Grocery-store consumer musings

My overall status has been 95% fatigue with a side of epic drag-ass this past week. This brief anecdotal--yet extremely vivid--experience has led me to conclude that the people who have told me a low-carb diet gives you more energy are on crack. (True story: I have a little bag in my purse that says "I Heart Carbs". I guess I will have to gift it to someone else now, eh?) I have just plodded along through the days trying not to chew off my own hand, which may well have happened if there had been Hershey's syrup on it.

I made a massive solo Costco trip yesterday--I needed boneless, skinless salmon fillets and string cheese. (String cheese has virtually zero carbs, but I am wondering how many pieces of it I can eat a day before my digestive tract goes on strike.) Costco had huge cans (3 pounds, I believe) of whey protein isolate, and when I went up and down their vitamin aisles, I was amazed at the number of liquid supplements they carried for every imaginable thing. (Many of them were full of sugar, though.) I invested in a case of the Zipfizz powdered tubes--the flavors are orange soda, citrus and pink lemonade. I can't say I'm wild about the taste, but I put in a couple of Splenda packets and doubled the water and they taste just okay. I'm going to tinker with them a bit more because they still taste a tad medicinal to me. (Mr. Salted was more blunt--he said they reminded him of a laxative he had to take when he had a kidney stone procedure, so they are forever verboten in his book. I have several friends who love them, however.) I managed to get out of Costco without any new books, movies, or music, but I did find a wonderful soft blankie--I am a sucker for a wonderful soft blankie, and this one was even a pretty lavender color--and an office organizer, because hope springs eternal.

This morning, I made another grocery-store trip with Mr. Salted at my side, narrating why I was buying This and Not That. Soy Slender soy milk has been my faux dairy product of choice, only having a couple grams of net carbs, very low sugar, and I have been able to find it at Fred Meyer and Albertson's in chocolate, vanilla and cappuccino flavors. I am going to try mixing some of the protein powders with it. I also got a bottle of sugar-free caramel syrup--the type they make espresso-stand drinks with--so that I could throw that in to make some of these concoctions more palatable. I didn't bother with chocolate or vanilla sugar-free syrup since every meal-replacement shake seems to be chocolate or vanilla.

My nutrition folks recommend the Bariatric Advantage meal replacement powders and they are okay, but so far they haven't thrilled me too much. The vanilla, in particular, tasted extremely chalky to me. The chocolate is pretty good, and the strawberry is just meh. I'm going to try mixing them with some other things to see if they are more tolerable. They also have a chocolate mint and, I believe, a banana flavor. They also have the full range of vitamins and supplements.

I stocked up on sugar-free Jell-O, always a crowd-pleaser for me--it may have little to no nutritional value, but it is sweet and makes me feel more full and that is all right by me! Jell-O has always been a comfort food for me for some reason, especially when I am feeling sick and/or in the summer.

I also found some drinks in the same area with the Red Bull and the Starbucks Frappuccino (I really miss the latter, BTW) called Fuze Slenderize. They are fruit drinks that come in a number of flavors such as strawberry melon, one of which which I happen to be drinking as we speak--2 g carb and 1 sugar, and various vitamin boosts--this one has the full RDA of vitamin C as well as Chromium, Super Citrimax and the amino acid L-Carnitine. There is no protein whatsoever in these--I pretty much bought them for some variety because they were on sale. (When not on sale, they are spendy!) I like them because they taste like actual juice. (This woman cannot live on water and Crystal Light alone.) I noticed that I had to be careful to get the Slenderize variety because the same brand has some regular ones as well with tons of sugar, as fruit juice tends to have, and the labels are not all that different unless you look for the word "slenderize". Diet V-8 Splash is good, too. Yum! I also bought a little $8.99 food processor with a 1-1/2 cup capacity. I want to see if I use it before I invest in a big one.