Week Two of the 6WC - Shakes & Pains

Hmph. The weigh-in today puts me pretty much exactly where I was this time last week. My weight snuck up a bit in the first couple of days and managed to get down to a 0.5kg loss by Friday, but now we're back to the status quo. So the only theory that makes any sense is that my calories are too high or my metabolism has taken a hit. So the plan for this week is to drop my average calories down another 300kcal per day, and see how I go...

Edit: I should counter-point the negative with this - I have observed an increased jiggliness around my flabbier areas (including breasts, boo) which usually suggests the fat is being burnt and the scales are soon to show a drop too... I could also have possibly gained some muscle - my thighs feel a bit springier, and I find myself bouncing up our hall steps where once I used to trudge... Energy, or muscle growth, or both? Who knows! So even though the scales haven't really shifted this week, I am happy, and am feeling light and buoyant :)

So the plan calls for another week of shakes, but I have hit upon a snag - my new protein powder, a self-mix of protein, leucine and vanilla, doesn't seem to be going down well. Today I sampled the mix on its own, and it is nasty! I added some cacao to see if that would help, but it remained nauseating until I added a tiny bit of stevia. I I slurped down the final product as breakfast, but shortly thereafter felt less that healthy. Nothing major, just some mild nausea, a sensation that accompanied me on and off throughout the rest of the day. I had packaged up another serving for lunch, and I drank it like a good girl, mainly to avoid hunger pangs. Instead I was greeted with further digestive clangs. Hm. From what I can see, the likely cause could be that most protein pre-mixes include digestive enzymes to assist in the uptake of protein, and I bet they do a swell job of preventing the ill-effects I have experienced today. My response is two-pronged:

1. To take some of Mark Sisson's Damage Control Master Formula with each shake, as it contains a "digestive enzyme blend" and may help to zero in on what my reaction is caused by; and,

2. To buy another canister of Natural Factors Whey Protein so I can splice my plain powder with it and see if I can get away with that. It will halve the carbs while boosting the protein and leucine, but it will take time to get here... I have sent off an order to iHerb.com for the same French Vanilla flavour as last time, as well as a canister of an Egg Protein - carb-free and apparently tasty, so it will be good for the future if I want to keep protein shakes in my repertoire, at least til the end of this experiment! Of course, I cannot splice whey and egg (or maybe I can?) so I'll be going back to whey first to help use up this Professional Whey - there's 5kg to get through, and I would like it to be what I pass on to Mum so I need to find a way for her to find it palatable as well.

I also need to check that the nausea isn't caused by my new pain modifier, which needs to be taken with food, so tomorrow I'll eat a little solid breakfast with my shake to see how that affects things. This side-effect, should it be caused by the drug, should subside by itself in a matter of days. However, given the strong chemical after-taste and tongue weirdness I'm experiencing, I think it might be more than a little pill...

Tomorrow, I'll be running on Plan #1, aiming for low-cal and low-carb. If I experience any more nausea, I may have to skip ahead to a meat week until my new powder arrives.

As hardly needs stating, I couldn't face my third shake of the day, so I ate a brie omelette (that's the last of the organic brie) as afternoon tea, and then wasn't hungry for dinner, so left it at that. And thus begins the new season of dining in the sunlight on the back porch...


Ah, Spring...