100 Days Without Food! The first 100 days on Optifast

Does being without food for a hundred days bring out the monster in me? Not yet, but we'll see.. As of today, it's been one hundred days since I've eaten anything but Optifast shakes or broth. I could not have even imagined 100 days without carne asada tacos, steaks, hamburgers, pizza, cake or even salad. So how has it been? ABSOLUTE HELL!!! Just kidding.. After the first couple days, it's been pretty manageable. I was hungry the first day, got awful runner's cramps on the 2nd day and since then haven't had to deal with hunger very much at all. When I do get hungry, a shake takes the hunger away. (Insane cravings for gas station pizza are another matter...)

One thing that really helped me get through this diet was the broth. The shakes aren't the greatest, but they sell you packets of chicken broth at Optifast that I would have nightly with hot sauce and lemon. Strange as it may sound, this was often the highlight of my day. As the diet went on, I discovered that I could get broth at restaurants, so that my wife and I started going out to eat for lunch. I started at our favorite Vietnamese restaurants (each a couple blocks from each other). I would order the Pho without noodles, beef or onions- just the broth, please!- and I would add lemon, hot sauce and crushed basil. I wouldn't eat the basil, but it gave it a nice taste. Recently, I began to order chicken broth at a couple Mexican restaurants and seafood broth. At this point, I know it sounds strange, but in the absence of regular food, I've come to really appreciate how delicious broth can be. My wife makes fun of me because before I would never really season anything (but would just eat the "good stuff" out of the soups), but now I put a lot of effort into getting the taste right on my nearly daily broth.

This Saturday, I also went to my 25th high school reunion. It was a good time. Interestingly, more people recognized me than did at my 20th high school reunion. This probably because I'm starting to look a little bit more like the skinny guy I was in high school than the three hundred pound plus lawyer that I've been.

Anyway, it was fun. A lot of joking around, some remembering and I got to at least smell some good BBQ! A friend of mine said, jokingly, that I'd ruined the reunion for him because I was so skinny and it made him feel guilty about eating the hamburgers! He did get over this guilt, somehow, and chow down some burgers, though.

The most negative aspect of the diet after 100 days would probably be the loss of muscle strength and definition in my arms. I've gone from Popeye (in my mind) to Olive Oil..but I know that this is something that I can remedy fairly quickly after I transition back to food. I've already begun looking to rebuild my home gym. In the interim, I've moved up from the 400 calories Optifast 70 to the 800 calories Optifast 800- this, I'm told, will allow me to maintain more of my muscle mass along with my weight workout at the Y. We'll see. First, let's finish this weight loss. 61 pounds to go!

Week 1- 5/8/14 334.5 16.5 318
Week 2- 5/15/14 318.0 6.9 311.1
Week 3- 5/22/14 311.0 5.1 306
Week 4- 5/29/14 306 6.0 300
Week 5- 6/5/14 300 4.5 295.5
Week 6- 6/12/14 295.5 3.0 292.5
Week 7- 6/19/14 292.5 8.5 283
Week 8- 6/26/14 283 4.5 278.5
Week 9- 7/3/14 278.5 5.0 273.5
Week 10- 7/10/14 273.5 1.5 272
Week 11- 7/17/14 272 8.0 264
Week 12- 7/24/14 264 3.5 260.5
Week 13- 7/31/14 260.5 6.0 254.5
Week 14- 8/7/14 254.5 3.5 251.0

Eight Three and a half Pounds lost!