Two Weeks In

I started drinking Hacker School Soylent as a week long experiment. I wanted to see how it tasted, how my body would respond to it, and if any of the claimed magical properties were true.

After a week of consumption I was pleased enough with the results that I bought the ingredients in bulk with the intention of extending my trial out to a full month.

What I've been doing

When possible, I've been using 2/3 of the Hacker School Soylent (HSS) recipe for meals each day to replace breakfast and lunch. I've then prepared dinner when arriving home, or joined my friends for a dinner that evening.

I'm not declining social opportunities, so I am reducing my HSS intake when I have a social lunch (or breakfast) planned. The last four days, for example, I've been at a conference. I've reduced my HSS to 1/2 of the recipe and eaten a small "real foods" lunch while chatting with colleagues.

My focus has been weight loss, while maintaining an eating habit that I can keep even after I've reached my target weight. To that end, I'm consuming about 1400 calories of HSS and aiming to have 600 calories, or fewer, of dinner and snacks. Many of my vegetable-heavy recipes that I cook at home support this, like: broccoli beef, Japanese curry, Samosas au natural, and cashew chicken.

Generally I'm finding that 2/3 of a recipe of HSS makes about 1400mL of liquid. I'll drink 400mL before work, around 300mL at lunch time and between 100 and 200mL whenever I feel peckish. I'll often return home from work with 200mL which I will drink when I want a snack after dinner.

Results

So I can't clam to have had any magical improvements, but I have been very pleased with some of the results:

Cravings: all-in-all I have found it easier to keep from snacking. When I'm hungry I'm finding it pretty easy to drink HSS instead of the salty or sweet snacks that my workgroup brings in to share. When I do crave "real food" I've been much more able to re-route to a healthy alternative (like an apple or a pear) than I was before starting HSS.

Bowel: on the Bristol stool scale I've moved from a 6 to a 4.5, with much less urgency and much more controllable gas. I currently suspect that my "4" days are more vegetable-heavy with fewer easily accessible sugars, and I'm hoping that the coming weeks will see more more consistently at a 4.

Mood: I have felt more even and in-control than I normally do these past few weeks. Now this may not be the HSS at all, but I know that my mood definitely affects my eating. (I eat both when nervous and when sad.) I'll enjoy seeing if this sticks.

Energy: Again, I've felt more even since starting HSS. I'm still having an energy-drop in the afternoon, but I'm wondering if that has more to do with the content of the meetings I attend than the inherent energy I am feeling at that time.

Weight: I've lost about 2 pounds in the past two weeks. I think it would be 3 if I hadn't been overeating during the conference I've been at.