Optislim FAIL!

This post details my experience on Optislim (which only lasted a week). I had shakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I made sure I drank 2L of water and had 2 cups of green veggies. The only thing I didn’t follow was avoiding caffeinated drinks- I had a coke zero/pepsi max/black coffee most afternoons.

Days 1-3

The first 3 days were okay. I found the mornings okay in that I’d wake up not being that hungry, and a shake would be sufficient (but I don’t ever eat much for breakfast). By mid-morning I’d start to get hungry and would need my first herbal tea.  By midday, I’d be counting down the minutes until I got my second shake for lunch at 1pm.

The lunch shake would not fill me up at all, and I’d still feel hungry afterwards. I’d have a large glass of water to help with that.

I would struggle though the afternoon, having a diet soft drink at around 3pm which I sipped slowly and that definitely helped me to feel better.

I’d have the dinner shake smack on 6pm (still at work), because that was the earliest I allowed myself to have it.

When I got home from work at around 7pm I’d have my 2 cups of veg made into a “soup”.

I’d be lying in bed at night thinking “I am too hungry to fall asleep” until somehow I finally fell asleep…

Day 4

On day 4 I “hit the wall” so to speak. I felt really nauseous, dizzy, irritable, emotional (like crying for no reason) and couldn’t concentrate. I was also the hungriest I had been; I couldn’t stop thinking about food. I was pretty disheartened as people had told me that the first 3 days are the hardest, so I was expecting it to get easier, not 100x worse.

I decided to weigh myself to see if I had lost any weight (for some encouragement) and my scales had run out of batteries, so I couldn’t even do that!

I got almost no work done all day which made me feel guilty. I was also on the verge of cheating all the time, at one point I even brought a biscuit to my desk and then threw it in the bin before eating it.

I became sick of the veggie “soup” and opted to eat my veggies raw. That night I also broke the diet by eating a tin of tuna in springwater; I just felt so sick and faint. It was only 300kj (70 cal) so probably not too bad in the scheme of things. I still felt sick afterwards but went to sleep.

Day 5

I was worried because I had a lot to get through at work, and I couldn’t afford not to be on my game. Luckily, I felt better than I did on day 4 and managed to do a decent day of work. I forced myself to drink more fluids than ever in case dehydration had any role to play in the previous day struggle.  I felt like I had more energy, but still felt very hungry all day.

I was clearly in ketosis by this stage as I had all the associated symptoms, but it wasn't supressing the hunger for me at all.

Day 6

Despite increasing my fluid intake etc, this was another bad day, like day 4.  I felt dizzy and sick all day and couldn’t concentrate.

By the evening I was at the end of my rope and ready to give up. I had said I’d give Optislim a week, and surely it would get easier – but it was only getting harder.

That evening, I had a big family dinner event to attend. I decided to skip the shake and have a small healthy meal instead. I didn’t eat much and it was all lean, and I limited the carbs. Despite this, I felt very nauseous after eating and then had diarrhoea.  It was like my body couldn’t tolerate normal food at all anymore.

Days 7-8

During the next 2 days (the weekend), I stuck to the shakes for 2 out of 3 meals, but also had a few snacks in between. On the evening of day 7, I got a massive headache and had to take painkillers and go to bed early. Overall I felt a lot better for breaking the diet hunger-wise, but I continued to have diarrhoea.

On day 8 I was feeling stronger from eating proper meals once a day, and I went for a 3km run. This was the first time I felt able to do exercise all week, I was otherwise feeling much too weak and sick.

Day 9

Back to work, I decided to start the day off by going back on the shakes.  This week I had decided to try the diet with just a few extra snacks thrown in, so that maybe I wouldn’t feel so sick. I had the breakfast and lunch shakes but I also had a skim milk latte for morning tea.  Despite this, by 2:30pm I was back to feeling dizzy and nauseous.

At this point, I decided that I could NOT put my body through another week of this – especially since I would also have trouble re-adapting to normal food.

Summary

In the first 6 days, I lost 3kg so the diet definitely worked. However, it was the most painful week of my life eating-wise. I have never been so hungry or felt so sick and dizzy. I definitely did not feel healthy either while on the diet or for a while afterwards. I felt like my body absolutely hated it! I also didn’t feel ‘proud’ of myself when I had gotten through that week of pain, I just felt sick!

Optislim tips:

It didn't work for me, but it does for some... so here are my tips based on my experience:

• Don't buy too many of each flavour until you've tried them. I bought bulk packs of vanilla and chocolate, but didn't really like the taste or consistency of the vanilla shakes at all.
• I made a “soup” with my green veg allowance, which consisted of water and a little bit of chicken stock powder. I didn’t boil the veg in for long so that they were still semi-raw and didn’t lose their vitamins, plus when you’re on shakes you want to chew something! The “soup” filled me up more than the veg themselves would, and helped increase my fluid intake.

• I went to the supermarket before starting and stocked up on new flavours of caffeine-free herbal teas, and sugar free chewing gum.  I also made sure I had some diet soft drinks in my fridge. I know the chewies and diet drinks aren’t healthy, but I found I needed them.
• Shakes definitely taste better and are frothier when used with chilled water.
• The chocolate shake tastes great with blended ice – like a frappuccino.
• Sip on water and herbal teas throughout the day - this helps the hunger pangs a bit.