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.