Recovery Drinks – Procovery For Goodness Shakes vs homemade Chia Seed and Baobab shake

This week I want to talk about recovery drinks. I had been, after reading the book Born to Run both an armchair long distance runner and a (mostly hypothetical) adherent to the Aztec grain called Chia. In fact I had mused about this tiny seed for years wondering where I could get this strange and mysterious food stuff. Finally when I started this barefoot journey 3 months ago, I decided that now was the time that I would search the web to find a supplier of this esoteric grain. I got no further than my own kitchen, only to find a stock pile in my pantry cupboard. Apparently my wife had been eating Chia seeds for the last year, and furthermore you can actually buy it at your local supermarket. Not too obscure then...

HOWEVER word of warning, Chia seeds swell up...and there is a story about this.

So there I am being rather over confidant, and making a recipe for a power shake, (which I documented before in this blog), with Chia and Baobab, and getting all misty eyed imagining myself running through New Mexico, and being a vegetarian (I have since relapsed to meat eating) and pontificating about me and my feet  when (daa-daa-daaaaa) I put a foot wrong. You see you have to soak chia seeds well as they absorb water and swell up. One morning I necked my power shake without waiting for this to happen. I had a day at work where my belly made sounds more akin to a washing machine, with sharp pains and gurgling sounds. By the time I got home I was bent over in pain. My father looked at me and after some thought told me that his uncle “once fed barley grain to the pigs.” Oh yeah and what happened I asked between intestinal spasms, “well they all died in terrible pain that same night.” Thanks Dad. He then looked at me and said “you ought to be careful”. 

I then had to go and paint my bathroom, because I live in a restoration project, a Victorian Villa built in 1895. Anyway as you can imagine rollering a ceiling is kind of difficult when you are literally bending up double in pain. Result: intense abdominal pain, bloatedness, farting and diarrhea, kind of like shooting pepper shot from a shotgun. Only a slug of Scotch whisky and 2 x Paracetamol with Codeine Phosphate eased the wretched state of my bowels.

Respect to the chia seed then, but not wanting to risk the quite terrible pain again I returned to the Procovery shakes.

Now I know that lots of people think that recovery shakes are a rip off, but I decided to give them a go. Chocolate flavour - No seeds - which I drink after a run. Simple. Made from UHT milk and has a cart load of calcium and vitamins in. And it’s made in Austria of all places. A place renowned for, well, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lederhosen, and I suspect also that cloudy wheat beer.

Now I’m no athlete, my “barefoot” running regime is now up to three miles at a  time and I am averaging 9 to 12 miles a week rotating 3:1 between my vibram Bikilas and my KSO, but I feel this shake is actually helping a lot. I average a seven minute mile and feel pretty good. I am losing weight. I still have muffin handles but you know I like eating cake but I’m working on it. I don’t know if its psychological but I feel The Procovery shake does quicken my recovery, with less muscular aches, it also tastes good and doesn’t cause debilitating pain which is a bonus.

Conclusion Chia seeds: should carry a safety warning; Procovery For Goodness Shakes: expensive but better than a gut full of pain at twice the price. 

."You pays your money and you takes your choice"