Optifast Liquid Replacement Diet

I started a diet on January 20, 2010. Now each day I eat

• four ready-to-drink Optifast shakes,
• one mix-the-powder-with-boiling-water packet of Optifast soup, and
• one Optifast bar.

Each of these six "meal replacements" has 160 calories, so I'm getting 960 calories a day.

I drink a 16.9-ounce bottled water with each meal replacement. I also drink about two giant cups of tea or coffee each day and three to five 12-ounce cans of diet 7-Up.

I exercise 60 minutes daily on a stairstepper at medium intensity. I do 180 biceps curls, 60 overhead extension curls, and 120 trapezial lifts six times a week using a 40-pound weight. Two or three times a week I add another 30 to 60 minutes of weight lifting, consisting of 85-pound bench presses and a circuit of many machines at my gym. The machines excercise my arms, shoulders, abdominal muscles, and legs.

I also walk for 30 to 60 minutes two or three times a week, usually on weekends when I take my kids to the park.

Hospital staff at Kaiser monitor my condition with occassional EKGs, bi-monthly meetings with a doctor, monthly blood work, and weekly meetings at which I turn in journals of my eating habits as well as other homework.

I am 5 ft. 11 in. tall and weigh between 220 and 225 pounds now, on February 16, 2010. As of December 20, 2009 I weighed 260 pounds. My highest recorded weight was 290, back in 2002. My lowest recorded weight since 2002 was when I was on Weight Watchers. I got down to 192 pounds in 2003.

Optifast works well for me because I have plenty of discipline. I can stick to the diet and continue exercising even though I'm pretty much hungry all the time. I lose weight fast, somewhere in the vicinity of 5 pounds a week. That encourages me to keep going.

It's best to think of Optifast or any diet as a two-part deal. The first part is getting weight off. That's actually the easy part. You just need discipline. You create a plan and stick with it. The plan doesn't have to be Optifast. It could be Weight Watchers, Atkins, Mayo Clinic, Medifast, or a hundred other options. No matter what plan you choose, it's hard. It's depressing in fact, when you realize how long it will take you to lose all the weight you want. At least with Optifast I can lose weight fast under medical supervision. Still it's tough.

But tough as it is, it's easier than part two. Getting weight off - yes, all it takes is a plan and stick-to-it-iveness. Keeping it off? Oh God.

You need to figure out how you're going to change so you don't put the weight back on. Changing your life permanently. Giving up something to get something else. When what you're giving up looks like happiness (the sense of a replete belly, dark-chocolate-stuffed with layers of gravy, turkey, mashed potatoes, all sloshed down with a bottle of wine), no matter how happy you imagine you'll be with the result (looking thin), it's a struggle. For that you need mental toughness.

I love food. I'll never change that. Even contemplating a different attitude toward food makes me recoil in revulsion.

Yet I don't need to overeat. I don't need to eat impulsively. I need to change the choice-making mechanism in my eating habits so, on a day-to-day basis, I'm making good choices. I'm choosing correct portions. I'm choosing foods that are right for me, for my nutritional needs. I'm satisfying myself without overdoing it.

But Lord is that going to be tough. More to come in later weeks.