Food Addiction.

I can say without a doubt that I'm a food addict. The only reason I gained weight after a huge loss of 125 lbs a few years ago is because I snack. And snack. I choose carbs instead of emotions or hobbies. I'd rather eat than do most things. 


With that being said, I am not someone that eats a ton of processed junk food. I don't like fast food. I'm a bit of a gourmand, so give me some artisan bread and butter, sprinkle it with sea salt and I'm in heaven. I don't have a huge sweet tooth, despite the fact that I adore baking and people continuously tell me to open a bakery. Starch is my friend. 


The only reason that OptiFast appealed to me in the first place is knowing that I snack for no reason. Rice crackers from the Japanese market, cheese and crackers, pretzels, sushi, and an assortment of other mini meals that aren't at meal time. Fortunately for me, I can't eat a lot of food at one time. I get full quickly. It's the grazing and endless snacking that's killing me. 


The idea behind OptiFast is to make no food choices. You have x amount of shakes and bars to consume in a day and that's that. It's rather simple in its concept, but a little more difficult in execution. I love food. I miss food. 


It's been four full days of doing the program 100%. No cheating, not even an extra bar or shake. I'm avoiding the scale, so I don't know if anything is happening. Trying to wait until I go back into the doctor every week for official weigh ins. 


It's definitely getting easier. Most of the time, it doesn't bug me that I'm not eating. Sure, I wouldn't mind a great meal, but I'm not sitting here dying to eat. I'm not trying to convince myself that being fat isn't so bad. I can't say how long I can stay on the diet. Ideally, I can stick it out until I get the 50 lbs off, then graduate on to real food. Healthy food without all the snacking. That's the goal. 

Fat people take pictures of the things they make. 

Plenty more where these came from. 

OptiFast

My story is this...

Backstory:

I'm 28 years old, living in Los Angeles. I lost a lot of weight a few years ago and then slowly regained about 50 pounds of it after some major life crises. At the start of this year, I started counting calories. Everything I read online said that a woman my age should lose weight eating 1500 calories per day. I tried that. Twice. Granted, I could only last for 2 weeks at a time before giving up. I never saw a single pound shed, never noticed an inch taken off, nothing. I was "Eating Clean" meaning no refined carbs or sugar, limited good fats. Eventually I went down to 1200 calories and lasted another 2 weeks without any results.

Perhaps it was the fact that it required a lot of effort to eat clean and count every calorie. I was at Whole Foods almost daily, looking for appropriate food, measuring it, etc.. Without seeing any movement on the scale, I was driving myself insane. What should I eliminate from my diet? Carbs? Dairy? Gluten? So, I quit. I went to the doctor and my thyroid was normal. No explanation why 1200 calories per day didn't do anything.

Diagnoses:

A couple weeks ago I began researching OptiFast, which I had known of for a long time. I knew that it was something they give to very obese people to get some weight off. I found a doctor in Los Angeles that specializes in weight loss and made my appointment.

After testing my metabolism, looking at recent blood work, and discussing my history, the doctor suggested a full Opti-Fast program. Shakes, bars, and... NO REAL FOOD. None. 800 calories per day is supposed to put me at a loss of at least 2.5 lbs per week. The doctor believes that my lack of vitamins (which started with my original weight loss) was keeping my body deficient and unable to burn fat. At least it made some sense, whether it's true or not is another story.

And so it began:

Today I began the OptiFast program. 3 shakes per day, 2 bars. We will see how it goes, wont we?

This blog is where I'll be documenting my progress. Hopefully it will help keep my accountable and on track, too.