Today was Day 18 for my test of Mountain House food packets as emergency food, The Thirty Day SHTF Test Diet. Lots of preppers recommend storing food for a disaster; this series tests it out. As detailed earlier, this diet has turned into a weight-loss diet too.
The upside-down sleep-wake schedule I've been going through is diminishing, like a sickness does. Perhaps it was the February blahs, and sunny weather has done its part. It could also be the exigencies of the diet: today was better than yesterday except for what the scale shows. Or perhaps, it's anticipation about going to the Blockchain & Quantum Computing Meetup this evening. Hard to tell causation, but doing something new correlates with perking up.
Today's Meals
The breakfast was the Granola with Blueberries and Milk:
This particular packet, I got a bit unlucky. I stirred the half cup of cold water in as per usual:
but the blueberries for this one were a little crunchy and there was more excess fluid than usual. This was the first time that the berries were crunchy instead of soft, so it looks like a luck-of-the-draw matter. It was still edible. I might have stirred it sloppily.
The dinner was Turkey Tetrazzini:
As with the others, this one took two cups of boiling water and less than ten minutes of waiting time. As per the luck of the draw, it took some digging to get the oxygen absorber packet out. Leaving it in doesn't affect the meal, but does make you stop and deposit a wet packet into the nearby garbage.
The water thickened into sauce when the wait was over:
More luck of the draw: the turkey parts, though generous, had a few tough ones. Other than that, and a wee bit of gristle, it was a good-tasting meal: same quality as a well-prepared frozen dinner.
The Nutrition Facts boxes, with the granola on the left and turkey dinner on the right, show:
the calories for this day's meals was on the low side but the vitamin C was not. It was one of those unusual days when the sodium total came in at below the daily recommendation :)
Speaking of vitamins, I haven't noticed any sign of vitamin deficiency unless my graveyard-shift jag is a symptom. The deficits in calories and certain nutrients do make these packets "Emergency Food," but they seem to have enough to get a person by, at least for two-and-a-half weeks and probably for the full month.
As indicated above, my weight did bounce up:
but it bounced from a number that was unusually low. Even with today's bounce-up, I've lost about one pound per day: that's a rate which is too fast to be true. Just as with a cryptocurrency pump, it's wise to treat a quick leap (in weight, a rapid drop) as too good to last.
Effects, So Far:
Maybe there is something to the no-pain-no-gain process. I'm on the way to getting back to a normal routine, there's nothing to grumble about - and my weight rose. Since I've already racked up a respectable loss, the gain in mood is worth the step-back in weight.
This tradeoff might be true of dieting in general. If so, plateauing or reversal does have its upside - especially if you step back and think of how you've done over the entire course of the diet.
Conclusion
The quality of the food dipped a bit today, but it was still good to eat; given that the food is normally good-tasting and well-prepared, I chalk the foregoing up to outliers. Not that big a deal, just worth noting. My mood and weight rebounded, a correlation that's popped up vice-versa. There's a chance that I may stay stuck at this weight for a few days; when stuck in that leveling, it helps to remember the overall gains.
As I said above, I posted this entry early because I'm off to the Blockchain & Quantum Computing Meetup. I hope to post about what I saw and heard there.
Thanks for reading.
And feel free to comment below!
Day 0
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
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Day 15
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Day 17
Day 18
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Day 20
Day 21
Day 22
Day 23
Day 24