________ ________ ________ 2018-05-19 / \/ \/ / \ / __/ /_ _/ I think I mentioned in another file that / _/ / / in the months leading up to our holiday my \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_ partner and I started a very low calorie / \/ \/ / \ diet or VLCD. It wasn't really for the / _/ /_ _/ holiday, it was something we'd just been /- / _/ / half thinking about for a while and we \________/\________/\___/____/ finally felt like "Why are we just talking about this and not doing it?". We've been calorie counting off and on with some fair results but this would be a proper diet. We opted to use Nestle's Optifast program, there are a lot of meal replacement type programs around but Optifast had one thing the other ones didn't seem to have; an end point. The other programs kind of "wound down" the meal replacements until you were down to one a day and regular food, which makes sense from a product standpoint, you want people to continue giving you money hahaha, but Optifast's planner has a clearly scheduled transition off the product entirely and I kinda really respect that. Aside from that it's the standard shakes and bars meal supplement deal, the shakes were mostly pretty nice, the bars were not that great but not so bad that I wanted to quit. I think that Nestle was involved made things a bit more palatable, they know sweets. There's also desserts and soups but we never tried those. They warn you that the first three or four days are going to be hellish and, you know, they were fuckin' right, holy shit. My body just freaked out hard and I ended up with headaches and a migraine and cravings so hardcore, but after that it calmed down and everything was pretty cool. Once it really got going it played into my using routine to manage anxiety too, so it was quite good. The results, too, just amazing. We lost heaps and it STAYED off, even when we had moments of weakness or, uh, three or four successive moments of weakness. It was actually a little bit frustrating how quickly the weight came off, in it's own way, because your clothes stop fitting but you're still losing weight so you don't want to buy anything new because you know you're just going to shrink out of them again haha. We definitely plan to go back on the diet once we're home, I think I was about 1/3 to my ultimate goal after only a month and a half. I'm sorry, I know that shit reads like an infomercial. But all this was before our trip... jump cut to me wasted on a couch in the 'States, covered in crumbs and oil, surrounded by trash. I am not ashamed to admit I love to eat shit. I love McDonald's triple cheeseburgers, I love soggy, oily pizza. I love shit from the microwave, I love shit from the Costco diner. I love chips and cake and Coca-Cola. Garbage food makes me happy. So here I am in the land of junk food and I can tell you, I'm going hard. I have fallen deeply in love with these Raybern's brand frozen Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches. Holy shit they're so good. Costco sells boxes of like eight of those fuckers and I just slam right through them. Fuck. I think I'm gonna nuke one up right now. There's also a company in this part of the States called Tim's Cascade Snacks that makes killer jalapeno potato chips. Damn. The other day we went to Chick-fil-A and oh boy it lived up to the hype, one of the best fast food chicken sandwiches I've ever had, super thick and moist. The vibe in there is super weird though, their politics aside. I guess maybe it's because they're new to this area and franchises are springing up all over but the kitchen was FULL of staff, there had to have been at least fourteen of them crowded behind the two registers and in the small kitchen, and they were all teenage girls and all but two were white and blonde, or light brown haired at best. It felt like some Midwich Cuckoos shit. We've also hit up Taco Bell a bunch and God I love it. The perfect level of quality and hot garbage, and their Fire sauce is so nice. They have this place here called Taco Time which is a bit more authentic and also really delicious. I've eaten Chinese food and teriyaki, we don't have teriyaki joints in Melbourne as far as I've seen. We've been to Olive Garden and Cheesecake Factory, where the middle class can feel upper middle class haha, and don't get me started on how much I love Arby's. We also had some authentic Korean food and let me tell you, if you haven't tried spam fried rice you need to get in on that. It's so delicious. Damn ok, I've gotta go fix me one of those sandwiches and some jalapeno chips. PS. The beer here is also really excellent. EOF