Soylent. The Personal Uniform of Food.

I’m a personal exploration nerd. Over the past 15 years, I have jumped into a number of self promoted personal experiments. From time to time something jumps out at me and I always end up asking…”what if…?”

What if I….

…ate only vegetables?

…only slept for 3 hours a day?

…didn’t have a car?

…rode my bike 40 miles to and from work daily?

…only ate food that was given to me?

…didn’t speak on Tuesdays? (←-That one didn’t last long.)

…ran 100 miles?

…existed minimally…in a blizzard…at 4200 meters?

and so on.

Great, so what are we doing here?

Soylent states that they make “Simple, healthy, affordable food.” I’m not here to support the company or product, but I am interested in testing the idea behind the product. If you’d like, you can read more about the product Soylent at https://www.soylent.com.

For my purposes, I want to see if I can live 100% off of Soylent for 30 days beginning Sunday, April 10 2016. I’m not out to lose weight or cleanse myself (although those would be great side effects!) What I am really curious about is:

  • Will this method of eating increase my health without increasing the focus on food and eating itself?
  • Can I reach a nutritional “baseline” so that my energy level, mood and daily routine can carry on without excess attention outside of normal, circumstances such as interpersonal issues, excessively stressful periods of work and pursuit of new opportunities?

Basically-If I can systematize my work and systematize my health I should be able to give more on the things that matter most.

Why this, and why now?

Let’s start with the ‘why now?’

TL;DR — I want to reset my nutritional baseline without having to put energy into it.

Long version-

I don’t think there has been a time in my life where I have been busier or more stressed than I am in this current season. On top of that, i’ve never felt less productive. On top of that the stakes have never been higher than they are right now…but that’s a different story.

Now, my plate is as full as I let it be-and I have chosen to take on everything that I currently am accountable for. I chose to take it on because I know I can handle this load without being engulfed by the self doubt, fear, and pure, unadulterated stress that goes along with great opportunities. In the process of taking this stuff on, I lost focus on my own personal care. I care for myself mentally, when I can…but physically, it has just been fits and starts for the past 18 months. Because of my lack of focus there, I took on projects as if my energy levels were a constant. Now i’m in the middle of it all and I am seeing these places in my personal life that I can be far more effiient.

At the moment, my plate looks something like this:

  • Continue to serve and provide for my wife in a way that is worthy of even being considered sufficient for all that she does for me and our family. I can’t give her 100% of what she needs, but I’m going to do everything I can to get close to that.
  • Serve my daughters in a way that demonstrates what kind of man they deserve as they grow older. I take this incredibly seriously and the amount of effort it deserves is far in excess of any full time job. I have to make sure the hours I do have with them make up for the hours I spend away from them.
  • I’m in the middle of developing and growing two products. One is launched, one is in the final dev stages. The ‘why’ behind each makes them worth the pursuit, and thankfully they are each on self imposed schedules-and on time.
  • I save 80 hours of my month to work on side projects and volunteer work. This is separate from the products I am working on and is more along the lines of design work for non-profits, maintenance work on projects and products I already have out and small pet projects.
  • Oh, I have a normal, full-time, salaried job as well. I can’t mess that up. I like what i’m doing and the people I work with are fantastic. I want to keep working with them.

Then, there are the things I do just because it has to be done-bathing, sleeping, mowing the lawn, going fishing, having friends…you know…all that stuff.

I know I can handle it all. I know I have what it takes.

But something is not quite right.

I don’t feel the same as I did a few years ago.

As life has unfolded the past few years, my nutritional value has slowly slipped. That can be an essay in itself, but you know…time and place.

Basically-I want to reset my nutritional baseline without having to put energy into it.

So how is this going to work

I’m going to be eating 2000 calories worth of pre=measured, pre-balanced nutrition for the next 30 days. I’m choosing Soylent because it is cheap, balanced, and robust.

I’ll be exercising four days per week and tracking weight, mood, thought clarity and output.

That’s it. I’ll be keeping a daily journal and posting that up weekly.

I think this is going to be really fun-stay tuned.