This is the beginning

I was introduced to the modernized concept of Soylent as a food replacement by this lovely article from The Verve: Soylent Survivor. If you have the time, read what Chris Ziegler has to say about the amusingly, tongue-in-cheek product called Soylent (it's not people!) that was engineered by Rob Rhinehart.

This is not another Muscle Milk or a casual protein shake sort of drink; Soylent is designed to provide all the minerals, vitamins, calories, etc. that a body needs in order to function. There are loads of experiments that folks have already done with both the commercial Soylent (made popular by its wildly successful Campaign.Soylent.Me that was fully funded in under 2 hours) as well as the also popular DIY Forum available on the Soylent.me website. Even Stephen Colbert gave in and tried some!

With some data in-hand, I placed my first official month-supply order with Soylent (on July 21st)... and then found out about the waiting period. My order confirmation said that new orders would take 10-12 weeks to ship but the website now states 4-5 months until shipment. Many excited potential users have filled the forums with gradually increasing irritation regarding the delay in production and shipping. There are reasons for these delays (ingredient adjustments, production relocation, etc.) but the buyers only care about when they can stop dealing with the hassle of food and start feeling healthier. I understand this- that's why the DIY forum is so popular! Using their recipes and ingredient breakdown information, I was no longer able to quench my desire to try a test of my own.

If there are already human guinea pigs testing this magical powdery food, why am I doing an experiment? Well, aside from waiting for my shipment, I noticed that many of the blogs and articles I found from journals with access to early Soylent batches only used Soylent for a matter of weeks; even the viral Rob Rhinehart post about the stuff only details about half a year's worth of usage. Also, most of said postings were done by men and many of those men were also interested in maintaining or increasing their weight. I am interested in losing weight (at first), maintaining a healthier body, and eliminating the hassle of prepping food constantly- in a very long-term fashion. Taking inspiration from Tim Ferriss' 2-week attempt and documentation of commercial Soylent, I intend to document my process carefully with physiological tests, pictures, and introspective monitoring and provide as much longitudinal data as possible.

Using the handy forum calculator, anyone can figure out what numbers they should aim for. Dig through the Recipes page and you'll see all types that are designed for different needs. I'm not a male bodybuilder, so I tend to seek out the under 1500 calorie recipes designed for women. For new users, look at recipes that are 100% complete- meaning that the nutrients fulfill 100% of the daily recommended intake (DRI) for the profile type that it was created for. You can also make copies of these recipes and tinker with the ingredients and amounts until they match your requirements.

For my test, I based my ingredients on the Chocolate Silk recipe (even though I'm not overfond of chocolate). As I am insulin-resistant (borderline diabetic/my body doesn't process simple sugars well) and I have lactose intolerant tendencies, I altered two of the ingredients. Brown sugar was swapped for the Splenda Brown Sugar Blend to reduce blood sugar issues and the Whey Protein is now the lactose-free Whey Isolate. Isolate tends to be more expensive but will save myself (and my husband if he tries it) from any unpleasant gastronomic distress.

Here's my public recipe: Lactose Friendly- but keep in mind that the costs and purchase websites are not accurate as these ingredients were added to the forum by someone else. I'll be providing information on my recipe, ingredient purchases, total costs, daily costs, testing measures spreadsheet, and results as I continue this process.

Initial Basics: Female, 29 years old, 6'0" tall, 275 lbs, with a sedentary lifestyle.
DRI of calories: 2200.
DIY Soylent calories: 1375 (lowered to reduce sugar intake and to permit the consumption of iced tea with Splenda, coffee with sugar-free creamer and splenda, sugar-free Redbull, and optional Fiber One bars).