Today was Day 26 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.
With four days to go, I half-managed to turn my routine into something more normal. Instead of split-shift sleeps, I'm night-owling and trying to end that by waking up earlier in the morning. The week-long weight plateau broke, suggesting that it was some kind of fluid retention that kept my weight stable. The food was good, no health concerns or symptoms related to hunger, and my energy is increasing a wee bit.
Today's Meals
In the wee hours of the morning, I once again frontloaded a breakfast to help get me to sleep. This day's was the Granola with Blueberries and Milk:
After half a cup of cold water and thorough stirring, it reconstituted:
but I've learned to let it sit for a few minutes to let the water soak in some more: doing so makes the berries soft.
The dinner was that old standard, the Macaroni and Cheese:
the old high-sodium favorite. :) Two cups of boiled water, stirrings, rinsing the cheese sauce of the spoon, and less than ten minutes' wait, and it was ready to go:
It tasted like the standard mac and cheese, including the saltiness. Of note is the fact that I had to shake the packet twice to cut along the suggested line because my scissors bumped into noodles. The Macaroni and Cheese is the most voluminous packet of them all.
It's also one of the most caloric, relatively speaking. As the Nutrition Facts boxes show:
the mac and cheese - it's the box on the right - clocks in at 480 calories per half-pouch; the whole thing is 960. Combined with the granola's 520, the total between the two is almost 1,500. The only noticeable deficiency in all the values is vitamin C: the granola has only 8% of recommended daily and the mac-and-cheese has none.
As said above, the plateau that lasted a whole week had broken:
Not by much, but it is broken. This puts a question mark on my recent opining about my body drawing down fewer calories. It could be that I've been burning some fat which has been replaced by water - fluid retention - that's had the effect of muffling what otherwise would have been (small) drops.
Effects, So Far:
Now that I'm past the three-week point, I'm relying on habit to keep me going. Even when I had to rely on willpower, it was more "grit" than exertion. As mentioned near the beginning, my energy is increasing a bit and I'm working my way out of an unusual sleep schedule. Instead of sleeping in two shifts, I'm just going to bed late.
Since I'm routinized in this late stage, there isn't much else to report.
Conclusion
Steady as she goes, more or less, with hunger pangs less frequent/noticeable than yesterday. Breaking the plateau does make my earlier speculations about my body drawing down fewer calories questionable. Live and learn.
Thanks for reading.
And feel free to comment below!
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