The following is Part Three (the finale!) of the series titled "A Diet for Losing Enough Weight to Leave This Physical Plane of Existence", or alternatively called "Achieving Fitness Goals With This Hidden Weight Loss Technique" for Search Engine Optimization purposes.
Reining It In: Fighting Back Against A Diet That Is Perhaps Too Effective Unchecked
At the time of writing, I'm on week 9 of my Invisalign treatment. I have in fact, not lost 72 pounds in total, as I found ways to slow the mad dash towards being reduced to atoms and returned to the aether. If you find yourself in a similar situation, I implore you to try some of the strategies that follow. If this situation is not relatable and does not apply to you, feel free to view this guide as a precautionary tale of a diet that may grow to unstoppable strength and power if left to its devices.
As mentioned before, starting out and in particular my first month, my teeth were so sensitive and sore that just chewing on anything in any capacity was very uncomfortable to the point that I preferred to simply not eat when I physically had that option available. To cope with this, I've decked my pantry and my fridge out with soft and palatable foods that will make any retirement home jealous. The following honorable munch-ions all encouraged me to eat more and stave off ruination. Behold, word-of-mouth organic marketing:
Meal Replacements
When I was in university, I had tried Soylent as a replacement for breakfast for about a month. The name "Soylent" is a clear reference to "Soylent Green", the 1973 film about a dystopian society from the distant future year of 2022 in which the titular fictional food product that the starving human populace relies on is revealed to be made of recycled human flesh. It's not necessary to the anecdote but I digress.
At the time, I had decided that while the bland taste wasn't a dealbreaker for me, it wasn't exactly much better than having actual food. At the time Soylent did not seem particularly healthy (though its formula has since changed significantly), nor did it save me that much time either since most of the time I'd just as easily be able to pick something up from the school cafeteria and eat my breakfast during lectures, or go to my internship and have catered or pre-prepared meals for breakfast. Its intention was to replace my own time preparing my own meal, which seldom occurred.
With Invisalign, I once again looked to meal replacements as a means of easily clawing back lost calories. As a way to shake things up, I looked at alternatives to Soylent, particularly ones that had just as many reviews and opinions to research, as well as ones that contained much less sugar than the current formula of Soylent. Even while shriveling up due to an utter lack of nutrition I was for some reason still conscientious about nutrition.
I landed on a brand called "Huel". Unlike Soylent, it wasn't clear to me what exactly the name meant. It's apparently not "Helpful Fuel", or "Healthy Fuel", or even "Haha, It's Fuel With An 'H' As The First Letter, Isn't That Quirky?". It's also apparently not a reference to "Huell", the beloved character from the hit show "Breaking Bad" in which the character has quite the penchant for eating.
I would later come to understand that the name "Huel" is shorthand for "HUMAN FUEL". It's unclear whether it means "fuel for humans", or "fuel made of humans", the latter of which being a boring derivative of Soylent's origin.
First time customers also get a really neat shaker cup with a uniquely designed mixing mechanism reminiscent of a sewer grate installed inside the cup, rather than the traditional textured ball that normally bounces around most shaker cups. They also sent me a comfy shirt but... when am I going to be so enthusiastic about Huel that I go outside wearing my Huel shirt, repping my Huel fanaticism?
Pictured: The only evidence documenting the phenomenon known as "Hueliganism"
Confusing etymology and quirky bonus products aside, Huel helped tide me over by replacing uncomfortable eating with easily drinkable calories. Its texture was like a smoother pleasant oatmeal (which makes sense cause oats are heavily featured in its ingredients) with a light taste like an Asian bakery-style cake, not overly sweet. It was really nice to start my day off with one of these and be woken up by sweet energy rather than by pain and discomfort.
Food Without Bite
Chocolate puddings or vanilla rice puddings, while extremely old-man-ish, are as delicious as they are easy to consume and worked best for me. Really anything that falls under this category of food that is so inoffensive that it doesn't even really require teeth to eat. Yogurts, gelatins, blended smoothies and such are all fair game.
Minimal chewing, smooth texture that leaves very little to be stuck in between teeth. What's there to floss? I feel more at ease foregoing steps in that almighty routine or being more gentle on the teeth after eating a cup of these in between meals. A nice swish of water or mouthwash will sweep away pretty much all the debris that would normally bother you throughout the day.
The Hot Water Strat
It's amazing what you can do with some hot water. For boiling in particular, it really helped me for two foods: overcooked pasta and softboiled eggs.
While overcooked and gummy pasta is not as texturally satisfying, it's way easier on the teeth when they are feeling particularly sore. The soreness and discomfort peaks early on, but there is consistent discomfort in the first day or two of switching to a new aligner tray (and I imagine, following every tightening of braces), but it's definitely a go-to when that arises. It certainly doesn't help with cleaning the teeth afterward, but the overall eating experience itself is much improved over the usual pasta. Adding more sauce to the sauce:pasta ratio is also a boon.
Softboiled eggs is something that I wish I thought of sooner, but it's still a mainstay in my toolbox. Eggs are just very tasty. I personally love a runny egg. I normally love a fried sunny-side-up egg, but because they tend to be very flat and crunchy along the bottom, it does require a bit more effort to bite completely down on and tear the egg white up. With a properly jammy and runny softboiled egg, it practically disintegrates in your mouth and leaves you with tasty egg in your face instead of on it. As a genuine knowledge share, I've been boiling my eggs for 6-7 minutes before throwing them in cold water followed by either immediate consumption or refrigerating to stop the cooking internally.
There's also the use of water that is hot but not boiling in the form of Sous Vide cooking. With the same principle as overcooking pasta, you can leave meats in the heated water bath for longer time, allowing the meat break down and further obliterate the texture for easier consumption. In general even if you weren't on a diet, I'd regularly employ a sous vide device because it's just a wonderful cooking tool.
Conclusion
Like the most thorough entertainment journalism, I leave you with a conclusion drawn before the subject under review has even reached its halfway point: Combining what we know about efficacy of The Ortho Diet with our newfound strategies to help balance it out, you can reasonably hit your fitness goals without too much effort beyond enduring up to a year of teeth shifting around your teeth at a glacial yet all-too-palpable pace.
By the end, you'll be left with a beautiful smile, and hopefully your teeth shall be the only bones visibly left exposed... unless 100% weight loss was your fitness goal all along.
THE END