Phase 1 - Liquids - DONE!

Glad that's over!! Thursday was the start to mushies - which basically means real food that involves umm TEETH...

SO liquids -- first off never has a simple half banana ground into protein powder provided SUCH pleasure and taste. You do truly appreciate the sense of taste MUCH more when you haven't been able to use it in a while.

Why liquid diets STINK:

--- Neopolitan or no dice... apparently bodybuilders and fad dieters alike only enjoy sweet things - and they seem to only now be strawberry, vanilla and chocolate flavored. I seem to remember when Slim Fast had just begun that it had gads of different flavors (still all sweet but...) things like tropical, orange, coffee, choc, vanilla, etc. -- now we seem to be down to only neopolitan... and in Slim Fast High Protein - only chocolate and vanilla - I was never able to locate a strawberry.

When you are only 'eating' 3 shakes a day for a week, only having 3 flavors to choose from is incredibly painful. I did do some pre-shopping so I had instant coffee granules (which were atrociously bad - and made my shakes taste like they had beef broth in them... YUCK). I did grab unflavored soy protein powder at Trader Joe's - and found some Strawberry BANANA (whoa!) Genisoy at Kroger. There were only specific shakes I was to consume to ensure I had the right amount of protein vs carbs a day - so I was even more limited.

But may I suggest some patentable new flavors? Mint, Choc Mint, Curry (there's a protein bar that I recall came out once stuff like Luna bars and Clif Bars became the rage along w all the atkinsy bars) -- I think it's called Mojo - anyway, I remember seeing it a Ukrop's and they have savory flavors - like curry pretzel peanut or something -- what a great idea!) , Caramel, Butterscotch, Almond, PEANUT BUTTER...

--- Extract this from your... Ironically I was allowed at this point to use extracts in the shakes to 'spice em up' a bit -- unfortunately I was forbade from using alcohol based extracts -- and to be honest, I don't think a single one of my extracts isn't alcohol based...

So I used half bananas - and revelled in the taste - probably bc of the natural sugars.

--- It gets old fast... And I just choked down the rest -- never would you believe it was actually a CHORE to sip down 3 shakes a day (@ about 20g protein each) -- it was just boring...

Why liquid diets don't entirely stink:

--- Heal thyself... It was a good way to get my head back into the flavor game and allow me to heal.

--- Baby steps... It also got me so much more excited for mushies but allowing me to pace myself. I was having 8oz of shake at a sitting (approx 30min) -- but ultimately my meals are not supposed to exceed 4oz (volume) so it got me eating smaller portions but not immediately into the 4oz.

--- Weighting game... I lost another 8 lbs -- we're now down 20lbs as of last Thursday 12/11. Woot!

To sum it up, if you can stand it, liquid diets are good for results... and I got enough protein so far bc my hair is not falling out (SERIOUSLY -- that's a possible side effect... nice huh?). I will say Campbell's tomato soup was my SAVING GRACE! Made w milk it got me some protein and it was savory.

I'm now onto mushies -- which is a 2 week long phase (unless I get the ok to go solids from the dr's tomorrow -- I hear it's been known to happen!) This comes w its own challenges - but that'll be my next post!