, but I don't know when my next order will arrive. I have another two weeks' worth already ordered, too.

Anyway, I plan on making an update once per day that I'm on the pure Soylent diet. I will be going pretty in depth about side effects (if any), changes in health, energy, etc, and how I'm coping not eating actual food. If you're following this and have any questions as I'm going along, feel free to leave a comment on the blog post and I'll either reply or get to it in the next update. This is just my intro post. Expect another by the end of the day on the 28th that details my first day.