AIBU to consider doing Lighter Life? Need to do something drastic!

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AIBU to do lighter life or something similar? I have name changed for this as I am so ashamed by how I have let myself get. I don't actually know how much I weigh now as I haven't weighed myself in so long but I would guess I probably need to loose around 10 stone if not more.

I have tried diets such as slimming world and weight watchers but the results just arn't quick enough and I fall back into the same bad habits.

Has anyone done lighter life before? How hard is it really? I've read all the forums etc and I am so close to signing up. Everyone has said to wait till after christmas as it will be too hard around christmas and I agree but part of me feels if I start now, by christmas I could be a stone or two lighter!

AIBU?

I did LL about 4 years ago and lost 5st in 4 months. The first week was utter hell, but after a while it did get easier and I didn't feel hungry at all because of the ketosis. It was hard to stick to at times, but the speed with which I lost the weight did prove a good motivation to keep going. The counselling was useful and I thought at the time that I'd really conquered my addiction to food. I'm not sure whether I'd have kept the weight off for longer if I hadn't fallen pg. straight after finishing, but I suspect probably not. I've gained it all back now, and more besides. My SIL is a similar story - she lost 9st or so just before me, but again has regained most of it now (and she developed gallstones into the bargain, which is a known side effect I believe). It's good if you want to lose weight for a specific event, say a wedding or something, but I wouldn't recommend using it as a long-term solution.

I know 4 people that did this - they all lost huge amounts of weight very quickly.

But, now, 3 of them are even bigger then they were to start with and the fourth only hit her target in July and is already piling it back on.

it doesn't work in the long-term

purplewerepidj Yes this does happen for some people and it is a shame but I think there is a cirtain headspace that you need to put yourself in before embarking on a VLCD diet. If you look at it as a diet rather than the begining of a complete change of lifestyle (as with most diets imo) then yes, you do plan to fail! Losing weight is the easy part, keeping it off is where the real journey begins. Not everyone is prepared for that.

[hblush] Thank you LWIW.

OP - forgive me, but I think the mistake you're making is thinking you must have fast results. I'm sure more important to you is that you have LASTING results. Crash dieting usually leads to quick regaining, and in health terms yoyoing is the worst thing you could do.

If you have £60/month to spend, I suggest you think about a personal trainer. You'll find with someone like that in your life, you will eat better, because when you're exercising regularly you tend to think "I haven't done all that work to cancel it out with this bag of crisps".

I agree, lifechanger. I think for me, the key is exercise. I absolutely hate moving atm, sweaty, red faced, ugh, I'm totally disgusting. With a few stone off and feeling a bit better, bit more confidence I would like to think I would address that side of my life. The alternative is not to try at all, and that's not an option.

Lifechanger makes a good point. If you haven't the willpower to give up chocolate etc now, then where and how will you find it once you have lost all your weight?

And if you haven't the willpower to cutback now, then LL is so hardcore you may not be able to stick at it - it may seem like a quick fix but actually may not be the best solution for you.

I am a yoyo dieter of many years and have done low carbing, VLCDs etc and am once again heading back up to my heaviest weight whilst thinking "I must lose weight for xmas, hmmmm a month of shakes will sort it" so I do know how you feel

No no no no no!

I am currently on a liquid diet (the milk diet for 2 weeks pre surgery) and I cannot see how it is beneficial, its tortur every minute of the day.

Yes the weight falls off v fast but what about when you stop, and you have to stop because liquid diets are just so unhealthy, no only for what you are ingesting but that the organs and gut and bowel dont get to do their job etc.

When you start eating again, the same bad habbits will be there that are there now, you will NOT have re educated yourself.

If you are serious about losing weight (and I also have about 9 stone to lose to be in the ideal weigh range) spend the money you would have spend on cambridge/ll and get some Cognative behavioural therapy from someone qualified in eating disorders/weight loss.

By doing that first then you will able to make ythe changes you need to lose weight, keep it off and be happy while doing it.

Ive been on liquids only for 10 days so far and I fail to see why anyone would do it or have gastric surgery that would make them only be able to have small/liquid diets.

THere are other ways but they do take time, the quick fixes rarley work out in the long term.

Its only now after 15 years dieting (and im only 30) that I realise that Ive abused my body enough, it doesnt deserve to be crash dieted, I need to start treating it with respect and feeding it what it needs, good nutritious food, regular gental excercize and the occasional treat to keep my head happy.

But Now im off for another pint of milk, which is a solid as my food gets until Friday.

Good Luck!!!

Apologies for the typos, I've got the milk sweats [hgrin]

one of my friends did it -

pros - she lost 5st in 5 months
her programme involved group therapy sessions

cons - she found transition to 'real food' very hard and not well supported.
the speed of weight loss stopped her periods for two years.
she had significant hair loss.
the group therapy made her feel a bit of a fraud as she felt others present had had much worse experiences than her (though she should probably have been in 'lighter life lite' which didn't exist at the time) .

she got much better doing foodies anonymous
her Mum did lighter life too, experienced similar positive results without most of the negative..i think my friend was too strict about it and made the diet a new kind of food obsession.

I lost 4 stones on the Cambridge diet recently, took about 5 months. The first few days were the hardest as i was ravenous, but after that i found it easy - never had to wonder about what was for dinner etc. I still have 2 or so stones to lose, but i stopped as my 2 yo dd was becoming more aware that i was not eating the same has her and i didn't want her eating to be affected. I've kept it off for a few months now, though i do now follow slimming world plan (don't go to meetings, just from an old book i had) which has helped me to maintain my weight loss.

Before i did it, i spoke to my gp and she told me that it was worth a try as i had so much weight to lose, and i had tried every othet diey available.

If you only have a couple of stones to lose, it's not worth it, but if you have a lot, it's probably worth a try - the quick results gave me an incentive to keep goinf, made it easier to exercise and made me feel better than i have in many years.

Good luck with whatever you choose.

I think it is evil. I come from a family of morbidly obese people and have seen these liquid/bar/watery soup diets take over social events etc, watch my family members lose oodles of weight and then snap it all back on again and feel demoralised, deflated, even becoming clinically depressed. I truly believe these sorts of diets train your body to hold on to more and more fat as time goes on. My sister, in particular, ballooned after doing one of these. She had been overweight before, yes, but a year after LL she put on 5 stone.. taking her from overweight to morbidly obese. It was horrific while she was on it, she was listless and couldn't go out, stayed in the house most of the time as she was so tired and cold and just not her.

Try SW or hypnosis or something, anything, that doesn't involve training you to survive on meal supplements. They will never work long term.. or at least I have never seen anyone make them work long term and have often seen people I love who have used them put on more weight than if they had stayed away from the stupid things to begin with.

I was on the CD last year, I had 6 stones to lose, stuck to it religiously and did it in 5 months, then I worked my way back to food from Sole Source following the plans, I have so far only gained 3lbs back (I weigh myself weekly), I use myfitness pal, run daily, and go to taekwondo 3 times a week, I eat small portions but don't deny myself anything, just use moderation and pudding is only once a month :)

So for me it worked brilliantly

If any of these diets were foolproof then the slimming industry wouldn't be the multi billion dollar industry it is. I've stayed in and sat miserable ad lethargic on Slimming World and WW.

Yes Guillotine, but she was visibly shaking and pale and had to sit on top of the fire, it was not just feeling a bit miserable because she couldn't have a slice of cake she wanted. It is an extremely low calorie diet, paired with using a very good, validated therapy (CBT) in a weird way, by telling you that what you are experiencing is psychological and not physical when you are on an extremely low calorie diet.

What is wrong with doing things more sensibly? I don't see the benefit in these. It seems like immediate gratification, an all-or-nothing approach. I will change my tune the day I see any of my family or friends actually maintain weightloss from these diets for more than a year or two and without putting on extra weight after. My understanding is that research pretty much says that these diets don't work and lead to weight gain in the long term.

I've done pretty much most diets too. I did LL about 5 years ago and lost 4 stone in 3 months, I kept most of it off as I got into running but the big downside was that it triggered an eating disorder for me (which I later found out was a quite common side affect), which took a long time and hard work to get over.

After my second child, when I put on a lot during pg, someone recommeded the Dukan diet to me, its similar in a way to LL, CD etc as you go into ketosis as you are only on protein, but the most important thing is that you read the book, it really explains well a lot about how your body reacts during dieting and why most people put the weight back on, for example normally your body would extract say 80 calories out of one slice of bread, but after you have been dieting a while your body becomes more efficient at extracting calories as it thinks there is less food so it will extract 100 calories from the same slice of bread.

He also goes onto a very strict stabilaisation phase which is designed to get you body used to its new weight, as your body wants to go back to its old weight, and if you make sure that you do that as well then you stand a lot more chance of keeping the weight off.

Whatever you decide to do good luck, but I would recommend at least reading the Dukan diet book even if you decide to follow LL (although Cambridge diet is cheaper), or any of the others.

Slimming world re educates you to eat better and you can eat loads, its healthy and works, up the activity levels too and accept that to make a proper difference you should'nt be losing more than a pound or two a week, its a long slog but hey you didnt get overweight overnight so you cant expect to lose it quickly. avoid the quick fixes they dont really work in the long term for most people unless you have a will of steel. use your determination for change to succeed with the support o a group, much more likely to have a long term effect. good luck.

I know 2 people that did lighter life, one is now bigger than when they started and the other about the same despite both losing about 4 stone in the six months they were on it .
I wouldn't recommend it. The best way I know to lose weight is will power, and to expect dieting will be incredibly hard for first few weeks then gradually get easier as your appetite shrinks ( particularly if you low carb.) plus don't think of all the weight you need to lose as one goal but break it down into half stone blocks. I recently lost 47lbs in six months (tight size 16 to size 12) by cutting out all biscuits, crisips, chocolate, sweets, ice-cream, cakes, puddings and alcohol. The first stone took 3 months to come of then I switched to low carbing and cutting portions. I didn't set out to lose this much but thought any weight of is better than on me .
Good luck.

Hi!

I lost 5 stone on this when I was 21. I'd left university and weighed 14 and a half stone and looked awful. I wanted to lose weight before I qualifed as a teacher.

I have yo yo'd since, I won't lie, but I've never got anywhere near that big again. The most I've weighed since has been 12 stone, which I am now and want to lose about 2. I can't do this diet just now as I'm still breastfeeding DD.

Good luck x

I'm another person with a friend that did LL, and put all the weight back on afterwards.

When she was on it, it was all she could think about, and talk about. It became ery hard work supporting her in it, but I love her so I did! She learned a lot about her bad eating habits, and why she had them, but it didn't actually help her long term.

One of the very interesting things she found, was other people's reactions to her when she was slimmer. She had always been quite confident with people and very social, but she found that she didn't realise how little respect strangers gave her when she was big. She said she noticed a drastic difference in the way senior work colleagues, strangers and new aquaintances treated her when she lost weight, they wer much nicer and more polite to her basically.

I was quite shocked to hear that, but she was adamant it was true. And it actually made her quite angry and then she wondered why she was making all this effort to be treated equally by ignorant people, and I think that contributed to her 'sod it' type attitude when she started eating again and put all the weight back on.

Sorry, went off topic a bit there, but I really did find that suprising. I am a fan of the Dukan diet for fast weight loss.

You don't actually - your stomach shrinks and it hurts the roof of your mouth to eat normal food for a while actually.

I know everyone knows somebody who has done this diet and put all the weight back on but honestly there are plenty of people who don't - I haven't.

Reading with interest as I have a bit more weight to lose than I'm happy admitting to

A family member did Lighter Life - it was easier for her than the SW etc she'd done in the past, as liquid-only is easy to stick to after the first few days - you don't get the blood-sugar surges that send you to the biscuit-barrel mid-afternoon, and you aren't thinking about food constantly as you've switched food off - iyswim.

However, 3 years later, she's put it all back on and a bit more.

So thinking about the £66 per week - that would pay for a therapy session and a massage once a week wouldn't it? Which sounds a lot more attractive than flavoured milk...

Personally, once I've got a chance in hell of a metabolism again (hypothyroid, waiting for pills to kick in properly) I'll be doing Zoe Harcombe. It's low carb, 5 days quite restricted then Stage 2 as long as you like. Not calorie restricted but identifies and manages any food intolerances which can lead to over-eating (wheat is my personal gateway food) and doesn't mess with your metabolism. Also seems easier to keep the weight off once you stop - I'd got into a weekly McD's and wine habit months before I noticed a difference on the scales. Best of all it's all based around real food - nothing pre-packaged (except maybe pasta and bread) and lots of veg - so you're getting all the vitamins and minerals which would otherwise make you crave stuff.

Oh, and you can eat cheese