The Thirty Day SHTF Test Diet: Day 13

Today was Day 13 for my test of Mountain House food packets as emergency food, The Thirty Day SHTF Test Diet. Lots of preppers recommend storing food for a disaster; this series tests it out. As detailed earlier, this diet has turned into a weight-loss diet too.

As I anticipated yesterday, today was a tough day. In my experience, the second day of starting or resuming a diet is tougher than the first day: the carry-over from fulsome eating disappears. Most of the day I was hungry, at times I was frustrated, but there have been no health effects or anything resembling a symptom.

Today's Meals

Today's breakfast was the Scrambled Eggs with Ham and Peppers:

After a cup of boiling water, the usual rounds of stirring and waiting less than 10 minutes, it was ready to eat:

I waited a little longer for this one to cool down and reconstitute. Interestingly, this meant less "egg soup" fluid left over. The days I had more fluid left over were evidently days that I didn't wait long enough.

As for taste, it did taste like the real thing. The pepper chunks were small, but the ham chunks were large.

The dinner was Chicken Teriyaki with Rice:

As with all the dinners, two cups of boiling water, stirring a couple of times and waiting less than ten minutes yielded the meal:

I have to say, Mountain House doesn't skip on the meat. As with the ham chunks, the chicken chunks were large. The sauce was thick; the vegetables tasted like they came out of a can. There were even some cooked snow-pea-pod pieces inside.

The Nutrition Facts labels for each, with the breakfast on the left:

do show that the Scrambled Eggs and Ham has a lot of sodium. Both meals combined were well above the daily allowance. The one on the right, for the dinner, has values per half pouch; you have to double them for the full pack.

Effects, So Far:

Well, I did know it was coming. In my experience as a dieter, things get tough on the second day of starting or resuming a diet. That's what happened today. I was hit with hunger off and on for most of the day, and there were times when I felt a diffuse frustration. I'm sure that lots of dieters have experienced the same thing: the first day isn't that hard, but the second day is difficult. It's a kind of hazing for the dieter.

I had a wee bit of reassurance on the weight front:

the scale showed that yesterday's rebound largely vanished.

Conclusion For Day 13

It would be hand-waving to say that the number 13 lived up to its infamy, but today was not an easy day. Not easy, but not unexpected. There are days in every diet that are trying; it comes with the effort needed to cut back the flab. It's days like this that test a dieter's grit. If you've been there, you know what I'm going through - and vice versa.

Thanks for reading.

And feel free to comment below!

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Day 13
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