First weekend on Optifast

Oct 19, 2012

Yesterday was my third day on Optifast, and I'm settling into a routine at work.  Optifast in the morning just before I leave for work, another optifast around 11:30 a.m., another one around 4 p.m. a little while before I leave so that I have energy to get home, and then the final one around 7:30 or 8 p.m.  With snacks of jello, broth, and chai tea with sweetener in between.

But now it's the weekend.  No set routine.  No work to distract me all day.  Will I survive?  Of course I will, but I think weekends will be harder than working days.  Although, the nice thing about weekends is that when that exhaustion around 2 or 3 p.m. sets in, I can go have a nap, which is better than desperately missing food.

I'm trying to see Optifast as a bit of a spiritual experience.  Not religious, since I'm an atheist, but definitely a time for meditation and awareness of my body and my hunger signals and my food triggers. 

I used to do really self-destructive things, like come home from work feeling exhausted and eating a bag of chips for supper because they were comforting and I couldn't find the energy to cook anything.  Or go to restaurants and spend way too much money and stuff myself.  I know how to cook, but I only really enjoy doing it once in a while when I feel really inspired and have the energy to do it.

Now, though, on Optifast, I'm actually craving good and healthy real food.  I think about the shrimp curry a friend taught me how to make, and I wish I could go and whip up a batch of it now and eat some.  I fantasize about cooking soups, about all delicious things I could make with some SF flavouring and ricotta.  Hell, I'm even dreaming about cream of wheat right now.

This isn't a bad thing, I don't think.  I like the Optifast, and I look forward to those four servings of it per day.  My favourite flavouring so far that I've come up with is a few drops of almond extract, and a shot of amaretto SF syrup.  A nice combo that tastes good and nutty.  And the nice thing about Opti is that I don't have to think about it - it's simple, doable, and a lot easier not to cheat than with a diet where you have to do more food prep or watch portions.

But I think when the liquid stage comes, it's going to seem like a real treat after three weeks of nothing but Opti, broth, jello and tea!

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