Protein Shakes: Her Free Soul

As part of my quest to try and be more healthy (and maybe loose weight in the process), I decided that being vegetarian reduced my protein intake. A lack of protein can effect an intake of B vitamins which help with cell metabolism. Simplistically B vitamins can help in the production of red blood cells and neurotransmitters. The benefits of having B vitamins can help with the reduction of anxiety, depression and improve energy. I have known for years I have lacked B vitamins being vegetarian and these past couple of weeks I have been tired and lethargic. I wanted to address that and thought I would introduce a protein shake into my diet.

I have and probably never will be a big breakfast fan so I figured instead of skipping breakfast I could introduce a protein shake into my diet. Similarly rather than reaching for that very tempting bag of chocolate of an evening I could instead supplement that with a protein shake. These are not intended to be a replacement meal with in my diet but more adding a meal I would rarely eat anyway and offering an alternative to an unhealthy (well at the levels I eat chocolate it is unhealthy, as I have no moderation when it comes to chocolate) snack in an evening.

I had been looking at meal replacement shakes and looking at different brands before Christmas before deciding that I did not think it was healthy for me to give up a relationship with food and replace it with shakes. Unfortunately I have not always had the best relationship with food. I am quite neophobic – I hate trying new foods and new meals. If I have it into my head that I will not like a food for possibly trying it when I was a child, to not liking the texture (for example, I could cook a load of vegetables and make a stew and eat it, but blending that into a soup…I won’t eat it). I still need to have a relationship with food and work on making it as positive as I can. So meal replacement was not an option, but adding something additional to my diet was.

I decided on trying Her Free Soul shakes. What drew me to them was the aim of their product which was to:

Help regulate female hormonal balance
Sources of vitamins, minerals and fibre
Improves energy, focus and athletic performance
Contribute to physical and mental well-being
Reduce tiredness
Improve mood and psychological function
Her Free Soul

This appealed for me so I decided to take a little more of a look around the website. They have a Whey powder which is vegetarian and a Vegan powder. I decided to take advantage of their New Year 20 percent discount code and ordered the Whey Protein Starter Pack. This pack included two bags of Whey Protein Shake, a tumbler drinks container and a bag. I would have opted for the Whey Protein Blend + Shaker or just the protein shakes on their own but with this discount it meant I wouldn’t have got free shipping with them and this allowed me to order both flavours (the Whey Powder only has two flavours, whilst the Vegan option has more).

I loved the slogan on the box the products were delivered in. My slogan now comes with bite mark customisation

Delivery was fast and I was able to get them within 48 hours.

My initial impressions of them are quite positive. I really like the taste of the vanilla one and that is my favourite of the two. The chocolate one I did not feel was very chocolatey, at first I thought this was because I added 400ml rather than the recommended 250-300ml of liquid. I followed the recommendations the second time and I still didn’t feel it was as chocolatey as I would like. Third time I added a teaspoon of Hot Chocolate powder to it, and the fourth time I added 2 teaspoons and the taste is more to my liking. It is chocolatey enough now that I consider it a treat shake and an equal replacement to giving up a bag of chocolate. For now I have only tried them with adding water (and the additional chocolate powder), but over the course of February I may experiment with adding different liquids or food items to the shakes. I might even experiment with baking with the powder. I did transfer the contents from their original packaging to a glass container so I could see how much powder I had left and I am not always the best at keeping the sealed packages closed.

I’ll check back in at the end of the month to give another review of how I feel about the shakes and whether I feel they have made an improvement to my diet.

Box was successfully upcycled into the Kitten’s playbox. Result.

Plan of Action: March

Spring is here, maybe? I don’t know. The weather of late has been pretty sad and depressing. It has definitely put my off last month’s plan of walking more. However, I am still trying to make small but permanent changes that will hopefully over this year actually become permanent.

Protein Shakes

I started this last month and I’m going to continue in March. My plan is to have 4 scoops a day.

Exercise!

Last month didn’t really go down for exercise. My aim is to do 10,000 steps a day with running and walking. I’d also like to start working on my core and strengthening it, but this month will be more trying to work it into my day rather than pushing myself. So I will look at beginners plank challenges and work up to trying to survive a minute of planking (hate planking). My plan is also to get out when the weather is nice but if it is not I will go to the gym…and push myself to actually go.

Corset/Waist training

I own a waist trainer and I briefly used to wear it when I slept. However, I have been looking into it a bit more and I read about someone who wears a waist training for Anxiety. Since I am starting a new job this month I really want to focus on trying to find techniques to help my anxiety and depression. I also think that waist training will help to target the area of my body I have self esteem issues. It’s an experiment for a month with an inexpensive waist trainer and I’ll see how it goes.

Mindfulness

As mentioned above. I am starting a new job. So I planning to take me time in the evenings to relax and rest. I’m planning to make some cooling DIY sheet masks and I have just purchased an Aromatherapy Humidifier Light. I’m going to focus on relaxing and maybe look into mediation. Also I am going to try body brushing and Gua Sha for my face take the time to do something that feels good and take the time to relax whilst doing it.

Vegan-ish

I’d like to try and look at a vegan diet. Now my protein shakes contain Whey powder so they are not vegan. I also want to eat some butter and cheese to help promote healthy hair so there will be some limits to a vegan diet right there. That being said I also want to explore more vegan proteins, more vegetables and would like to aim to have one vegan meal a day. I would also like to try to explore alternatives to bread or a least cutting down my bread consumption, which isn’t high to begin with but I find that quite often when I do not know what to eat I turn to a sandwich and bread as a quick option. I’d like to try to meal prep a little more and look at freezing more portions of healthy meal preps and looking for healthier options when I am in that ‘I don’t know what to eat’ phase.

Water

I did have a pretty revolutionary break through with water last month. I’ve found it slipping a little bit this last two days. So that slight transgression needs to be nipped in the bud because it becomes a regression back into old habits.

I’ll check back in at the end of the month to see how well my goals have been progressing.

February in Review

How cool is today? The 29th of February. This is the 9th Leap Year I have lived through and the 8th 29th of February I have seen (I wasn’t born in February 1988 to officially see it). I cannot believe we have two months of 2020 under our belts already. Where has the time gone?

I think February has been a productive month in a sense. Looking back over my goals for February I wanted to:

Do 10,000 steps a day
Introduce Protein Shakes to my diet
Not calorie count
Up my Water consumption

The 10,000 steps a day was a fail. I started off so well and pushed myself to go out…but when Storms Ciara and Dennis developed, I did not want to go out walking in the at times 80mph winds and the impressive rains. So I did not do as many steps as I would have liked to. I think hopefully with the turning point in seasons, we are very much at the end of winter so hopefully with Spring the weather will improve to encourage outdoor activity.

I did write a first impressions of the Protein Shakes, why I choose them and I still want to post this, even though my first impressions were over a month ago now. I would like to give a more prolonged view of them. The thing that held me back was taking photos. I did introduce protein shakes to my diet and stuck to it really well until perhaps this past week. With a new month though I am going to remotivate myself to take them.

I was successful in not calorie counting. I did make some delicious meal preps that focused on putting a lot of vegetables and looking at healthier options. This past week I have slipped though so I would to jump back onto that. I have also been looking at promoting healthy hair, whilst I think the quality and condition of my hair is very good, I would like to continue looking after it. I think it is important to keep a certain amount of good oils and fats in your diet so I have been trying to eat cheese and butter regularly. I think with the addition of Protein Shakes I am going to start getting a lot more protein into my diet to help with healthy hair promotion.

Water. By far this month I am impressed with my water consumption. I posted that the Microcurrent Facial was instrumental in getting me to drink water, prue water, not mixed with squash. I have largely drank either 1,600 or 1,200ml of water everyday since the 10th February. However, for March I am thinking of dropping this down to a goal of 800ml to 1,200ml. If you are not used to drinking at lot of water or you are not sweating it out…you body in the beginning does not know what to do with all this water, particularly as it is winter – you are not losing it through sweat as much. So I find I am going to the toilet ALL the time. Well that is an exaggeration but it feels like I need to go a lot more than normal, so I am cutting down for the moment. If I find myself becoming thirsty I will drink more.

I am really impressed though. This month I am not as bloated as I have been previously and I am finding I am not conscious about my weight. My issue I have always had is my stomach. I am happy with my body apart from my stomach which I felt was were I was carrying my stomach. Whilst it is still not flat and beautiful it is not as bloated as it used to be and this makes me feel better. I think I need to look into core exercising. Something I’ve never really done before to see if I can tone my stomach. I think trying to boost a healthy diet and tone my problem area is more important than what the scales are telling me and that I need to count calories.

My Relationship With Water Has Completely Changed in 10 Days

I used to hate water and never drink it. I hated the taste. I know that may sound weird to some people. I mean water tastes of nothing right? How can you hate the taste of it? I don’t know. I think there was a little bit of a mineraly taste to it.

I live in an area which has hard water. So it makes sense that I could taste something additional in the water. Hard water contains calcium, iron, magnesium and manganese. This occurs when rain water falls into water supplies which have a bedrock with limestone and chalk deposits.

Now when I go to North Wales, where I have family. I loved the water there. The water from the tap didn’t taste as minerally and my hair felt so soft and nice when washing with the water. This is because the water is soft water which has a higher sodium content but is low in other minerals.

So as I didn’t particularly like the water taste I drink a lot of other things. My drink of choice for years has been Cola. Mostly either Coca-Cola or Pepsi. I used to drink full sugar Cola. Now thanks to the Sugar tax that was implemented in 2018. Soft drinks companies began to lower their use of sugar in drinks to avoid being charged more for sugary content. Places that served drinks such as Restaurants and Pubs also began switching to lower sugar content. I switched to Sugar Free Cola such as Pepsi Max and Coke Zero. That I did notice a transition period as I whined myself off so much sugar but I was still getting the caffeine I was addicted to.

Now I have tried to do previous New Year’s Resolutions to drink more water. These often went hand in hand with drinking no Cola. The result previously was a major sugar and caffeine withdrawal. You feel crappy. You work Cola back into your diet. Cola intake goes back to normal. Water goes out the window.

So what has changed in the last 10 days? To break this cycle. Well on the 10th of February I got a Microcurrent facial, which I have documented in this blog post. The therapist said I may be thirsty more and need to drink more water when I got home. I did need to drink more water. In fact, I drank 1,600ml which has been my water target since getting a fitbit about three years ago. I rarely, if ever reach that target.

I was thirsty from the microcurrent facial and I craved water. But rather than mixing it with sugar free squash etc. I wanted the water immediately so just drank the water. I found the water easier to drink than squash and could gulp down a glass much more quickly then I could with squash.

The next day. I woke up and was still thirsty and again I drank 1,600ml of water.

The next two days I drank 1,200ml per day.

Then I have been drinking 1,600ml of water everyday until yesterday.

Yesterday I felt a bit meh. I woke up with a headache and a sore throat. I felt crappy. Yesterday was a Wednesday. For Monday and Tuesday I had been really good with drinking protein shakes and smoothies, eating yoghurt (topped with too much Granola which is a vice of mine) and eating a lot of rice and vegetables for meals. I wanted to eat these crisps (chips for an American audience) which I am completely in love with. The problem is they don’t come in the small 30g bag we are used to in the UK. They come in the bigger share pack sizes more similar to American crisps packages. I can’t seem to say no and will eat the whole bag. So I convinced myself and rationalised that I wasn’t hungry. I wanted to eat them. I didn’t need to eat them and I promised myself on the Wednesday I could eat what I wanted.

So my Wednesday what the hell day started with a can of Cola. I hadn’t opened a can of cola on the Tuesday (I did drink cola though…I have discovered that if you open a can of cola in the evening and don’t drink much of it it still retains it’s fizz overnight and you can drink it the next day). As I wasn’t feeling great by 11:30 I reached for some comfort food. Crisps and Peanut M&Ms. Currently addicted to them. I did drink some water. 800ml…but that is half of what I have been drinking recently. I went out for dinner and the cinema. At the restaurant I ordered a cola. They didn’t have Pepsi Max so I went for full sugar, which although full sugar, it has actually reduced in sugar quite a bit following the 2018 Sugar Tax.

Last night I struggled to sleep. That’s not unusual for me and I do have medication that can break my sleep pattern a little bit. But I was also thirsty. I craved water, but I didn’t drink more than 800ml because I didn’t want to spend the whole night waking up and going to the toilet because my body does not know what to do with all this sudden influx of water.

Today. Woke up. Had my protein shake…mixed with water. Measured out my 1,600ml of water for the day and I’m sipping my way through it. I think I am finally on the drinking water bandwagon, which is a good bandwagon to be on.

I will still maintain a steady intake of Cola. I do enjoy drinking Cola. I like the taste and I do think I am addicted to the caffeine. Not drinking tea and coffee my only other source of caffeine is chocolate. However, I am hopeful that maybe finally I have a better balance with my intake of water being higher than my intake of cola.

This might actually be a New Year’s Resolution I have completed and I might finally have made a permanent change in my life. I hope so.

The Weight Loss Journey Continues

So it is the 1st of February. The start of the last month of winter, my Dad has the belief that this is the hardest month of the year, but once you push through this month you get to Spring and with it longer, brighter and warmer days that make life a little bit easier. I do feel that January is perhaps a hard month to start a new year, in the middle of winter. It is cold and trying to break old habits, particularly if they involve diets that strip away comfort foods away and encouraging you to go out to get more fresh air and exercise…when it is cold and wet is not the best way to encourage these new steps. Perhaps it is better to start them in the spring or summer when it is a more pleasant experience to be outside or to switch warm, stodgy foods in favour of salad and uncooked fruit and vegetables.

Reflecting back on January…was it a success? I didn’t gain any weight, well that’s not strictly true I did gain 0.1lb of weight. This lack of weight gain however was more due to good fortune than me directly trying to improve it. I could have been a lot worse, but equally it could have been a lot better.

So what is the plan for February? Well I’m going to challenge myself to:

10,000 steps a day. It doesn’t have to be running, although I would like to try and get running in there. Simply being outside and trying to get 10,000 steps in one or two bursts of activity a day would be good and sometimes going out for a walk in less daunting than going for a run.
Introducing shakes to my diet. Now the shakes I have chosen are NOT meal replacement shakes but shakes designed for women to introduce vitamins that are particularly lacking in a vegetarian or vegan diet. I follow a vegetarian diet and have done since I was 7. I think lacking in essential B vitamins does impact on one’s energy levels and in January I was feeling particularly tired all the time which impacted on my mood and my enthusiasm to do anything.
Zero calorie counting! This month is about trying to pick healthier options, including more fruits and vegetables into meals but realistically I am not going to restrict what I want to eat, especially not when I am feeling low and craving foods I like to eat.
Water. Lots of water and drinking more water over cola.

I’ll check back in at the end of February beginning of March to let you know what successful this month’s plan of action has been.

January in Review

So 2020 already has a month under it’s belt and it seems scary that the time has flown by so quickly!

In terms of successful keeping on New Year’s Resolutions. I think I have broken every single one already. However, it is not a failure. It is incredibly difficult to set resolutions with the aim of overhauling your life and stick to it religiously. Old habits need time to be unlearnt and new ones take time to adopt.

For me, my major stumbling block this month was depression. I suffer was Anxiety and Depression. I went back on medication at the end of November and have had a wave of side effects, heart palpitations and feeling incredibly anxious gave way to exhaustion. I have been so tired for weeks and it has been a real struggle to do anything, let alone getting on a hoodie and some trainers to go out in the wet and a cold for a run (I hate the wet anyway and hate water hitting my face).

I’ve been craving foods I like, sugary snack foods, crisps, chocolate, cola. Completely wrong to eat but they make me in the short term feel better.

My quest to read books with the aim of one every three weeks also has not happened yet. I’m halfway through one and I am not sure if that it because I’m not gelling with the characters in the book or I am not used to reading fiction.

Tomorrow, is February though, a new month. A chance to turn the page, literally in my journal’s case and have a fresh start, a new blank spread to fill in February. I’m going to get back on it and start again and try to slowly break down those old habits and work on forming new more positive ones.

Losing Weight in 2020

I think one of the most popular New Year’s Resolutions of all time has to be to lose weight and get healthy.

This is a trend I am rather new to…well the losing weight element of it at least. As a child and in my teens I always struggled to put on weight. I hated food, I hated eating and if someone had given me the option of taking a tablet that would give me all my nutritional needs overeating I would have taken it. I didn’t enjoy eating, cooking and thinking about food.

Despite this, about four years ago I made a real conscious effort to start to gain weight. Going from about six-seven stone to pushing nearly ten stone in the run-up to the end of last year. Gaining weight was relatively easy, I did calorie count, but there were no restrictions, I simply tried to eat over 2,500 calories and get as close to 3,000 calories a day.

However, now I am more conscious about my body image. I feel fat around my tummy and my clothes cling to emphasise it. I no longer feel comfortable in my skin and I want to start tackling that. I would like to eat healthier and exercise more – to feel more comfortable in my skin, to improve my mental health and to be a healthier person.

My starting weight on the 1st January from 9st 10lbs. My initial goal is to lose 10 pounds and see how I feel about my weight and how I feel about myself.

My plan for this is to:

Limit my consumption of Coca-Cola to 330ml or one can a day.
To drink a minimum of 400ml of water, but ideally closer to 1,200ml a day.
To increase my consumption of fruit and vegetables trying to consume as many 80g portions of fruit and vegetables a day.
To calorie count, using My Fitness Pal. Weighing all my food as much as possible.
Reduce eating out and takeaways.
To increase my activity. Ideally completing couch to 5k within a reasonable timeframe (hopefully within three months). To increase my running activity.
To challenge my gym attendance, combating anxiety and increasing activity.

Over the past nine days, there have been challenges. Although I had cut from full fat/sugar Coca-cola to sugar-free, I did consume a lot of sugar within my diet. Chocolate was pretty much a daily requirement in my previous diet. The 1st of January, with the optimism of a great year ahead, proved a success for the first day. This was replaced with withdrawal, a lack of caffeine, with cola being my only source of caffeine, and a dramatic reduction in sugar had left with tired, with headaches and not feeling great.

Also, I am somewhat of an obsessive. Particularly with calorie counting. I can be too in control of the numbers, weighing everything and avoiding meals because they would be difficult to quantify and put into the My Fitness Pal app.

Furthermore, there is peer pressure. Living in a house which has temptation and other people’s eating habits can be difficult. Particularly when they are suggesting takeaways or calorific meals. I have stopped calorie counting for four days and just eaten what I have wanted to eat and not restricting how much of it I want to eat. Whilst my initial plan to keep a strict diet has subsided to a more 5:2 diet, with two days being unrestricted, undocumented days of whatever I want and five days calorie-controlled attempts to stick to all the points listed above.

I weighed in on the 1st and 6th. I didn’t think this was a fair assessment of grasping how well I was doing, particularly as it was not a full week and I had my two non-diet days on the 3rd and the 4th January. However, my scales said I had lost half a pound, which is good for the short duration I have been undertaking this challenge.

I do not want to be obsessive. I want to make small and permanent changes that lead to a more positive and healthy me. I know this is not going to be an easy walk in the park but an uphill struggle which will challenge my relationship with food, drink and exercise which has never been a positive relationship. I am hoping that over the next coming months I make headway challenging myself to get out of my comfort zone, eat healthily, drink healthy and exercise.