Thursday, July 10, 2014

Joylent day 3

Hello /r/Soylent and others!

Yesterday I couldn't write the day 3 blog, because I was watching the game downtown (we lost at penalties from Argentina :'(  ). Here's day 3 on Joylent.

I want to start with the tip I got from /u/asympt, who gave me a tip to eliminate the gritty feel. He told me to store the pitcher in the fridge overnight. It did work, somewhat, but it's not entirely gone. Nonetheless a great tip!

Food flavoring

The food flavoring I ordered came in yesterday! It was a very tiny bottle (3.7ml / .125 fl oz) with highly concentrated melon flavor. I bought it online for 1.75€. I had to put in around 6-8 drops to really taste the melon over the Joylent (that's about a quarter bottle!). It did taste like melon, which was nice, but I'm not sure whether it is viable to keep doing this. It raises the cost of each meal by aprox. €0,40. I will experiment in the future with different tastes, though. I'm very curious to know how the coconut flavor works out.

After drinking it and how my body reacts to it

There hasn't been any change, really. I feel just fine, energy levels are normal. That might go up in the future, we'll see. I read online that people had a bit of a headache at the start of their diet, but that hasn't happened to me so far. I drink a lot of water next to the Joylent, so that could be it.

With the food flavoring it was a little it easier to get down, because it also tuned down the taste of the Joylent itself, which I experience as pleasant.

I also put the Joylent in Tupperware containers, because I don't think those zipper bags are that handy after all.

Phone call

Yesterday around 4 PM, I got a phone call from some mobile number. It was Joey van Koningsbruggen, the man himself! He told me he was asked for making an item for Nieuwsuur , a major news company in The Netherlands. He knew me and my roommate were following the Joylent diet so he asked me if him and I wanted to participate in an interview. Of course we wanted to! Quite excited about that as well.

That's it for yesterday. I think I'll leave gaps now, between the days, as I think there won't be as much change between every day from now on. As always; leave me any questions/feedback in the comments, either on reddit or down below.

Cheers!

Tom

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Day 2 on Joylent

Hello /r/Soylent and others,

I'm writing this in bed, it's almost 1 AM. This post won't be as long - not only because I'm tired - but also because there hasn't been much change. Let's get to it.

Taste and sent

Taste remained the same (obviously), but I did put less Joylent into my pitcher so it became less present (which I think is a good thing). I'm gonna stick with the balance between Joylent and water that I've got now. I don't hate the taste, but I don't like it either. Also, this way my stomach handles it a lot better (I was too full too fast with the 3/4 Joylent, 1/4 water ratio. It's 50/50 now).

Yesterday night me and my roommate (who is also on the same diet) have ordered two bottles of food flavouring, just to experiment. It's a concentrated flavouring, so if anybody knows whether that can harm my Joylent batch, please let me know! I ordered the melon taste, he ordered vanilla butter.

After drinking it

This time, with the new ratio, it was easier to get down. I drank my first pitcher relatively easily in an hour or so. That was breakfast, lunch was the same and diner went down even a little bit quicker (note: I had more hunger).
The grittiness was a little less but still present, which I'm trying to get less even more by letting the Joylent sit for the entire night (refrigerated, don't worry). I also ate a couple Mentos fruit dragees, but I don't think that effects it that much.

How my body reacts to it

The bowel movement calmed down a bit (it kinda felt normal now), so I think that's a good thing. It might also have to do something with it being less heavy. The farts remained the same, unfortunately.
I pooped three times today, which is normal for me. It was a bit less, though, but I think the real difference will come tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

I'm really excited to try out the Joylent with the food flavouring, which should arrive tomorrow. I ordered it on some Dutch pie store website, and it costed around €1,75 (excl. shipping).

I'll keep you posted, most likely at the end of day 3! Any questions and/or comments are greatly appreciated and I will try to answer them all as soon as possible.

Greetings,

Tom




Joylent day 1

On this blog page I will now and then share my experience of living on Joylent! Underneath you can find my experience after my first day on Joylent. You can find me on reddit too!
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Hello /r/Soylent[1] ! Underneath here I will write down my experience after my first day of drinking solely Soylent. I hope I contribute like this, since every experience differs from the other.
So today the box arrived. It's not the original Soylent from the US, instead, I ordered a spin-off called 'Joylent', made by a Dutch guy that wants to spread it outside the US. His recipe is quite alike the original Soylent recipe and can be found here[2] .
The Joylent came in a box with 10 bags and a shake-bottle. Each bag should have enough nutrients to survive the day, so the box should last you for 10 days, in theory. I'll get back at that later in my 'blog'.
I prepared the first batch according to the instructions that Joey (the guy who makes the spin-off) included. It said that I had to put in a third of the bag and fill the bottle with water afterwards (the bottle is 600ml). After that I had to add the oil (about half a tablespoon I think). I shook it for about 2 minutes and put it in the fridge for 10 minutes. The instructions didn't say anything on letting it sit but I picked that up from a video somewhere.
The Joylent was completely dissolved in a smooth liquid. Its thickness was in between milk and yoghurt. I was satisfied with the state of Joylent so I tried it.
Taste and sent
The sent kind of reminded me of cookie dough or pancake batter. Joey told in his blog that he added a little bit of banana taste, but I couldn't recognize any banana. The taste was kind of how it smelled, however a little bit more dull and musty (in a healthy way, just a little... musty). The texture was grainy, like mud with very smooth sand. I don't like the texture because it stays in your mouth after drinking, leaving the taste behind (which isn't to great either, in my opinion). I hope mixing it with more water, making it thinner, might solve that issue. For now I'll just flush my mouth with a bit of water after drinking my Joylent.
I also ordered a bottle of food flavouring to try and enhance the taste. If it doesn't work then I'll just hope to get used to the taste.
After drinking it
I noticed I got filled up extremely quickly. After about half a glas (+/- 150ml), I was full. Like I would feel after dinner. That sort of worried me, because I thought I'd get no way near 2400kcal a day. Luckily, the need of consuming got up much quicker than after normal dinner. About 90 minutes later, I took another 3-4 gulps. It seems that I take Joylent around 5-8 times a day. Still, I couldn't finish the entire bag of Joylent. In fact: I only got down half(!) the bag. I'm around 1.75m, male, 19 years old and I weigh around 60kg. I look rather skinny and my diet before Joylent was rather unhealthy (I used to skip breakfast most of the time and my dinner was pizza half the time). I think that my stomach doesn't accept so much nutrients (as in: +/- 2400 healthy kcals). I hope this changes in the future, but I recon it'll take a while.
How my body reacts to it
The first thing I noticed: farts. I farted way more than normally this evening. I suppose it has something to do with the change of diet. The only explanation I can think of would be the increased intake of proteins. My friend, who's a no-pain-no-gain kind of guy, told me he farted a lot more since he started drinking protein shakes.
My peeing stayed normal and the pooping will come tomorrow, I think. The urge to snack kind of disappeared. My smoking habit remained the same (sadly...).
I think this is all I can tell you guys after my first day of Joylent. If this post is appreciated, I will post further updates. Let me know what I could improve on my Joylent batches etc, I am fairly new to the entire thing!
Cheers,
Tom, Netherlands.
Edit: stuck with the name Joylent, thanks /u/_ilovetofu_[3] !
Edit 2: This is the box [4] (it came with a pitcher, but I took it out of the box before the photo was made.)it came in! Nothing special. He packed it all in big zipper-bags. My fridge [5] kinda looks suspicious...