I am not new here, I'm a returning old member.
I have been a yo-yo all my adult life, gaining and losing like clockwork. Sometimes I keep it off longer than others, but it always comes back.
In the past I have had some success with Medifast, but I couldn't afford it for very long. I have had the most success with low-carb and intermittent fasting, but I tend toward starvation dieting if I am left to my own devices. So if I am having some success, I restrict more and more and then I am barely eating anything and my metabolism stops working. And then I give up (even if I am ever so close to my goal weight) and I binge for a year and gain it all back. COVID has not been my friend, either.
This time I am doing Optavia (which I know is just Medifast). My friend is a rep and she has had great success with it; it totally changed her life. She has stage 4 breast cancer and she wants to live life to the fullest until she can't anymore; Optavia has been a part of that for her. I want to help support her in her journey, too. Optavia is expensive, but I can afford it now (at least for a while) and I like its nutrition, which IMO is superior to Wonderslim, Nashua Nutrition, Proti-thin, and other knock-off brands. There is a minimum amount of calories (to keep me from starving myself) and as long as I stick to the plan I can't help but lose weight, and I won't have malnutrition in the meantime. I also take lots of nutritional supplements such as a multivitamin, B12, Co-Q10, ginger, etc.
I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian, too. So my "lean" will be almost exclusively eggs, tofu, or (sometimes) beans.
Today is day 1 and I am on a plan to lose 68 pounds by June 30, roughly 2 pounds a week.
I am SO HUNGRY! But I know it will pass as long as I can make it a few days.
