Back to Cambridge need some help/inspiration from any other VLCD types!

[Alice2701]

Hi all!
Long time lurker but thought it might be time to post as today is day 1 back on the Cambridge diet. I'm almost too disgusted to admit this but last May I was 5lbs away from target having lost 6stone and frankly, down to my own greed and generally being happier, I now find myself needing to lose at least 5 stone to fit back into my beautiful wardrobe full of clothes :(
I'm finding it a lot harder to get motivated this time and I think it's mainly to do with embarrassment and shame of having done so well and then basically been a complete pig. I know once i lose a couple of stone I'll look (and feel) so much better but basically I'd just quite like some support from other people doing a similar diet or some success stories from people who've been just as silly as me and have beaten their food demons!

Good luck everyone!

Hi Alice. It's got rather quiet over on the VLCD thread, but there is one. I'm on week five of Cambridge, but as I don't possess a scales and my counsellor is on holiday this week, all I can say us that I'd lost 23 pounds by the end of week four - am finding this week difficult (including such moments as not having any of my own birthday meal/cake), but am hoping to be over the 2 stone lost mark this time next week.

You were clearly massively successful at Cambridge - can I ask how long it took you to lose your six stone? I also worry about putting my weight (I originally had five stone to lose) back on - is there anything you would do differently this time to ensure it doesn't happen again?

I can imagine you feel frustrated, but does it give you confidence that you managed it once, and can do it again?

i'll join you. I'm all over the place, really struggling and HORRIFIED at myself/my eating.

work colleague is away for a month and as a completely random target, I'd like to shock her with a couple of stone off when she returns....

meh! hate being like this and knowing I am solely responsible for it.

Ahhh a response at last :)

Talcum you're doing really well so keep going! From previous experience, you can definitely lose 2 stone in the first month if you stick at it religiously and "get into the zone as it were"! Nope I don't mind you asking at all: i started in the middle of September 2012 and by May I'd lost 6.5 stone but this was with roughly about 4-6 weeks "off" because of birthdays/Xmas/Holidays etc so I guess it took around 4 months maybe? This the kind of stuff i need to motivate me once again trust me!

All i can say re the weight gain, was it was all my fault. Absolutely irritates me when people bang on about these diets being crap because as soon as you start eating again it all goes back on...OF COURSE IT DOES!!!!! I think I was so stunned to be so slim, and be so confident that life just got in the way.
It disgusts me actually to think how I've eaten in the past 14 months odd, just one really BAD habit! What I will say, is that this diet (and others I assume I just haven't done others) could, in theory, make you look at food in a really unhealthy way. For example, I could see i was piling on the weight again but all I could think was "i can lose this really quickly back on CD...." so I was pretty much in denial.
This time round i need to focus and it's harder because I'm in a relationship this time so it's not just my problem, it's his as well - luckily I think he's relatively ok with the diet but he doesn't truly know the extent of it yet!

One piece of advice, and you guys are probably already doing it but make sure you drink LOADS of water!!! Literally loads. I'd say a minimum of 4litres a day to really speed things up!

Anyway, apologies for the long post! I'm off to see my counsellor at lunch for a weigh in (first time in MONTHS) and i don't want to know how much I weigh (like I didn't last time) - think it might make me head for a packet of biscuits otherwise haha!

Good luck :)

I'm abroad on a long weekend, surrounded by delicious food, and desperately trying not to pick at my toddler's leftovers in cafés...

Thanks for that, Alice - you sound as though you kept to the diet with complete rigour first time around to lose so much weight so fast! Yes, I've also struggled with the idea of living on bars and sachets - I'm not someone who became overweight through eating junk, I just eat too much good food, so it feels all wrong to suddenly live on processed packet food - but I'm actually finding it educational to take food out of the mix entirely. It makes me realise how much I have relied on it.

Am considering taking one of Gillian Riley's seminars in the autumn to see if that will help stop a regain once I've lost the weight.

I've realised it's literally all in the brain. I've started craving (well, just wanting really!) food I'd never normally be interested in but now since I "can't" have it, just makes me want it even more!

Have you had your first weigh in yet?? I went slightly off kilter friday night and had a carvery :( however I managed to only eat that whereas before, I would have gone "sod it" and eaten everything else in sight whilst loathing myself at the same time. Either I didn't come out of ketosis (although I assume I did as I had potatoes etc.) but I was back peeing pink by saturday lunchtime so I'm hoping that doesn't affect the weight loss too much.

I'm restating Slim and Save today, with 3 stone to lose. I'm doing the Simplicity Plan.

173lb this morning

I've just been in Paris for a long weekend, and wasn't able to just eat the products - I ran out of bars, and as we were staying with friends in a suburb but spending most days in the centre of the city, so couldn't make soups on the run. I didn't go crazy - and I actually think I deserve a medal for not going wild on lovely bread and pastries and crepes - but I certainly ate more calories than what would gave been contained in a bar and two soups. Dreading my Thursday weigh-in...

Oooh I'm weighing in Thursday as well! Slightly annoyed it's not friday because that would be a week from my last weigh in so basically, I want to see the biggest loss possible!

Hope you had a lovely time in Paris, Talcum, I'm tres jealous ;) so much lovely bread and cheese mmmmmm...
Went out to the pub for lunch with the girls at work and it was a ridiculous struggle to not order anything. I started to think "if you just have the steak...." glad I didn't because I know that's a downward spiral and I probably would have hated myself afterwards for it. I swear it's harder second time round!!!!! And I keep looking in the mirror expecting to see a massive change in my appearance because I KNOW it's so quick - almost getting annoyed I can't see much different after 6 days!!

Good luck, Catin :)

It was lovely, Alice - thanks. Despite nearly going cross-eyed trying not to look in the window of Glaces Berthillon... (I had no cheese at all, and a single breadroll. Grr.)

Come back on Thursday and say how you got on. I'm praying I will have hit the two stone mark, but doubting it, if I'm honest. How do you get back in the zone after lapsing?

Oh jesus I have absolutely NO idea - tis bloody hard!! I've been back on it a week now but bizarrely, I don't feel any slimmer AT ALL. If anything i feel like I may have put some on (kill me now). Could be my brain just trying to sabotage me but I'm rapidly losing heart! I think it's because I know how quickly you lose it so basically I expect to see my 10.7 self looking at me in the mirror already I guess.

Think the hard part is the knowing bit again. Last time I was completely oblivious to how much I weighed (i don't know exactly now but I know roughly and it's not good) so I was just happily in my own world guzzling water!!! Eurgh. If only they invented a thin pill that could keep it all off :(

Will do! I'm thinking I NEED to see AT LEAST 8lbs gone otherwise I know what I'm like....first time round I lost 11lbs in the first week and then after a couple of months on/off with a full week I somehow lost 14lbs so you can see where my high expectations come from ;)

Oh, I'm exactly the same - with everything in life, not just this diet. If I get good results immediately, I'm inspired and keep going, and am prepared to put in the slog, as long as the good results keep following. But if I start badly (anything from a book to an interview), I don't have the mental strength to keep struggling on from a 'bad' position. I see myself failing and decide I may as well give up now, rather than later.

Did I read you right, and see that you lost 14 pounds in a week several weeks/months into Cambridge, after a few non-strict weeks??? 14???Perhaps there's hope for me yet...

Ha well in reality I'd had about 8 weeks "off plan" but went back onto it and yep, somehow managed to lose 14lbs in a week! I've no idea how or why trust me. Must have been the water AND i think I got weighed in the morning rather than after I'd consumed products etc. and trust me, I really think that helps. I remember being amazed I'd "lost" 2lbs over Xmas but when I think about it, I was normally weighed in the evening and then this was my first time in the morning so really, I'd probably put on weight!!

Thing is, losses spur you on don't they?! Otherwise we'd all just plug away at WW for 1lb a month or something insane. No thanks!

I'm disappointed to report that I'm still two pounds short of a two-stone loss, but after the crappy, nibbly birthday-and-holiday fortnight I've had since I was last weighed, I was probably doing ok to lose three pounds. That makes 26 pounds in 6 weeks.

Upward and onward, or should that be downward and onward...?

Alice, spur me on by reporting a massive loss!

a 6lb loss which I can't lie, I was disappointed with but then it is that time of the month :( also im out for dinner tonight and tomorrow so I'm "off plan" as it were. Getting straight back into it Sunday though but will definitely have gained/sts when i next weigh in on Thursday.

Hey everyone
I started 15.9 step 2 on 5 July and after 4.5wks I am 13.9 ..yay!!
I do have sparkling wine and some sweets every Saturday. And some olives every now and again oh and loads of diet coke!!
Doesn't seem to effect ketosis on me!
But have been 100% on this personalised version of the plan!
Except one day when I had 2 protein and veg meals and only one shake.

It can be done!!

I have 2s9 to get to 11st! So calculating keep going until end of oct!

Alice, water retention does make a huge difference - your six pounds may well be eight.

Rox, which VLCD are you on? That's impressively fast to lose two stone, especially if you are not being 100% rigid 24/7! I was around the same weight as you at the start, but it took just over 6 weeks to lose 2 stone. What is the secret? Do you exercise a lot?

Hey talcum

No no exercise .
It's cambridge step 2- 3 products a day and a meal. But I'm bf a 4mo so having a double siZe meal to take me to 1200 cal a day

Have thyroid problem and would never lose weight any other way or when bf.

6wks to lose 2st is only 1.5wk longer than me.

Will be exactly 5wks tomorrow and I'm 13.7 now so down 30lbs in 5weeks

How is everyone doing? I'm visiting my parents, and realising why I have inherited such unhealthy attitudes to food - although they are both healthy weights these days, my parents both fetishise sweet, high-calorie food, and assume everyone else does. It's all 'Oh, we'll have to work that off!' And my mother is a 'feeder' and, despite having had the Cambridge diet explained to her more than once, keeps saying 'Ah, one little bit won't hurt'.

Not helping that I won't see my counsellor or be weighed for more than a fortnight...