[Kuribo]

Mr Kuribo and I lost a lot of weight about a year ago on the OptiFast plan. For any who aren't familiar with it, it's a meal replacement plan, 3 shakes and 1 cup of vegetables per day.

I have put a bit of the weight back on (but thankfully all my newly bought clothes still fit), but according to the scales he has returned to near his original weight.

Admittedly we've been fairly "off the wagon"! He wants to go back on OptiFast intensive phase, but I am trying to encourage us to do it differently this time...

My (rough) plan is that we buy a good set of scales, a few calorie books and get a good idea of what food/s to eat and to avoid, and to work on small portions. (Meals like skinfree chicken stir fry, light salads no dressing/cheese, etc).

In your experience, is this as successful? I don't want to do the OptiFast again, where you eat NOTHING, and then feel so crazy for food that you go a little insane with eating at the end. I want to work on having healthy, balanced attitudes towards our food and eating, so that we're better prepared to lose the weight and KEEP it off.

We would stick to a very strict plan, with possibly allowing ourselves one naughtier meal or dessert each week, but no more than one, and nothing way overboard. We are also walking each night for half an hour, gradually picking up the pace & distance. On weekends we are going to start being much more active - long forest hikes, playing soccer, skating with my nieces, and so on.

I guess I'm just looking for someone to say "Yes, if you stick to your plan, it can work just as well without sending you crazy" or the opposite... "No this won't work, do OptiFast".

He wants to do OptiFast until he loses say 10-20kgs, but I'm arguing we'd be better off losing that weight a healthier, more sane way...

Sorry for the rambling... I'm STARVING!!!

Thanks all!

[ambpure]

Hi,

In fact, it doesn't really help if you starve yourself that way, because your body will adjust to the lower energy input, because it thinks there's little food available. So basically to ensure its 'survival', it will adjust its metabolic rate.

The problem is that you might lose weight temporarily (even though this might also include lean mass and not just fat), but eventually this will come to a halt (once the body has adapted to the lower calorie input).

Because you don't see results anymore, you stop the diet. But the worst thing is that by then, because your body has adapted and burns less than it normally did, you now create a calorie surplus much easier when you start eating 'normally' again... which of course gets stored as fat.

So starving yourself is really not the way to go in the long-run, and will eventually actually make things worse.

So like you said, it's much more 'sane' to keep eating, to give your body the idea that there's plenty of food available, so it'll feel it's safe to keep burning calories.

Still, you do need to create a calorie deficit to force your body to tap into its fat stores for energy, so you need to deal with a paradox:

- You need to create a calorie deficit while tricking your body into thinking it's being overfed.

Here's how you can do that:

- Start exercising... Whatever you can do on a regular basis is great.

- Have lower calorie days on which you consciously create a calorie deficit.

- After 3 - 5 lower days, have a higher calorie day. And feel free to have that dessert on such a higher calorie day.

This way, the moment your body is going to adapt to the lower calorie input of the lower days, you give the signal that there's plenty of food after all, so it doesn't have to adapt.

And then lower days follow again, on which your body keeps burning calories because its metabolism stays high due to the higher calorie day and the exercise... which means it's forced to tap into its fat stores to compensate for the energy deficit.

- Another thing you need to do is eat regularly throughout the day. So don't starve yourself and have 1 or 2 big meals. It's much better to eat smaller meals spread across the day. Or 3 meals and 2 healthy snacks in between.

- Make sure you focus on whole and unprocessed foods. And try to have a source of lean protein in each and every meal/snack.

- Make sure you have some good breakfast!

- As a general rule, try to 'eat clean' for 90% of the time.

That means that if you eat 5 meals a day, you'll eat 7 x 5 = 35 meals per weak. 90% of that is about 31 meals. That means you have 4 meals a week to 'screw' your diet. It's best not to completely indulge, but you can definitely feel free to have something you truly enjoy.

This can make sure you'll be able to stick with your diet, because you'll be able to regularly cut yourself some slack.

And besides, if you plan these 'cheats' on your higher calorie days, they may even work in your advantage.

But of course, this approach works best if you exercise regularly.

Hope that made sense!

Good luck!! ;-)