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Before Christmas I wrote about my aunt who was doing the Optifast very low calorie diet. I said I would report on her follow up results.
She lost in all 10 kg in 3 months which she was very pleased with. These were the problems that she had to contend with:
- She was not able to go out for meals with friends. This was hard in the lead up to Christmas.
- She could go out for drinks so long as she drank 0 cal beverages, not much fun!
- She was very hungry a lot of the time.
- She felt very cold quite often.
- She had to cook the evening meal for her family.
- The shakes etc got very boring.
Ok she did it because she was determined to lose weight. She says it was easier than calories counting because although very strict it was certain what she could eat. She was kept going by weight loss every day.
Post Optifast- Did she keep the weight off?
When she stopped dieting it was Christmas Eve. She had always planned to eat on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. She tells me that she tried to eat very carefully and not to have second helpings or large portions. I was with her a lot of the time and she was indeed being careful. She was eating everything but just small amounts.
After the Christmas period she was unable to motivate herself to resume such a strict diet again. Because she had lost so mch weight she looked and felt a whole lot better and that meant the need to diet was less. This I have heard is quite a common problem.
She has now several months later regained 6 kg of the weight she had lost. This is such a shame but it isn’t unusual.
I have written before about the body’s determination to regain lost fat after weight loss. Optifast is almost a fast because it is less than 800 calories a day. This is a physiological reaction and it will happen to anyone who loses fat on a VLCD then immediately comes off it and begins to eat and drink normally again. This has been found in animal studies too. You need to use more realistic methods of weight loss because a diet isn’t a success if the weight comes right back again is it?
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Very informative post, I’ll share this with my students. Fasting diets never work in the long run as you said.