Nik's Hunger Games - Day Four

I may sound like a broken record but so what...I AM SO GLAD THIS IS OVER TOMORROW!!!

But I am also SO glad I did it.

Here's yesterday's report. Tonight I will go through some of the things I have learned about my long-term post-op eating from doing this challenge. I've gained a lot of insight.

Also, I wanted to share a neat game I found. It gives you a glimpse of the tough choices you have to make when you are one of America's urban poor. Check it out. After you've played post what day you made it to. I suck. I only made it 8 days. Boo.

Nik's Hunger Games - Day Three

Obligatory disclaimer: This week, in an attempt to get a glimpse of the day-to-day lives of the world's poorest people, I have committed to setting my food budget for five consecutive days at $1.50 a day. I am four years post-op and have sufficient body fat to do this. I consulted my physician who, while not totally thrilled, is supportive. Do not try something like this without first consulting your medical team and DO NOT TRY THIS IF YOU ARE LESS THAN A YEAR POST-OP. K?


I won't bore you with the details of my plan today. It's basically just shuffling around the stuff I've already been eating. I did manage to work a 1/2 c. of chickpeas into my dinner plan which will help boost my calories.

Here's my Day Two report:




Yes, I do look a hot mess...thank you for noticing :)

Is it wrong that I am ECSTATIC to see the end of this in sight? I mean I have learned a lot, not the least of which being that I love food! I love cooking it and I love eating it! I don't find any shame in that.

I have a Foodie recipe submission that I was supposed to post eons ago lined up for this evening, so keep a lookout for that and of course I'll report on day three tomorrow!

Nik's Hunger Games - Day Two

Obligatory disclaimer: This week, in an attempt to get a glimpse of the day-to-day lives of the world's poorest people, I have committed to setting my food budget for five consecutive days at $1.50 a day. I am four years post-op and have sufficient body fat to do this. I consulted my physician who, while not totally thrilled, is supportive. Do not try something like this without first consulting your medical team and DO NOT TRY THIS IF YOU ARE LESS THAN A YEAR POST-OP. K?

Look at my face in the screenshot of this video of my day one report. That is pertinent. Calories mean something! They are not evil nemeses waiting to convert into fat and make you miserable. They are units of energy that keep you going! 

After just one day of my eating challenge I am FEELING the effects of a reduced caloric intake. For newbies this is not unlike when you first had surgery and felt like a walking corpse. It takes your body a little while to get the memo that you need to burn fat for energy because of a lack of calories. I await that glorious realization because being tired is SO not my style!

Today's plan is a bit more forgiving though. I sat at my dining room table last night (fighting the urge to go into the kitchen and raid the fridge cuz...after all...I live alone for the summer...nobody would know...but I did not do it! I'm proud of myself!) and figured out a way to have three meals today. They aren't very exciting and not very different from yesterday, but here goes:

Breakfast: 1/2 c. curried lentils (.225 cents) + 1 egg made as an egg pancake (sort of like how I make it for my "eggchilada") (20 cents) =  42 cents 

Lunch: 1 c. curried lentils (with the modifications I discussed yesterday) + 1/2 c. cauliflower rice (70 cents)

Dinner: same as breakfast EXCEPT with 1/3 c. curried lentils instead of 1/2 (35 cents)

Total tally: $1.47

You all don't know how giddy I am about getting THREE meals. Eating breakfast made a real difference.

All this comes to a whopping (wait for it...395 calories and 31g of protein!!!). Two things:

• I can't stress this enough. I am NOT doing this for weight loss but to experience the plight of the world's most poor. Weight loss is not a goal of this exercise. If I should happen to lose any weight I am sure I'll promptly gain it back at the meal I plan to have on Saturday, which is the ONLY thing keeping me sane right now. :)
• Having said all that, I am sorta impressed that I managed to get that much protein in. But in the same token I feel sad that people in developing countries often don't have the choices I do. In Africa, a drought rages in both the east and the west. People there live on crops they grow. No rain = no crops. So no lentils for them. It's a sobering thought and one that keeps me from complaining about my lentils!

Anyhoo...later on we're going to take a break from this crazy experiment with another installment of "I'm a Bariatric Foodie and..." Won't that be fun?

Nik's Hunger Games - Day ONE

Not the most beautiful pic in the world, but it was honest!

Obligatory disclaimer: This week, in an attempt to get a glimpse of the day-to-day lives of the world's poorest people, I have committed to setting my food budget for five consecutive days at $1.50 a day. I am four years post-op and have sufficient body fat to do this. I consulted my physician who, while not totally thrilled, is supportive. Do not try something like this without first consulting your medical team and DO NOT TRY THIS IF YOU ARE LESS THAN A YEAR POST-OP. K?


Let's do this shall we?

As one might expect (or maybe not if you are like me and never even thought about this stuff before), a daily food budget of $1.50 does not afford the opportunity for a great many meals. Especially if you want those meals to be even remotely healthy.

I tried every which-a-way I could to get three meals into my day. It didn't work. Had to ditch one meal and decided it would be breakfast. I am terribly inconsistent with breakfast, sometimes not even eating it until about 11 a.m., so I figured of all meals that'd be the easiest. Still there are just two modest meals on my plan today:

• Curried lentils with cauliflower rice (pictured). Cost: 70 cents per serving the way I made it (more on that below.
• Two eggs w/ some sauteed onions (not sure of the preparation yet). Cost: 54 cents.
• Two drink sticks for my water. Cost: 20 cents

This brought me to a total of $1.44 for the day. With my spare six cents I intend to put salt and pepper on my food! 

A few notes:

• I originally had three eggs in my dinner but then I realized I forgot about water flavorings. I don't tolerate plain water well even to this day so I decided to invest in two drink sticks to ensure I get at least 40 oz. of water today so at least I would not be hungry AND dehydrated. 
• Some of my friends on Facebook offered to feed me during these days. While I love you for that (and I do!) the point of this exercise is to experience something of the trials of the truly, extremely poor. They don't have the option to go to a friend's house to have a generously prepared dinner so neither do I. But remember me on Saturday when this whole thing is over, k?
• So as I said I made my curried lentils with a few modifications. I did not use broth but instead 1/2 of my onion (see this video for the size of the onion!) with a clove of minced garlic and salt and pepper for seasoning base. I also skipped the peanut flour (so I made regular curry, not peanut curry). I served myself one cup of that over 1/2 c. of cauliflower rice.

Dinner is at six. I anticipate I'll be chomping at the bits by then. Stay tuned this evening for a short video about my day one impressions and remember that I am Facebooking and Tweeting my experience (look up the hashtag #HungryNik for tweets specifically relating to this exercise).

Oh! I forgot something. My caloric tally for the day is about 420 calories, 32g protein. I'm going to do some research tonight on how a prolonged diet of these stats might affect the human body and will report back in my video, so stay tuned!

Nik's Hunger Games

So if you don't have the 10 minutes to spare to watch this video of me explaining why I am living on $1.50 of food per day for five days here is the shortened version.

The organization where I work (yes, I do have a day job) is looking to create an experience where folks can experience the day-to-day realities of people living in extreme poverty. I am helping to develop this experience and have been researching it. Many websites do this by calling you to live as a person who is living in extreme poverty lives and one way to do that is to eat on the budget equivalent to the poverty line.

So...that's what I am doing. The U.S. equivalent of what a person in a developing nation would experience as the poverty line is $1.50. That's how much a day for the next five days I get on food. I tried to stay true to the experience of a person living in poverty so, I:

• Tried to factor in all costs of food, including the transportation cost of procuring it
• Factored in any additional things we may not think of as having costs, but do (spices, garlic, etc.)
• Already made some tough (for ME) choices related to what I could have for $7.50/day

If you want to see what I ended up with in my grocery bag, watch the video!!! (For those who've endured my videos before, you know this one is an exercise in downright brevity for me.)

I'll report in each day of this experiment, either by video or just as a blog post. Also look out for status updates to the Bariatric Foodie Facebook page and Twitter feed (for updates specifically related to THIS challenge, use hashtag #HungryNik).

Wish me good luck, Foodies!