I use other ingedients in mine .

Coffee in mine to boost energy and add a bitter effect to curb appetite.
Ground up spinach to boost organic vitamin content.


Mainly I use shakes to buy time to help get to 5pm on 300 calories. From there I can .Eat the sensible dinner with family, socially.

I'm an intermittent faster.
I eat on Saturday's and Sunday's. Skip Monday's, Wednesday's, and Friday's. Well I can have upto 600 calories on those days if I choose.

Typically I have no troubles on the first two days. On the third day I sometimes struggle. Any flavor can my will power weak. I've learned to not eat food on big temptation days. I hate sabotaging the third day , but sometimes I can be Having hunger pangs very early with one social scene after another ahead . I sometime imagine fridays like an endurance Hurdles track . An extremely bitter shake can get me through till late in the afternoon. If give In and have food . I try to keep it small under 600 calories so it can still be a calorie restiction day of 1200 cals.
The point I'm making is its great tool that ihave great confidence in. Sometimes I stop fasting. When idecide to restart Iintermittent fasting. I want to get several successful weeks under my belt .my trend is slow progress unless I'm 4:3 so for the first month I use the shakes. But i try to get off them. Eating other real food nutrition combinations on Monday's & Wednesday's. BUT fridays I need confidence to endure. The freezing protein shake works for me so I don't remove it from my friday food list. However if I were i choosing it more four times a month I belive I wouldnt be looking forward to it enjoying it.

I'll add that i like too explore alternative ingedients in all sorts of things.

in the last five years I've also been reading alot about health benefits of vegtables and fruits.
a stand out for shakes. Needs to be strawberries. Strawberries have an effect on angiogenisis. This is a significant anti cancer food on the prevention side.
so the high calories may not be for my fasting days , but for my feed days.

Originally Posted by Wannabehealthy:
The problem I find with them is they don't teach you good eating habits. As soon as you reach goal and go back to eating regular food you are in the same place as you were before you started. You still have to develop good eating habits to maintain the weight.

Sometimes there's just no learning "good eating habits." I've decided that this is me. I'm an extremist and that's okay.

So when I'm done with Optifast, I'm going to switch to Soylent for normal meals and then have "entertainment" food when I go out with others.

#xoxo
Bon