Shake It Up.. OOooo, Shake It Up

I can't lie.. every time I make breakfast or lunch these days, I've got The Cars song, "Shake It Up" in my head. Maybe you have it in your head now too.

I've been following the nutritionists advice pretty strictly, which included in adding a meal replacement shake to my daily intake. As I mentioned before, I need more protein. I didn't really have the patience to investigate every protein shake out there. I would have been overwhelmed my grams and percentages of this and that. No thanks. I asked her to recommend me where to start, one of the things that was on her desk, but NOT on the list she gave me, was GNC's Total Lean Shakes. I headed to the store to check them out, and if I didn't have the name of the product to look for, I would have run out of the store in 5 minutes. I was skeptical of the berry flavors as they tend to taste the most fake to me. So what I ended up with was Rich Chocolate, Peanut Butter Chocolate, and Peppermint Mocha. The thing that is disappointing, the one flavor I like the most is the peppermint, and it's seasonal (it's also only half of what the plastic containers are in serving size). My thought is that I will go back to stock up on them. Leaving GNC, I also ended up with their fancy gold card, which entitles me to 20% off of everything during the first week of every month. With the seasonal flavors, if you buy two of them, you are get a free... BLENDER BOTTLE. I'll no doubt have a million of these things by the time I'm through with all of this. I will say, besides driving me bananas when this damn thing is rattling around in the bottle, it is helpful to get all of the protein shakes mixed up.



There are some definite pros and cons to the whole shake thing.

Pros: 
- They satisfy me more than I expected
- They do not require a lot of thought. One of these things (the bottle and the 2 scoops of powder) and a piece of fruit will make for an easy "on the go" thing.
- The expense isn't all that great when you compare it to buying groceries for breakfast and lunch

Cons:
- If you are picky about weird flavors, you may find them limiting. I'm going to squirrel the peppermint mochas and hope that the next seasonal flavors are appealing. Besides the peppermint they also had orange creamsicle and pumpkin spice.
- If you have no convenient way to bring milk (of which you should really only be using 1% or skim) with you, water will do, but it will taste a little... "eh".
- The same thing over and over is BORING. I'm about 4 days in (or 8 shakes) and I usually pair it with a side of fruit. I like veggies more than I like fruit, so it's usually apples, bananas, grapes, or blueberries. Since I'm really only using 3 of the flavors (one of which is not my favorite) you can see where it's a little limiting.

I've been trying to keep the mantra "it's only for 3 months" going in my head until I can work out the 10% body weight loss and then get to surgery. I've been walking a lot more in addition to my swimming and biking to try and step this part up as quickly as I can. I can't lie, this is pretty hard work. Monday is what Tufts is calling "immersion day". I hope to see some progress.

Anyone out there find products you're liking?

Next time: The life and times of an Urban Farmer.