64 oz. of Optifast Water…

Ahhhhhhhh Gulp.

I have finished my 64 oz. of Optifast Water.  This is the amount that Optifast says you should drink a day.  There are also those who say you need the water to flush the fat.  I have no idea if this is true or not. I know that with my size and my stomach that 64 oz. of Optifast Water is just fine. I have never had a problem with it.  In fact, before Optifast I drank about 128 oz. of daily water. 

I cannot tell you how many hours of discussion in Optifast Group Therapy you hear talk about water. Many people just cannot seem to get to the 64 oz. number. Several people whom I have spoken with say that 64 oz. actually hurts their stomach.

For those of you who have conversion issues, 128 oz. of water is 1 gallon. So it then is easy to add up — 64 oz. of Optifast Water is 1/2 a gallon of water. And 1/2 of that is 32 oz. which is a quart.  So 64 oz. of Optifast Water is just two quarts of water.

I have an old decorative souvenir cup from McDonald’s. It was a large soda that is a plastic mega cup.  It is 32 oz. in size.  One thing I will mention here is that a Large McDonald’s Soda is now 28 oz. They shrunk it when we were not looking.  Same price but 4 oz. less of soda.  Anyways, I fill the large cup I have from McDonald’s up with water in the morning.  I drink it with breakfast (which right now is a lovely Optifast Chocolate Shake — Yes, I wake up every morning to Chocolate!) and I usually have it consumed by 10am.  I refill it and set it at my desk and try to finish this new one by 12 noon. So by noon I have finished my daily Optifast Water.  Then I drink another between noon and 230pm.  Finally, I finish the last one between 230pm and 5pm.  By the end of the work day — which many of you know I really don’t work for a living — but by the end of the work day I have completed 4 McDonald’s 32 oz. cups of water or 1 full gallon of water.  I often drink additional water at dinner time and in the evening.  I try to stop all drinking except for lovely Optifast Shakes by 7pm.

So there you have it, an easy way to get over a gallon of water in a day.  If you simply want to stick to the Optifast numbers, you can be finished with your water consumption by 12pm each and every day. By the way, I will add here that if you hate plain water, there is always Seltzer (Northern Term) or Club Soda (Southern Term). Almost all carbonated water is made without sodium or any sugar.  I love to put a lemon or a lime wedge in my Club Soda and on Optifast that is allowed.  So basically you can drink 5 cans of club soda a day and get all of your Optifast Water in.

My issue is the limits of caffeine.  On Optifast you are limited to two cups of coffee and that ain’t the Starbucks Venti version either.  You are limited to two diet sodas as well.  This is an issue of sodium.  Sodium intake on Optifast will deter your weight loss.  It is not just about retaining water. It is rather about trying to keep you at healthy sodium levels going forward.  The USDA and the American Heart Association both limit sodium for a “healthy young adult male” to approximately 2300 mg.  For a “healthy middle-age adult male” the total daily sodium intake drops to 1500 mg.  It is hard for me at 47 to admit that I fall into the back side of that middle-age category but as my friend Don says — “I am middle-aged. How long do you expect me to live?” — So I must face the reality.

For a cup of Starbucks or McDonald’s coffee they list the sodium content to be 20 mg. Now that may not seem a whole lot to most people but for most people that is about 2% of their daily intake.  Remember this is a cup or 8 oz. of coffee.  Most people drink a large coffee and that can approach 5% of your daily intake of sodium for one big cup of Joe. Forget Espresso — 8 mg. of sodium per 2 oz. of Espresso.  Oh and those two Diet Cokes each day? 35 mg. of soda per 8 oz. of soda. The exact same for Diet Pepsi, so please don’t get me into the cola wars.  One more thing, I love this, many Coke distributors use the Coke concentrate from headquarters to flush and clean the engines on those big delivery trucks…. Yikes.

I get the sodium connection with retaining water and diets, but sodium also increases blood pressure and can lead to heart attacks.  So speaking of middle age males, this Irish heart has issues already genetically, and for that I am on the way to a healthy lifestyle with Optifast, but part of that has to be limiting my sodium intake and that means coffee and diet soda.

So as I said, I have no idea if water helps “flush the fat” out of you or not.  All I know is that part of this journey for me is to become healthy and happy and 64 oz. of Optifast Water is one big step on the way to a new me!

Have a great weekend — the weather is finally starting to turn…