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

[makeaBIGchange]

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 am half way through my abstinence phase of lightlifer total. I was ~9.5 stone overweight at the outset as a combination of 1) being comfort fed during parents separation at age 8, 2) taking a sedentary job at age 32, 3) having 2 kids in my late 30s and then 4) developing severe rheumatoid arthritis after the birth of the second. Between 2) and 4) I tried and failed to sustain commitment to SW, WW, low carb diets.

I gave up on myself last year and ate at will. Then by this summer I was busting out of my dreadful clothes and hardly able to scale my 3 floor house, and aggravating my RA damaged joints beyond tolerance. I was miserable beyond anything I'd experienced to date. I felt hopeless in the face of the challenge. makeaBIGchange I think I know how you feel casting around for an answer to a huge problem.

So I did the research on VLCD / 'healthy eating plans' / behavioural therapy and all possible combinations of these, it took me weeks to do and foolishly I didn't keep my findings to share at times like this. I'm an epidemiologist by training and waded through the patchy, somewhat old, often inconsistent research in the field. Essentially, most people who lose lots of weight don't keep it off, but your chances are a bit higher with VLCD combined with behavioural therapy. IIRC it is a 25% chance at 5 years as opposed to all other methods being

blogging, even [hgrin]

MerryBerry that's a brilliant post and shows just how psychological being overweight is. After all if it was easy everyone would be thinner.

I have battled all my adult life and it's only in the last year that I've cracked it. And it is about not dieting in my opinion. I have not and do not diet and i'm losing weight very slowly but steadily. It's because I have mentally and psychologically changed which is clearly what Merry has done with some formal psychological therapies; for me it was about looking at food in a more thoughtful way. Why do we have bread made with wheatflour? Because it's good for us? Nope, because it's a great bulk crop and makes farmers/producers alot of money. I have given up wheat and have gluten free or spelt flour and make my own bread and have lost weight. Why do we have racks upon racks of chocolate bars, because they do anything for us? Again, no it's because companies can make vast amounts of money. So now I make my own chocolate with cocoa powder, honey (which has nutritional value where sugar has none) tahini and coconut oil; no it's not 'slimmers' chocolate' but it is full of superfoods which nourish you and also give you the sweetness that you crave.

It's about nourishment. If you choose the foods that genuinely nourish your BODY rather than nourish the money makers then you feel more balanced and don't need crap, also I have found that since giving up sugar I have never had the shaky 'got to eat right now' feeling that I had daily before.

And I've discovered alot of eating is habit. I had sugar in coffee all my life and never, ever in a million years thought I could give it up but I have and it's now routine. It really is alot about habit.

I haven't done it so can't comment directly on its merits or lack of. However, I have dieted on and off all my life, including slim fast meal replacements at various points. I lost large amounts of weight and always gained it back again and more.

For the last 13 months I have been changing the way I eat. I have lost 95 pounds (I have another 6 or 7 to go) and don't see myself as dieting. I think this is key. I haven't done any specific diet for the first time ever. I have just tracked what I eat through an iPhone app similar to the one others have mentioned in here and been very conscious of only eat real food....meat, vegetables, fruit,....things I have cooked myself and know are healthy. And most importantly I have brought exercise into my life. These changes are not temporary. I am fully aware that I will be doing this for life. Exercise must remain part of my life and healthy eating too.

Whatever diet you do, you need to continue for life so pick carefully. I could not do meal replacement forever, or many of the other diets mentioned. You need to find something that will work for you long term.

Foreveronadiet told me something on here once which was so interesting. She said that for every pound you lose, you need to allow your body 5 days to keep it off. so for a 100 pound weight loss, your transition phase would be 500 days. I took this to mean that for 500 days I would need to basically continue eating as I had been while tracking and watching that I maintained my weight. 500 days is a year and a half which is about the same amount of time for me to get the weight off in the first place. Only after this, you can relax a little (not so much in what you are eating, but in not thinking about it all the time). So for me, the process of losing over 7 stone and maintaining it will take 3 years.

The most spectacular ( and sustained) weight loss I know of was an American bloke called Phillip mcClusky(sp?) who went completely raw vegan a few years ago and lost 200 lb. He's got a website I think. I've met him and he looks super healthy still, and at least the food would all be really good for you and delicious, rather than some unpleasant processed gubbins making lots of money for someone.

I used WW which took a year to lose 3 stones however that was about 16 months ago and although I have put 5lbs back on I seem able to go back on 'maintenance' and shift it again.I know 3 people who have lost stones on LL-I'm waiting to see how they manage when they reintroduce 'normal' food.

I think that whatever diet or weight-loss plan you follow, it's essential to think about what you're going to do after the diet. Doesn't matter how effective it is, if you go back to your old habits, you'll end up back at your old weight (or maybe heavier), that's just common sense. So there has to be some strategy for the long term (not sure what LL says about this,?) otherwise you've wasted your time and effort and money. In some ways this is the most important bit.

Personally I would second the recommendation of calorie counting with myfitnesspal or similar. If you have the necessary calorie deficit, you will lose weight. My preferred way was not to set the calorie limit very low (MFP recommends 1200 calories/day which I thought was too low!) but to work out what a healthy person of my target weight would need to eat to maintain their weight. That doesn't give you the fastest weight loss, but it gets you there eventually, and does get you into good habits. It teaches you what a 'normal' amount of food looks like, gets you used to how eating a normal amount feels, what a 'normal' level of hunger/fullness feels like. And this is important because you don't want to be counting every calorie every day for the rest of your life! It's a tool for learning to eat normally.

Forget LL.

You say sometimes you get really hungry, feel odd, have to eat fast - sounds like low blood sugar......... probably caused by the type of food your eating. Typical diets for weight loss are low fat, low protein and high sugar (I mean high GI, simple carbs, not just "table sugar"). These kind of diets are just a recipe for failure if you have any tendency to develop low blood sugar...... High GI meals spike your blood sugar suddenly, your body releases too much insulin, your blood sugar drops fast and you feel hungry/sick/odd/really need to eat.
This was me for years! I always felt such a failure for not being able to stick to a diet, but that was just the wrong kind of diet for me.

What worked for me (6.5 stone lost over 2 years, about 5 years ago) was controlling blood sugar surges by using a low GI, high protein diet, and INCREASING the amount of fat in my diet (yes, really!), "good" fats (olive oil, in nuts and seeds) are important for getting vitamins and minerals you need for you to look and feel fantastic.
Protein with EVERY meal in our house (pulses, beans, cheese, eggs, lean meats), Seeds and nuts every day (usually a handful on green salad). NO white rice, sugar, bread, baked potato (very high GI), Carbs should be wholemeal, potato should be "new", as they are low GI, and not too much fruit (but berry fruits are low GI). Plenty of veg. Try it. You won't get those awful blood sugar swings and you won't binge because of them.

LL is not there to change your life for ever, they are there to generate profit, and you could buy an awful lot of fantastic, tasty, healthy low GI food, real food, with the money instead, and work on changing your eating habits over the long term. Good luck!

glad it works for you oldmum42, didn't for me the 8 months i tried it, just didn't suit my gut

btw lighterlife isn't low fat, low protein. it is WHO RDA amounts of all.

i think the company is there to help you TRY and change your life forever. the owners say so. they make profit. it's a capitalist society. it's how folk operate. unless we grow healthy fantastic tasty food entirely ourselves and use no shipping or bought services of any sort to move and prep it, by eating we are going to contribute to someone's profits somewhere. of course it's wise to avoid obvious rip-off merchants

Probably been said before.

I havea friend on the LL diet - well shes on it Jan- July, loses 5 stone, goes back top normal eating habits over the summer hols, thinks 'sod it' and eats as normal until Christmas and th e whole cycle of losing/gaining 5 stone happens every year.

I cant remember the name of the lighter life owner but a google will throw up picures of her, living in the West Indies ((Bermuda I think) and she clearly isn't using her own products. She's a very large woman.

Thats all you need to know!

I,Ve lost about 5 stone doing Cambridge. I,ve mostly kept it off, every now and again I go back on to loose anything I've put back on, and I will be low carbing prob for the rest of my life. I also went to SW afterwards to change my eating habits, so I would say LL alone is not going to keep the weight off. That applies to all diets, though , loosing it is easier then keeping it off!

Excuse typos, typing on Blackberry!

weigh stuff. get measuring cups and marked plates and use for a year ow two while you really get into the size of stuff. read about things like the 1940s rationing amounts. is my plan.

OP I understand why you ask. I've put on so much over the last couple of years I don't feel like me, have fitness and health issues related to being overweight and am so ashamed of how big I am. Before, I always used to hate crash diets and think people were stupid to go on them, but now I do wonder if they'd give me a kick start.

Everyone I know who did LL has put it all back on, though. It's not a good way forward. If you didn't stick to SW, which lets you eat so much, LL would be impossible. It's hard, but I think those of us who are way too big have to look at why, and just re-educate ourselves. Smaller portions. Eat slowly. Learn to spot when you're full. More exercise. No comfort food. The only truly sane long term plan I've ever read is Paul McKenna.
If you want to feel good for Christmas, why not go on a sensible programme like SW, WW or Rosemary Conley. You can still lose a good 2 stone before Christmas. That's enough to make you feel your clothes are getting loose and your body is regaining its shape.

Good luck. Wish I took my own advice! :(

Thanlk yor for such wonderful advice you have all given to me on this thread. It's interesting to hear so many of you who know people who have put it all back on.

I know a quick fix is not a long term solution, but I could maybe just get 5 stone off with something like LL, I could loose the other 5 - 7 stone with something like SW. Just need to see the difference in myself and learn to love myself enough to do something about it all.

After 10 years of sw, ww and VLCD i folllow Paul Mckenna plan and have not looked back, i have 4 stone to lose and feel happy with myself at long last!

onwardandupwards - you're not the first to mention his name on this thread.

How does it work? do I have to do the CD or will just the book suffice?

I brought the book and the cd came with it and i also brought his daily diary which is so good! i eat no faddy foods, special diets and count no . points or syns. The books and cd cost £24.99 and its the best money i have ever spent. Only weigh myself monthly and food is no longer the centre of my life, every night i write something positive about myself and i am happier.

Thanks for the info. Does it work as a way to loose weight?

DON'T DO IT. I know 4 women who have done lighter life. They all lost loads in 6 months and looked amazing. As soon as they got off the liquid bit of the diet their weight shot up again and most of them are now heavier than when they started.
They all think it has upset their metabolism.

Lifechanger, as mentioned - weigh everything. Eg 75g of uncooked rice, 4oz meat etc. Make yourself eat a decent breakfast. I love shreddies/special k with dried fruit now I've finally made myself eat it. I found it took a good couple of weeks for my body to adjust, but I hadn't been eating properly due to anxiety so my metabolism had pretty much shut down (according to my GP)

DP and I also do Rule Of Thirds (he's very into running, I've got another stone to lose having already lost the one the AD's gave me ) He has one third more than me in his portion. Then, both portions are one third protein (meat, fish, etc) one third carbohydrate (rice, potato etc) and one third vegetable. All puddings, which we have about twice a week, involve fruit with yoghurt or ice cream. All snacks are fruit.

DP is draconian with his diet, because he's so into his sport. I'm more relaxed but have found that having one "treat night" a week works for me. I'm a youth worker, so on that night I'm allowed chocolate and crisps We don't have kids so it's easy not to keep chocolate, crisps, cake etc in the house although SIL manages not to have it in hers either with 2 young dcs.

Another tip is to use a smaller plate. A piled up side plate looks like a much bigger portion than a dinner plate with gaps!

The self discipline you need for Paul McKenna to work is to listen to the CD daily. I didn't, then mislaid the book. I haven't followed him, and the reasons are definitely psychological. It's not because his method is too challenging. It is brilliant. If you do what he says you need never diet again and you will be slim.

I think the paul mckenna way works,i have lost weight following it but as racingheart says you need to listen to the cd every day but i love it!