Weight Loss, Product Reviews, Personal Reflections

Flatout ProteinUp CarbDown Wraps

August 31, 2018 By Allen Leave a Comment

These. Things. RULE.

I love wraps; like I really love wraps. These things are available in a number of flavours, and are bloody fantastic. The texture is slightly spongier than a normal flour wrap; but, at 120 calories per wrap and a choice of flavours, I’m not going to complain!

I’ve seen people use them as a form of pizza base, and I’m sure it can be made to work, but I find liquids drip through far too easily. Perhaps I just make my flatbread pizzas far too soggy. They make for damned fine wraps, though.

The sponginess I mentioned above has a negative side effect; the wraps have a much higher tendency to rip than typical tortillas. This is even more pronounced when using wet ingredients. I’ve managed to offset this a bit by squeezing out juices from ingredients like pickles and hot peppers, but it’s still an issue. Definitely an issue you can work around; just don’t expect to be able to wrap things up tightly like with a regular tortilla!

Mutant ISO Surge – Vanilla Ice Cream

August 4, 2018 By Allen Leave a Comment

I needed some more protein isolate shake mix, so I bought a 5LB bottle (bucket? barrel?) of Mutant ISO Surge / Vanilla Ice Cream. It’s really, really, really sweet. Okay, okay, so, I should have expected something named “Vanilla Ice Cream” would taste ridiculously sweet and creamy. Still, my only experience thus far with protein shakes has been mild to moderately flavoured (but generally quite bland and inoffensive) mixtures.

It’s taken me a week to get used to the absolute blast of flavour this stuff provides; I swear I mix it with 1.5-2x the water I’m supposed to, and I’m still feeling overwhelmed by the flavour/sweetness of it. I don’t know how people drink it mixed normally.

On the plus side, it mixes very well (even without a shaker cup) and the flavour – albeit several times more potent than necessary – is actually quite good. I could see some really excellent dessert recipes coming out of this product. I’m pretty terrified to try the other flavours, though; I don’t know if I could handle the level of sweetness I would imagine the Birthday Cake flavour would have.

All in all, it’s a good protein shake. It mixes with very little effort (comparatively) and it doesn’t taste bad. It’s just a heck of a lot sweeter than I expected, which is probably more of a comment on my crappy expectations than on the product itself.

Three Weeks In

July 11, 2018 By Allen Leave a Comment

Three weeks of “clean eating” as some would say; three weeks without added sugars or what I would have considered normal portions. Three weeks without butter or olive oil!

And what do I have to show for three weeks of effort? 28lbs lost! That’s 16% of the way to my goal. Things will, of course, slow down as I get closer – but it’s a hell of a start. No complaints whatsoever.

I’ve had a rough go trying to integrate cardio every day as I’ve had a horrible summer cold for the last week and a bit, but I’m getting better now and am upping my walking intensity. I also found and dusted off some of my old weights in the basement and will be integrating those into my workouts starting today.

28lbs in 3 weeks… Let’s see what I can do in 10.

Onwards!