ALIZONNE!

[Beccie77]

Hello all Alizonners out there, starting a new thread as the old one is full to bursting, and I still want to know how everyone is doing and any tips.

Thank you so much @Moanranger! That's helped me tons. I had my first weigh in on Tuesday (only been on it really since last Thursday) and lost 6lbs!!! Was so impressed and surprised because I've just turned 50 and have an underactive thyroid! I'm finding this so much easier than any of all the diets I've been trying since I was about 11 years old!!!

Hi Moonranger. I've just finished my first week and have also tried lighter life. I lost 6lbs in my first weigh in. My metabolic rate is around 1200! I found the first 3 days a bit testing with headaches and feeling hungry but once the third day had passed it's soooo easy and you just don't feel hungry at all. Keep with it - it's defo worth it. x

So first weigh in & I have lost 8lbs! Very pleased. I am starting to feel a bit better & energetic. Also, the suction thingy wasn't quite so painful, so I must be getting used to it. I got 1 pizza to try out of the swap box (noted lots of the goat cheese soufflé sachets in there) & had it for lunch, topped with chopped tomatoes & fresh herbs & it was quite nice.
The nice thing about the big initial loss is that it means I have only a little more than 2 st to lose. Very glad I started when I did as I don't want to br on this at Xmas.
Susi I am also a Lighter Life veteran. At least it means you know how to cope with the food packs in public & the effect on your social life. Since LL, I have no problem standing around at parties - well away from the buffet table - with my glass of sparkling mineral water.

Hey @munchkinbug I also had a few of those weeks and I know it feels disappointing, specially when you know you're following the diet 100% and not cheating etc. But usually the week after a small loss I have a bigger one over a kg. So I guess our body compensates it somehow.

Thanks @brigidwasp, I'll keep trying to think like that. I've still lost 16.4kg in 10 weeks, which is unheard of for me! People are starting to notice as well, which is nice. It's a hard diet to stick to when the losses are small, though! I shall eagerly await next week ??

Yeah I know, I struggle a bit with motivation when I have such a small loss, because it looks like it's going to last forever and it's so expensive! but then again being so expensive it's also a reason to stick to it after all the effort and money we've put in. 16,4kg in 10 weeks is great! you must be feeling really good! how long until phase 2 for you?

They said 14-16 weeks on phase 1, so I guess another 4-6 weeks. I've got 6.6kg to go!

That's not long then, great! :)

Hi all, been a bit out of the loop as I'm back to work now but all still going well. Have just clocked up 7 weeks and have lost 35lbs so I'm really pleased. Won't be officially weighing next weekend as I'm taking my daughter back to uni so this will be a 2 week stint. The doctor has 'moved the goalposts' for my phase 2 as she thinks I can easily lose another 2.5 stones as opposed to the further 1.5 I was targeted to lose! However I will stop at my chosen weight if I think I'm going wrinkly!! Also delighted to discover that the chocolate brownies are NOT actually yellow sachets! Checked with my doctor and clinic staff and they are fine to eat every day apparently if you choose. Not that you probably would though! They said that they were going to make them yellow initially but that there wasn't enough in them for them to qualify for 'yellow', so hope I'm the bringer of good news. Btw, thanks for sharing the yogurt/cheese recipe Brigidwasp- will definitely be making that one. I SO miss cheese. Good luck everyone.

Hey Pollyanna it's good to know you're going well and keeping motivated.

It's so strange about the brownie, as I asked in my clinic and they said they were yellow as they are marked in the food forms they give me every time I go. Isn't it weird? Just in case I will still consider them yellow. I am losing weight slow enough to add something that will slow me down even more.

Hope you like the cheese! I tried making one adding lots of garlic powder and dried parsley in the mix (when you mix the yoghurt and salt) and it ended up tasting and smelling quite similar to Philladelphia Garlic and herbs. :)

Today I tried the lemon flan and totally hated it. Reminded me of Fairy liquid soup for the dishes.. :S Another bad choice. But on the bright side I discovered another one I love, the pancake with apricot jelly. It's actually quite nice if you add a bit of sweetener on top. (yellow sachet too though)

Hey there's one we agree on Brigidwasp- the lemon flan-Yuk! I also feel the same about the banana dessert, the caramel drink and the disgusting peach mango drink actually. Btw, it would be good if you asked your clinic to ring the Leeds one to confirm about the brownies-it seems weird that different clinics are giving different advice doesn't it? I certainly don't want to find Leeds were wrong- not after a brownie-fest!!

Omg same with the banana dessert and peach mango drink!! caramel drink it's yuk too, but I managed to eat my box adding a tiny bit of water only like a thick pudding. Won't be buying again though!

I will ask them again on my next visit and see if they can find out. hehehe

Polly, that's awesome-well done!
Funny, I quite like the lemon flan & the banana pudding, especially with blac coffee.
I am at a conference for two days - have brought lots of drinks & pudding & a hand blender, also celery & aubergine dip. I have ordered a Phase 2 meal for tomorrow night's banquet, and I stand around with my glass of fizzy water at the receptions. Determined to stick with it.

Well done Moanranger- it's so hard when your not in your 'own place'- concentrating on your goal is so much more difficult, so good luck. Stick with it!

Have a need to post at the mo - challenges of being at a conference. I am rather faint with hunger, maybe because I went swimming? Also only had a sachet for lunch - not my usual salad. There was a buffet, but I didn't go in case I got tempted. Free drink is flowing EVERYWHERE buy I am staying in my room having my late afternoon sachet & a couple of celery sticks. I think if I can stick to this 100% during this conference I will feel a great sense of accomplishment.

You can do it Moanranger! We're all with you willing you to stay on the straight and narrow - just keep chanting that mantra, 'Nothing tastes as good as thinner feels'. True, true true! Just picture those scales next week!

Hello everyone! I just started the Alizonne therapy after reading these threads for a while and thought I would give it a shot! I've got 5 stone to lose, they've estimated 24 weeks and my metabolism was 1680 (thought it would be lower as have an underactive thyroid), I don't know how these figures compare to others? I guess it's all personalised?
Started the sachets and supplements etc this morning, gah the capsule that tastes like seawater is awful and I'm downing water like a fish to try and get the 2-2 litres in but apart from that not bad so far, just feeling a bit weird/weak? I'm guessing the first week is the hardest?
I (stupidly) weighed myself earlier and it said I had put on 4lbs from my weigh in yesterday!! Really hoping that is all the liquid/water? The ultrasound yesterday was actually ok but the hoovering machine thing hurt a bit - I thought it would be the opposite after reading peoples posts?
Anyway just wanted to say hello and you've all inspired me with how well everyone has done so hoping I can do the same (as I've got to go wedding dress shopping in a few months!)
X

Hi guys!!

Thought I'd log back in to update you all :) Had my weigh in today and I've lost 4 stones in 13 weeks!!! I'm still in phase ONE as I want to lose 7-8 stones in total but I'm getting there! :D Time to treat myself to a new Pandora Charm :D I'm glad because at this rate I'll be in phase two before xmas which will help :D

Sandy x

waistingawaylivingtoday.wordpress.com/

Hi, all,
Made it through conference fine. On my table there were two men that had pre-ordered custom meals, so definitely not alone in this. Meal was fine, nicely cooked although a little bland. The menu meal wasn't actually very nice, & one woman commented that she would have preferred my salad.
Weighed in yesterday & lost a further 4 lbs - so that's 12 lbs in two weeks. All in all, I feel fine.
Baloo welcome z& good luck!
Sandy great job & I read your blog!

My weight-loss seems to have slowed down for no reason I can think of :(. Still losing a bit, which is obviously nice. My weigh-in was Friday and I'd lost 1.6kg, so a total of 18kg (39.6lbs) in 11 weeks. I always weigh myself on a Monday morning as well (as I started the diet on a Monday, so it gives me a true idea of what I've lost for an actual week, if that makes sense). I've only lost 0.1kg since Friday, and only 0.7kg since last Monday morning!! What is going on??

I was hoping to have lost 3 stone by now. I'm almost there, though. Over the last four weeks, I've lost an average of 1.2kg, which I feel is quite low for someone still in phase 1.

Still, I must keep looking on the bright side - I'm now in my size 14 jeans.

I'm in London with work this week, which will be tough, but hopefully the stress of it all (work-wise) will kick start my weight loss again - fingers crossed!!

Thanks Moanranger for your welcome :)
@Sandy that's amazing! I'll have a look at your blog too.
@ Munchkinbug, at least you're still losing weight but I can imagine it's v frustrating when it's not as big a loss as you hope for. Have u tried drinking more water/exercising more/having larger salads to stop your metabolism slowing too much? Sorry you've probably tried all these, I'm a complete novice at this so far but fingers crossed for you.

Have to say the first few days of this diet have been pretty grim, probably because I know I used to just live off carbs most of the time. Have been having trouble concentrating and feeling nauseous, (and spent most of last night running to the loo - not sure why, sorry if TMI!). Seem to be losing weight already but serious kudos to you guys who have been on this for weeks and weeks, I really hope it gets easier. Was a bit over optimistic on my first day and went riding, all was fine until I dismounted and my legs gave way = landed on my bum in the middle of the ménage first time I've fallen off in 24 years of riding so had to laugh. Yesterday also noticed my legs were trembling whenever I was bending down to put shoes on etc, don't know if this means my stubborn body still isn't in ketosis yet.

Phoned the clinic also on the first day after reading the nutritional info on the packets and being a bit alarmed as to how few calories they are... I (probably naively) thought this diet/therapy plan was designed so your metabolism is fairly maintained, I was wrong! It slows your metabolism down less COMPARED to other low calorie diet plans - the therapist corrected me. Hmmm they didn't put that last snippet on the info pack they gave me! Also was rather alarmed by aspartame(!) being used in all the packets I have (no idea what quantity), and some packets even have two or more artificial sweeteners! They're going in the swap box/the bin for sure. I'm not a food hippie and know it's all controversial but I thought they'd at least be using a more natural sweetener, or maybe less sweet food that don't promote psychological dependence on sweet foods? I can cope with one possibly carcinogenic sweetener per sachet but not three I've always stayed away from diet drinks etc for this reason but I know there's bad bits in every packaged food. My personal trainer/nutritionist was a bit aghast that they recommend stir frying using olive oil when it's well known apparently that heating olive oil turns it into a rather unhelpful fat. So I've bought some coconut oil instead .

Has anyone else noticed this or been a bit alarmed by it? I know I should just probably chill out and get on with it so trying to do that now and will try and pick the sachets with the least amount of artificial sweeteners I think.

Sorry I've ranted on, probably my bad mood cos of it still being early days and being a bit disillusioned that Alizonne haven't done their nutritional homework properly but fingers crossed

Hi everyone,
Congratulations to everyone with this diet. All of your comment do give me some hope.

I have an appointment at the London clinic on Wednesday 17/09/2014. At the moment I'm at 186 lbs ( for 5 feet 4 inches) and I've always been in that range regarding my weight.
How long do you think it will take me to lose 2.5 stones with Alizonne? Please let me know according to your experience :)

Hi all, it's my first day on here and on the Alizonne programme. Just had half the leek and potato soup which i'm afraid is absolutely vile. Managed about half, and feeling slightly like i'm on 'I'm a Celebrity' with their horrible concoctions! Also not liking the vitamins and i'm only on day 1. Please tell me it gets better! Swallowing those tablets makes me sick! I put the salty water one in my morning orange and pinapple (i think thats what i was) and that was actually OK. Got a hot chocolate for my next meal in about 3 hours! good luck everyone.

Also a note to @Baloo2635 my personal trainer has coconut oil in his coffee! it's the latest thing to do, and i used to have it in normal hot chocolate, so that's my oil for today in my new alizonne drink! I'm also having to limit the aspartame as in high doses it gives me migraines

@wawa90 and @Allydb - good luck with your diets and I do really hope it works out for you - it seems to for a lot of people.

I've stopped the diet, and phoning the clinic today, unless I can speak to the doctor about this diet there's no way I'm continuing. Managed 3 days on it, 2 of which mostly spent on the loo and I couldn't function at all. I followed the diet plan exactly. I'm meant to be starting a PHD next week so god knows how I would have managed.

It's not that though, I don't want to be the negative one but my fiancée and I spent all of last night trying to find one piece of research into this diet, which is essentially a low calorie, high protein, low carb, no fat diet. There is tons of research on ketogenic diets but all of those talk about replacing your usual carbs with healthy fats, not consuming 5 sachets with salad and veg which hardly makes it up to the 800 calorie per day limit (750 per day is classed as starvation). I could find absolutely nothing on any form of ketogenic diet that doesn't include any fat. I know they say the treatments release the fat into your system but I clearly didn't have any floating around my system as the horrible diarrhoea I was experiencing is apparently a quite well known thing known about for centuries called "rabbit starvation" - when people eat pure protein only with minimal carbs and no fat. Fat is my enemy and always felt like it but apparently that's how ketogenic diets are meant to work and you burn fat by eating fat (healthy fat).

I re-read all the Alizonne info after all of this and noticed how it still said stuff like your metabolism won't be surpressed at all - not what the Alizonne therapist said to me, and I know for a fact eating less than 1000 calories is a sure way to surpress your metabolism as well as immune system. It talks about how normal calorie controlled diets put people into starvation mode - erm that is exactly what Alizonne is doing. The reason people aren't hungry is nothing to do with "eating" regularly or the intake of protein, it is that you naturally stop feeling hunger 3/4 days into a fast (this is scientifically-backed and I know this from stupidly having done a short fast myself). And the sweetners, aspartame (if I leave out most of the controversial stuff on it and focus on this diet), aspartame is well known to easily knock people out of ketosis and in some people makes them release insulin to store fat (seems a bit counter efficient?) oh and it increases appetite. As does fructalose which is included as well as aspartame in some of the packets. It's well known that your taste buds detecting sweet things in your mouth lead to a whole host of chemical reactions that result in insulin spikes and hunger.

I hope somebody reads this and just doesn't dismiss it all as the ramblings of a skeptic. I work for the NHS and my friend who's a (very experienced) GP who I spoke to last night about it all backed up everything I've just said and was appalled. And the real reason they require medical supervision (they advertise it as some sort of bonus), it's actually because the nutritional supplements can't be classed as meal replacements because the sachets don't conform to the FDA (and a whole lot of other organisation) standards, so they HAVE to be medically supervised. My GP friend could think of a whole load of reasons why they state they don't advertise this diet...and she advocates ketogenic, proper ketogenic, diets for obese patients.

Please be careful if you're doing this diet and if you want to avoid the horrible artificial sweetners the more savoury sachets seem to have less in them. The chewing gym they recommend also contains one that is really not good for diabetics. I know I'm disillusioned but I've just tried to put across the main facts in the most unbiased way (backed up by scientific research - Alizonne doesn't have any - have a look for yourselves ) so people can at least know some facts in doing this "diet".

I'm going to start a proper evidence-based ketogenic diet now with real foods, healthy fats (avocado, nuts etc), and find myself a nutritionist in it, which will also be a lot cheaper and with all the research it seems I'll lose weight/fat just as fast and not suppress my metabolic rate like Alizonne does/would have....wish me luck

Sorry baloo but we will have to agree to disagree on this. THE most effective diet (&I have the scientific, peer-reviewed paper) is called the milk diet, which replaced all food with around 500 kcal of milk/soup. Participants lost weight quickly & complied well. This diet forms the basis of Cambridge, Lighter Life & all other VLC regimes.
As to aspartame, yeah, there is a lot of internet hysteria about it, but poison it ain't. I prefer sucralose, stevia & truvia myself, but can live with it if it gets the weight off. I think the coconut oil craze is just that, and having looked at the olive oil issue myself, it has to be heated to much higher temperatures than you can achieve in a kitchen to de-nature. I am a biologist with plenty of chemistry training BTW.
Good luck with you natural food diet -hope it works for you.