We've spent a bunch of time today engaging in food science, crunching numbers to maximize nutritional intake in the Ultimate Smoothie; to that end, I bought some of
this protein powder and some of
this green supplement powder, both of which come highly recommended- and I've experienced first hand the amazingness of the Green Superfood powder through some sample pouches a few months ago.
After 21 days of not getting enough protein, I'm finally going to be able to hit my 80/10/10 stats with ease, even with a half serving of the protein powder in my morning shake. I am unreasonably excited!
I'm enjoying the adventure of tinkering with my food intake to get the perfect combination of caloric intake and nutritional balance. It's pretty fun and a good challenge. The problem being, at least right now, is that I'm supposed to have a smoothie for dinner but I'm still full from my afternoon snacks (carrots and sugar snap peas and *possibly* a piece of raw chocolate.) I've taken to plugging in sample meals to my food tracker, and double checking my stats and adjusting as I go to keep my balance good and make up for nutritional shortfalls. It's an odd way to organise a dinner menu, let me tell you. It's neat to see the numbers shift around and to work out the relative values in food however.
I have been craving my dinner smoothie all day, as well- banana, spinach and some other stuff. I think I might start blending them and taking them to work in a steel canteen- we have a fridge and I think they'd keep OK for the few hours they'd need to be in there. Then I can have a variety of whatever for dinner later, keeping my options open.
I feel like I'm spending a huge amount of time thinking about food and nutrition and making/shopping for stuff. I probably am not spending more time shopping than I normally do, I just am getting so much more every time that it feels like so much more. I think I'll keep track of what I spend on food, as I spend it for future reference. I hope that once we get the numbers down, I can run on automatic a little bit more and free up some of my mental space for another project. As it stands, it's currently a fun game but I can see it getting old pretty fast if this was what I was doing long term. Of course, if I *was* doing this long term, of course I'd get the hang of it right quick. I certainly did with switching to a vegan diet, which now feels completely normal and stress-free.
If we make the Ultimate Smoothie, I suspect it will make enough for breakfast *and* lunch, which is even better. Reports to follow when we begin the experiment in earnest.
My body feels generally good today- I can definitely see that I've dropped some fat from the top of my hips/waist, so I look slimmer from the front but I feel like my abdomen is a bit distended, surely from the bulk of fibrous food I've shovelled in today. My tummy is making all sorts of interesting digestive noises. The skin on my hands has been crazy dry today, but I can't tell if that's food related or how often I've been washing my hands, or weather related.
It. Is. FREEZING out there, I'm really missing tea today. While I intend to keep many of the eating habits established during this month, I will definitely be integrating hot drinks back into my diet.
