This is a great thread! My wife and I used it as our basis for our alternative program and love it. Thank you!
We use GNC's Pro Performance AMP Wheybolic Extreme 60 whey/leucine formula for our twice-daily shakes, one scoop in the morning and one at lunch. We use primarily Quest bars, but also use GNC's Designer Whey bars. Both taste great (Quest chocolate brownie and cookies 'n cream are terrific, as are the Designer Whey Peanut Butter Crunch). We follow the rest of phase 1 as much as possible, using a variety of supplements, typically generics purchased locally (nothing from a fancy "natural" store; too costly with too little benefit IMHO).
One thing we've found to be essential is the psyllium from Organic India (we buy ours on Amazon). It reminds me of cream of wheat. Three scoops once of twice a day is plenty to help the plumbing run well. We tried the capsules of psyllium from Now, but you need many capsules to equal a single scoop from Organic India's psyllium.
We track our calories (~900-1000/day), sodium (~1000mg/day), fiber (~40-60 gms/day), weight, and exercise in Fat Secret/Calorie Counter. It's a great way to keep track and make sure we're on course, whether we have our smart phones or tablets.
We also don't add any salt. There's been no downside to avoiding the salt and I'm a firm believer in keeping salt below 1500mg per day as a cardiologist. There will be some arguments about 1500mg vs 2000mg vs 2400mg, but I think the general idea is we need to keep it much lower than the common 4000-6000mg used daily worldwide. I think the data on 1500mg vs 2400mg is lacking and we just need more information as to which is better. Will I have some days around 2500mg? Sure, but I also have days around 1000mg to help balance it out. I think getting people down to 2400mg/day would be a terrific success compared to what I see people eating on a day in 'n out basis.
The more recent literature arguing against salt restriction has clear flaws. For example, one group of authors arguing against salt restriction are clearly fear mongers promoting their "healthy" or "natural" approaches to foods as better alternatives, drawing you to their sites to sell ads and buy quackery. There are other groups promoting the use of salt for a variety of reasons. For example, salt is added to meat to increase water weight and, therefore, cost paid per unit at the grocery store. Salt use also encourages beverage consumption through triggering thirst. A review of the recent hypertension guidelines specifically commented on the critics of salt restriction who referenced the "harm" of the low salt diet and found that those who were listed as being on a very low salt diet were plagued by comorbidities and also had impressively low caloric intake. Therefore, the people who were felt to be sicker due to a low salt diet were already quiet sick and malnourished and the critique of the articles indicates there wasn't adequate control for confounding factors. In short, cardiology literature still favors aggressive salt restriction to a goal in the range of 2000mg. As such, we saw no need to add 1000mg of salt to our diet and have seen no ill effect after around of month of dieting.
