Cambridge - Day One

Yesterday afternoon, while I was gone on an outing, the Big Brown Truck made an appearance at my house and left behind a box. The box contained my first shipment of Cambridge Diet, which I'd been both anticipating and dreading.

I'd ordered the 30-day starter package. It contained six cans of their food replacements, a shaker, instruction books, a tape measure, an introductory audio CD, and some samples of their drink mix and nutrition bars. I'd ordered oats, vanilla, chocolate, cappuccino and two cans of strawberry. For some reason, I ended up with no cappuccino and three strawberry, which probably will be fine, since I'm not a big coffee drinker, anyway.

I'd originally planned to do two weeks of their Fast Start program, which limits you to three of their meal replacements per day. That plan was immediately tossed out the window when I learned we received a box of gourmet oranges in the mail. They'll spoil before the two weeks are finished, so I'm going to do a modified Fast Start program -- three shakes a day, plus one of the gourmet oranges.

This morning, I started with the Super Oats. I mixed it up plain, exactly as the instructions described. It came out the consistency of really thick oatmeal. Although I wouldn't describe the taste as bad, I wouldn't describe it as good, either. I sprinkled some cinnamon on top, after a couple of bites, hoping it would improve the flavor. It didn't help much. Instead of semi-flavorless glop, I ended up with a bowl of cinnamon-flavored, flavorless glop.

If I was going to rate the taste on a scale of one to ten, where one was unpalatable, and ten was the best thing I'd ever eaten, I'd probably rank this about a four or a five. It's not terrible, but it's definitely nowhere near delicious. If anybody tries to convince you that this stuff is delicious, they probably need a bonk upside the head with a clue-by-four. Nevertheless, at least this morning, the stuff was edible.

We'll see how lunch and dinner go.