Hello,

I'm a re newby. I have been reading on the em2wl website, bumping up my protien and slowly adding strength training to my workouts.

I am obese for my height and am faced with joining an optifast program to get into a healthy weight range offered by a local hospital OR trust the em2wl program.

I am scared and tired of the starve depression binge cycle.

Has anyone been obese and succeed in this program? Please share your experience.

Thanks❤

Hi - I've been on MFP for quite a long time now, and I can say with confidence that EM2WL IS a successful way of losing weight and getting healthy. Using this approach not only resets your body, but it also resets the way you think about food as a whole. Food isn't just a number of calories, and you are not just a number on a scale. Food is essential to life, and it's there to be enjoyed and for me, I think to enjoy it you have to understand it. Understand how it affects your mind and body and how you can eat in a way that promotes lifestyle change rather than focusing on reducing numbers on a scale. The numbers don't hold the key to sustainability or happiness. We can all grab a shake or smoothie, cut calories and eat ourselves crazy by working out how much a deficit we can 'get away with' - but it's not a long term solution. You'll always FEEL like you're on a diet and when you FEEL like you're on a diet, subconsciously you're always trying to find a way to come off it. The end goal is always to finish the diet and have that 'aha' moment where you can eat normally and maintain the weight you are when you were 'on' the diet. It doesn't work like that I'm afraid because it's not a lifestyle change, therefore any alteration to a particular pattern of food intake you're doing will result in the proportionate changes in your body. It's a bit like a maths equation.

But still.... it's taken a lot of mistakes and learning for me to come to the conclusion that the only way to get to your own PERSONAL sustainable weight and activity level is by changing your lifestyle. Eat clean, don't rely on processed quick fix meal solutions. THINK about the nutrients you're putting in your body and treat that body with the respect it deserves. It carries your around for your whole life, so it deserves to be fed with good stuff!

So in reply to your post I'd avoid the Optifast solution - quick fixes are exactly that. It's like putting on a sticking plaster. At some point it'll get wet and fall off, or gradually peel away or just get ripped off in one go. My point is, the plaster is no longer there and you're right back to square one feeling more desperate, more depressed and even less enthused about taking on another new 'diet'. So think of it as a lifestyle choice - food is not the enemy. Make friends with it and you'll be fine

I too have decades of disordered eating. Until this past year I only ever hit 2000 calories once a week or so. I got up to 305 pounds by eating under 800 calories a day on average. And that was with the once a week having a binge of 2000 - 2300 calories. There were many days that I was eating 500 calories a day. I was exhausted all the time. I spent 10 + hours a day sitting on my reclining loveseat. It has taken me a full year to get to 2300 calories a day consistently. As of this morning I weighed in at 293. Within a month of getting my intake up to 1200 I was down to 279, but then started gaining again rapidly, so I knew I still wasn't eating enough. I'm finally up to 2000 - 2300 consistently. I'm hovering right around 290 pounds. I now have the energy to wash my dishes and sit without reclining all day. I have a connective tissue disorder so I have to be very careful with any movements I do, so I can't do a lot of housework or lifting. But since I started working with beads I have noticed my fingers getting stronger as my bead work is getting tighter.

I feel so much better than I did a year ago, and isn't that the best part of it all?