Replacing (or introducing) meals: Optifast tips

When I started with the weight loss thing, the first thing my doctor wanted me to change was the fact that I never ate breakfast. In fact, I usually never ate until 1pm when lunch is at work. Not eating in the morning just sets your metabolism up for badness.

I tried eating cereal, weet bix, and it was ok, but I found myself feeling gross while I was trying to eat it so soon after I'd woken up.

I figured I could "replace" the meal (or in my case, introduce a set of nutrients at a reasonable hour) with a shake far more easily, since it would just feel like I was having a drink of milk or whatever.

After doing a bit of research, and being thoroughly horrified by the sheer sugar content (among other things) of some brands (**a note on sugar in a minute. I'll finish this thought first**), I asked my doctor, who recommended Optifast as a meal replacement. In fact, Optifast is the shake most often recommended by doctors. I think it even used to be a product you could only get with a prescription back in the day. It's what your surgeon will make you have for a few weeks before a weight loss surgery. People love it and people hate it. I guess it just depends on your outlook. There are ways to improve it if you're struggling or just don't like it, though (but it's not gonna fill you up any more or taste any better, so don't expect me to get out a magic wand. Do you want to lose weight or not?).

First, a quick thing about these shakes having sugar in them. Of course they bloody do. They are a nutritionally complete meal replacement. That means it has everything your body -needs- to -survive-. That includes sugar. Not your lovely white granules, but sugars in their more raw, less refined states. The kinds of sugars that we need to function properly. Just do your research about how -much- sugar your body needs to survive and don't get sucked into "meal replacements" that do little more for you than a Mars bar would.

Ok... how do we make optifast better?

• Basically, the way to make it more tolerable over a period of time is to switch it up. Take advantage of the fact that there are different flavours and find a couple that you like (my picks are Chai and Chocolate), get the desserts, soups and bars so that you're getting different textures and not just drinking every meal cold (if you're doing 3x a day). That's the easiest way to not get sick of it after 5 minutes.
• If you're doing shakes, make them COLD. Like super cold. Make them with water out of the fridge, then put them back in the fridge for a bit before you drink them. Don't make a shake too far in advance, though. They turn gross. I learned that the hard way, thinking I could shake-prep for a whole week's worth of breakfasts. Expensive mistake. I have one of those little blenders that have the bullet thing, so what I like to do is put some crushed ice in the bullet, add water, add the shake packet and whizz it up to make a frappe. Yum. Chocolate works best for those.
• Make sure you mix the desserts well. A powdery lump in the middle isn't nice. Same deal with the soups. Both dessert flavours are nice. My favourite is the lemon one, but the chocolate one tastes like chocolate mousse...if you got the packet from the home brand section of coles. Like... the kind of chocolate mousse we ate in the 80's because nobody had any money and isn't it awesome that we even got dessert? Yeah...that kind. But it's still edible and not horrible. The soups are hit and miss. I actually liked the Chicken one last winter, but the veggie one made me wanna stay fat. It was gross.
• You can add things to them, but if you're on Opti for a weight loss surgery, it's a no go for you. Whatever you add to a shake needs to be taken into account when you're counting your daily intake. Make smart, good decisions. If the shakes don't fill you up enough, add a weet bix and slightly more water. If you need to get more nutrients in for the day so that you'll have energy to exercise, do half a banana. Just don't do stupid stuff like making an Opti frappe and putting cream on top so you feel like you're having a guilt-free version of a maccas frappe. Those empty calories just are not worth the stunted weight loss that happens because of them. I feel like if you're going to do this.....really do it and live through every completely sucky day that comes with losing weight, you have to make everything count. The more dedicated you can be, the less sucky days you'll have to deal with because you'll get there so much faster. One of the most uttered phrases out of my mouth when it comes to food these days is "not worth it".

Other Optifast tips:

• OMG....for the love of everything holy in this universe....drink enough water. And when I say drink enough, I mean drink water all day long. At least 2 litres a day (lets not go overboard and make ourselves sick, though) because if you don't drink enough lovely clean precious water YOU WILL GET HEMORRHOIDS ( I had to google how to spell that) AND BREAK YOUR BUMHOLE. For reals. Nobody likes a broken bumhole.
• Don't go on a 3x Opti intake and expect to be able to work out a lot...or at all. You're not going to have heaps of energy. Again, this stuff is giving you what you need to survive. Not to be an olympic athlete. However, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. If you're feeling good, go for a walk, see how far you get, then try to go a little bit further tomorrow. Building strength, fitness and endurance is what you want when you're starting out.

• Don't forget your fats and your extras. On the box, it tells you to have like a spoonful of vegetable oil and however much veggies it says each day. These things are important because they aren't for filling you up so you're less hungry as much as they are for filling the nutritional gaps. Fats from plant sources (unsaturated fats) are important for brain function, and veggies are veggies. I don't need to explain them, do I?
• Don't look at Optifast as a long term diet plan. You should be looking to do Optifast for a maximum of 3 months, and using it as a tool to train your body into better eating habits. You can't just lose weight with shakes and then go back to how you ate before. You know what happens when you eat like you used to. You gain, and all the hard work is for nothing.

 
I think that's about all I've got about Optifast. If you have any more tips, leave them as a comment. I'd love to hear your ideas!

The "bigger" girl.

"The bigger girl." 

 

That's my descriptor...apparently. I'm not sure why my mum felt the need to tell me, to be honest. She was angry about what had been said, but...I didn't need to hear it. Someone had referred to me, not knowing she's my mum. "We usually see the bigger girl."
That person has seen me for 2 years, probably 5 times in total. She's seen me at my heaviest, and she saw me 2 weeks ago. I do realize that this journey is far from over. My body is not at a point where I would say I'm satisfied and ready to move into maintenance mode instead of weight loss mode. There's at least 20, maybe closer to 30 kg to go (I don't have a goal weight, just gonna wing it as I get to a healthy size and see what feels good on me). I know this. BUT, I have to add here that the top I'm wearing in this photo is a size 18. It's way too big, clearly. I'm in a size 16 right now, which is the size of the average woman in Australia. I've never been so fucking happy to be average. People are fucking dicks sometimes.
The main reason it makes me upset and angry is because she could have used ANY other descriptor.
"The other girl."
"The dark haired girl."
"The younger girl." (since she was talking to mum and obviously I'm the younger one)
"The girl with the opal necklace." (I never take it off)
"The girl who brought our price list/floorstock/spoke to us about different things that are available."

She chose what she chose. Because she's an asshole.

Which got me thinking about how we choose our words, and how they can impact someone, even if we don't think they're offensive or whatever. When I heard this, I felt it, physically. I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. My heart sank, and all of my newfound, fledgling self confidence went away. It'll definitely make me more careful about how I choose to describe a person or refer to them from this point on.

I know that I need to be strong, to rise above it, to use it for motivation...but sometimes I'm not strong. Sometimes it's all a bit too much and I feel like it's all too hard. I don't know what advice to give you guys, if you're following along with a journey of your own, except....let those days come and go. Tomorrow will be a better day and you'll feel good again. Be kind to yourself so that when others are unkind, you're ok.

I'm gonna go give myself a facial and paint my nails. Tomorrow is a better day.

Lessons learned.

Ok....so after 5 mornings of 100.4kg, I then endured 3 mornings of this....the number in the picture. I'm pretty sure the weight of my expectation and anticipation was contributing to the fact that I just couldn't get over the line. And yes, I realize 3 days is hardly a plateau...but bloody look at it. I WANT THOSE DOUBLE DIGITS!

So... I was talking to my best friend about it, and she's been a competitive weight lifter for ages. She told me about a trick the other girls at her gym sometimes use to drop a bit of extra weight, and like some sort of number-chasing crazy person, I decided to go for it.

The trick/technique doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what I did. The point is that if I'd just held on with exactly what I was doing, I'd most likely have smashed the double digit barrier by now....but here I am, 2 days later, 100.5kg.

Now... I KNOW we're talking about grams here. I realize a half kilo variance is no big deal. I'm really not -that- focused on the numbers. It's just this particular number because it represents a huge goal for me, and I've now set myself back, and completely wasted half a week of restrictive eating and working out.

The whole reason I'm writing this post is to remind/reassure myself (and you guys) that whatever works for you, works for you. Quick fixes and easy ways don't exist for long term success and it's important to be patient, especially when it comes to hitting your goals. You'll get there. I'll get there. It'll happen with time if you continue to put the required effort into what works for you.

Maybe now I'll listen to the boyfriend when he says "Chillax, it'll happen soon enough, you're doing an awesome job."

I'll also be taking my scales to his place this weekend, just in case I miss the magic moment by leaving them at home for 2 days. haha!

Journal #1

I feel like it's important for me to include some journal-y stuff in my blog, just to give you guys a bit more insight into my daily thoughts, feelings, struggles, triumphs and all the other human things going on with me while I do this weight loss thing.

This week I only worked out once, but all of the treadmills were taken at the gym and I did a good 45 minues of yoga, which made me suuuuper sore for days afterwards. My abs are still a bit tender 4 days later, which I guess is a good thing because it tells me I have abs hidden under the flub. haha!

My mood this week has been.....mostly frustrated. 5 days this week, the scale read 100.4kg. I've been doing all of my normal things, it's just one of those weeks where the scale didn't move for a few days. It just happens to be less than half a kilo from that massive goal of double digits and I'm DYING for it to happen. I haven't weighed myself yet today. Please cross all of your crossables for me!

Plans for the weekend are minimal. I'm working on a knitting project that needs to be finished soon, so I'll be doing lots of sitting on my bum. I'm gonna balance that out with a walk/jog later today or tomorrow with the kids on their bikes.
Overall, I'm feeling pretty good. My body is at the point where it doesn't whinge too much if I don't eat everything I crave, or if my intake is just little. It's also at the stage where I'm starting to notice the difference. Little things are massively different, like how my face feels under my fingers when I cleanse, tone and moisturize. I can feel ribs now. I can see my collarbones when I move a certain way. I can feel my hip bones when I'm lying in bed. Other people are starting to comment and ask how much I've lost. It's all kind of amazing.
I'm also starting to see the toll of so many years overweight. The loose skin that I'm beginning to see is kinda scary. My thighs look a little bit like they're melting. It's not cute. I've started to use a firming body lotion, but I realize it's not going to have a miracle effect on the damage I've done to my body. If it helps, I'll let you guys all know which one it is. (It's highly rated and very inexpensive, though. I wanna come to my own conclusion before I make any recommendations.)

I've started feeling.....dare I say it.....sexy sometimes. It's weird. I've always had a freakishly high libido, but for a very, very long time, I haven't felt like I looked good or was sexy to look at or whatever. I still don't think I have a hot body, don't get me wrong. I still leave my underwear on when I undress in front of my boyfriend because my boobs look way better in a bra and my undies are high waisted to cover some of the fat belly.... but for the first time, I'm beginning to feel like the person in her undies in the full length mirror isn't quite so gross to look at. It's a really surreal feeling. One I'm hoping to feel more and more.

Ok, that got deep. It's 10am and I haven't been out of bed yet, so I guess it's time to go weigh in, take a shower and get this day started. Wish me luck for double digits! I've got more informative stuff coming and I'll check in with another journal entry next week.

Intake: The real battle.

 So we're all fighting the battle of the bulge, and loads of people think that they can hit the gym or start running and the weight will just fall off. Whilst exercise is an important part of a healthy lifestyle, and it will help with weight loss and toning, the largest part of this battle is food. Like 80-90% of it.
When it really comes down to it, we gained the weight by putting a bunch of food we didn't need into our bodies, and being the wonderful little biofactories that they are, they did their jobs perfectly and stored the excess as fat for when the starvation time comes. The problem is that in most of the world these days, the starvation time never happens and the abundance of fat and sugar filled foods is shortening our lives.
It takes a fuckload of willpower, focus and determination to do the massive weight loss thing without surgeries or medications. I myself have turned to Duromine as a short term kick start when my weight plateau'd (more on this in another post which I'll dedicate to just Duromine) and it works very effectively to curb appetite and make the not-eating easier. When I'm off meds and just doing this thing with sheer determination, I need to be extra vigilant in not undoing the things I was able to train my body to do when I had that tool in place. Basically, getting by, having the motivation and energy to exercise while eating much, much less food without burning the whole world down in a fit of sugar craving rage.
The formula is different for everyone. For me, I've found that allowing myself to still have the things that I love to eat (I have a crazy bad sweet tooth) in very small amounts is very helpful to staying on the right track. Completely restrictive eating cannot be sustained long term, and we need to be working towards training our bodies to accept healthy intake on a daily basis for the rest of our lives. Losing weight and keeping it off forever requires a commitment FOREVER.
So...when I say I still have sweet treats, what does that mean? Well, it really doesn't just apply to sweet treats. I still occasionally will have fish and chips, or my boyfriend will make me my favourite comfort food, which involves pasta, bacon and a fucktonne of cheese. The key is in watching your portions and only having these things rarely. For example, I had a slice of amazing yummy cake from the cheesecake shop and the aforementioned artery clogging dish on my birthday. About half the size I would usually have had before I started really getting serious about losing weight, and I was careful about what I ate for the rest of that day. I had fish and chips with my kids a couple of weeks ago and just chose to have a piece of flake and skipped the chips. It really is just about educating yourself when it comes to calorie content and being a bit sensible about how much you put into your body.

This picture is the meal I cooked for valentines day. It's duck breast with a simple green pea risotto. I was careful to render all of the fat from under the duck skin, and portioned accordingly with the white arborio rice that I used in the risotto. The great thing about being already on my journey is that small portions satisfy my hunger now, which really helps when it comes to cutting portion sizes in order to have something special once in a while.
A great way to bulk up a meal without sending your calorie intake sky high is vegetables. You're gonna need to learn to get really comfortable with veggies. I love the steam fresh packages. They're like 23 calories for a whole serving and it's enough to fill me up for a couple of hours. You still need to have other things to complete your nutritional requirements, but essentially, if you snacked on a bag of veggies 5 times a day in the beginning of your journey, it'd be fine. We really are looking to cut the snack habit, though, so take it easy and reduce it as much as possible.
Other things that suck in the beginning are the hunger pains and sugar withdrawal. When you're used to eating a lot throughout the day, your body will give you hunger cues at regular intervals when it really doesn't actually need to eat. Actual hunger is accompanied by physical symptoms. Rumbling stomach, sometimes pains, sometimes headache. "Hunger" is characterized by thoughts of "I'm hungry, it's time to eat" without any real physical signs. Our bodies also get a bit confused sometimes and mistake dehydration for hunger, so I always try to drink a glass of water when I feel hungry, and when it's time for food, to get my fluid intake up and to negate any mixed feeling my body might have about what it needs. Sugar withdrawal is another hurdle. It's fucking awful. The headaches, mood swings and sometimes more severe symptoms like depressed feelings, etc can make it feel like it's just not worth the pain and suffering involved in losing weight. My advice on sugar withdrawal is to ride out the first few days in any way you can. Be kind to yourself, rest as much as possible, drink lots of water, treat symptoms as they appear and hold on for dear life, because once you're through the first few days, you will feel so much better. At that point, you can retrain your body not to expect sugar all the time, and eat fruits, etc when you're really craving. Natural sugars found in fruits, dairy products (unless you have an intolerance) and lots of other things are really good for us when we eat them in their natural state, in reasonable amounts. Going "sugar free" is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Most people who do this don't know that most foods contain some kind of "sugar". If they said "I'm cutting out refined sugars and only having the naturally occurring stuff", I'd be far more satisfied. In a healthy human body (without complications such as diabetes or food intolerances) sugar and carbs (which our little biofactories turn into sugars) are the basic energy products that our bodies use to function. We need them. They are important nutrients, and as such are required for normal healthy function. The key to healthy living, making and maintaining a healthy body is to find a BALANCED way of eating and fueling our system.
Below I'll list some of the fun, awesome and really massively helpful educative tools I've used. I highly recommend that everyone take a course or do some research into exactly how human bodies work on a basic biological level. With education, we can make better decisions for ourselves.

Open2study Food nutrition and health course is a free online course that lasts a month. You can study at your own pace and it takes a couple of hours a week to watch the videos and do the tests. I did this exact course and it helped me so much I can't even express my gratitude.
I also use a couple of apps to help me keep track of stuff.
My Fitness Pal  is a great way to track your intake. It even has a barcode scanner!
Monitor Your Weight is the best app I've found for tracking weight and body measurements. I'm really loving it, and I wish I'd started using it waaaaaaay earlier.

None of the above websites even know I exist. It's important to me that you all know I'm just giving my opinions on things I've tried and that work for me and none of my content is sponsored.

Output: Moving more as you eat less.

Yep, that's me, in all my sweaty, red-faced glory. I'd just done my usual treadmill cardio workout plus 20 minutes of yoga. I do pretty much the same thing every time I go to the gym, mainly because my goal with gym work is to build fitness and stamina, which will come in handy as my weight drops and it gets easier to actually do the workouts.

I think a lot of people struggle with how to even start with exercise and output, and there are certain schools of thought that say you should focus only on input when you're starting the fight against fat and recovering from food addiction (spoiler alert: you'll never recover. You're gonna have to be focused and aware for the rest of your life) so they tend to just get a bit overwhelmed and do nothing. My biggest, most awesome advice when it comes to working out, exercising, whatever you wanna call it is "just do something". Anything that you weren't doing before is going to help. The exception to that rule for actual numbers on the scale lost is heavy weight lifting. I lifted big for a really long time and I got super strong...but gained weight. That's because muscle weighs more than fat. You really need to take in a bunch of different methods of measurement and feedback when it comes to your loss, because things like body fat percentage and body measurements can be as or more important than actual weight. This week, for example, I've maintained my weight (which, at 100.4kg is massively frustrating...come on double digits!) but I've lost 1.4% body fat and several cm from all over my body. It's just one of those things. I might be holding onto water, or my cycle might be at a certain point where I'm bloated or whatever...and the weight just doesn't change every day like it does at other times. Also, it could just be that for 4 days, no change in the scale number is just bloody normal and I've gotten too used to losing -something- every day.

My current workout looks like this:
20 minutes on the treadmill doing alternate minutes at 9 and 5.5km/h (1 minute warmup at 5.5, then into 1 min of 9,1 min of 5.5, rinse and repeat until 20 minutes is done or until sweat gets in your eyes and you're falling off the treadmill because you can't see any more).
20 minutes Iyengar yoga (by myself, mostly lateral poses, inversions and deep stretching)

I can't speak highly enough of yoga, especially for fat bodies. In the beginning it's really offputting and difficult to get into/hold each pose, but regular practice with a suitably qualified teacher (someone who is sympathetic to the plight of the fat person is a massive help) will make you a more bendy, awesomely stretchy person who is stronger and more able to hold the poses for longer and get more benefit from them. I've had a really big decrease in anxiety levels with regular yoga practice, too. It's kind of a whole body and mind helper.

I hate the treadmill, I'm not gonna lie. I always trudge into the cardio room and make noises about how awful it is, then I get on the damn machine and I do my thing, and I still feel shit. There's no magic awesome feeling of "I just ran" until you get to the endorphin stage and 20 minutes aint gonna do that for me. I do feel good about the positive impact on my health that I've given myself, though, so there's definitely a positive reward from it all. I think it just depends on having the right mindset and focus, with the willpower and determination to really change things.

Other things to do if you're at the point where exercise hurts in really bad ways because of stress on joints and things are low impact/no impact exercise like swimming and water aerobics. Basically, anything to get the heart rate up and the sweat flowing (yes, if you're doing it right, you'll still sweat in the water).

Everyone starts somewhere. Forget embarrassment, forget your pride, and start moving. Your body will thank you in the long run.

One last thought on exercise. I do feel that it's vitally important in establishing healthy habits for your new life. HOWEVER, the phrase "you can't out-exercise a bad diet" is absolutely true. 90% of this battle is all about what you put into your body, and I'll go into that in my next post.

A word on Hypothyroidism.

I've heard the same thing so many times from overweight people. "I have an underactive thyroid, that's why I'm obese and can't lose weight."
Some of the people who say this haven't even been tested. (This now makes me furious to the point of not interacting with those people at all) The ones who have, and are diagnosed with hypothyroidism are at higher risk of weight gain with difficulties in losing said weight, BUT it is so often used as an excuse that it makes me a bit angry.
The reason we are obese is because we consumed too much and moved too little. (edit: after more research, there are cases of people who do eat much less and move much more and still gain weight. This is a small percentage of cases) It's as simple as that. Right now, I'm in the period of waiting between tests to see if my function improves at all, and my next test includes an extra test for Hashimoto's Disease (update: test returned a positive result. I'm waiting on an appointment with an endocrinologist) I also have ovarian cysts, which have been linked to weight gain symptoms.

If my medical conditions have impacted on my weight loss, it is minimal. The more obvious symptoms of my hypothyroidism are the massive hair shedding and dry skin that plague me to the point of an ongoing joke between my boyfriend and I about me trying to keep his apartment warm with a layer of my hair.

There are other ways to stimulate metabolism whilst your thyroid is underactive, which include regular cardio exercise, eating small amounts often, and having a good sleep cycle. Alternatively, if you've moved past the subclinical (without symptoms) stage into hypothyroidism with obvious symptoms, your doctor will prescribe medication to normalise thyroid hormone production, which should sort stuff out nicely. I am not on thyroid medication and have been steadily losing weight now for over a year. (As of today, 22.3kg)

I urge anyone who suspects that their body isn't performing at its best to see your GP for a full health check, have blood tests and an ECG to determine overall health and wellbeing. It's something I do once a year as a matter of general maintenance. It's important to treat any underlying problems and be at your highest possible level of health whilst trying to lose weight, in order for your body to get the very most out of the effort you're putting in. It really does make the journey so much easier.

The story so far...

I suppose I should start by introducing myself. My name is Katy, and I've been obese for a little less than half of my life. I've just turned 36, and I'm about halfway through the journey of a lifetime/the fight of my life/the hardest shit I've ever had to do. I'm losing weight. A lot of it.

My start weight in October 2015 was 121.8kg. When my doctor weighed me and I saw the number, I burst into tears. I think that was a turning point for me. I've "tried" so many times in the past to shed the excess weight that's been hanging around for about a decade and a half, but always lose motivation, always end up even heavier than I was before. I think there comes a point when you just have to be ready.

My friend Alice had a gastric bypass in the same month that I decided I needed to change my life. She's amazing. The way she's completely changed her life, the way she eats, and most importantly how much she works out to improve upon what the surgery was able to help her achieve....I'm in awe. But watching her has helped to spur me on. I can see now what can be achieved. My progress will be much slower, because I'm working on the theory of eat less, move more, and I don't feel like bariatric surgery is my best option. I'm cool with that, though.

Anyway, that's how I'm inspired. I want to talk a little bit about how I got to that point of 121.8kg in the first place.

A lot of people who talk about their food addiction speak in terms of massive quantities. I think the crazy part about my gain was that I didn't ever eat really huge meals or gorge on ridiculous amounts of bad food. I think maybe I'm just one of those people who needs to be super careful about their intake/output or weight creeps on. At my worst, a day's intake would look like this:
Breakfast: Hungry Jack's brekky wrap
Lunch: chips and gravy
Dinner: Not really junk food, but things that are carb-heavy like pasta.
Snacking in between meals wasn't really an issue, but at night after dinner, I'd eat a bar of chocolate or some ice cream.
My main problem was soda. Energy drinks, to be more specific. It wasn't unheard of for me to drink a litre of V in a day.
I guess over a number of years, that really adds up on your belly and butt.

So where am I right now?
When I weighed myself this morning, I was 100.9kg. I've lost 21 kg so far, and I'm feeling much better than I was, but I'm hungry for the goals. Hungry for the end result, and hungry in general. The photo above is only a 15kg difference. At the gym, lifting a 115kg deadlift ( I weighed 116kg) and at my ex husband's house, last weekend at 101kg. There's a long way to go. I already have sagging skin on my arms and thighs. My belly looks like it's deflating, and my boobs....are surprisingly holding up ok for now, but there's definitely some loose skin there too.  I'm kinda terrified about what my body is going to look like when I'm finished with this, but I accept that whatever the outcome, it's because I did this to myself by gaining the weight in the first place, and loose skin is going to be far better than fat-filled skin.

I'll talk about workouts and my fitness in another post this week, and I'll talk about food separately too.

That's all for now. I just wanted an initial "here I am, and here's what I'm doing" post to get the ball rolling.