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!