Diet talk

[lnr]

Gah, I don't know quite what to say here, because I am a muddle of contradictions. I'm around 100kg, give or take a couple either way. I'm type 2 diabetic. I'm very very strongly encouraged to lose weight to try and bring that into remission, but I've been resisting that and trying to concentrate on eating sensibly to manage the diabetes. I don't believe in dieting for weight loss, because it's usually counterproductive in the long term, but I live in an environment where the pressure for me to lose weight is enormous, including from myself. So, gah. Anyway, skip the rest if you don't want to read about diet talk.

Anyway, for some reason one of the weight loss company ads got me, and I've signed up for a two-week trial of Habitual.

It's a total diet replacement scheme - three months of meal replacements: 4 soups, shakes or porridges a day, for a total of 800 calories. Which could be great or could be awful but VLC diets are supposedly good for "reversing diabetes" and I figured I could give it a go for the cost of postage, and here I am 1.5 days in and doubting myself. So far nothing tastes *horrible* but it's not inspiring. I'm tired and hungry and grumpy but to be fair that's probably not lack of calories - just lack of enjoyment and the weight of expectation of the next 12.5 days! I feel like I *could* carry on a bit longer, but that I'm almost certainly *not* going to sign on for the first full month after the free trial. Which to be fair I thought was a likely outcome anyway. I guess the only question now is do I stick it out for two weeks, or do I go make a sandwich and chuck the meal replacements away?

Anyone want a bunch of 200 cal shakes?

Comments

[jack]

*hugs* Best of luck. Unsurprisingly I've gone back and forth on how much I should actively try to lose weight. I've been exercising regularly and low key trying to *gently* reduce my appetite for several years.

4 soups, shakes or porridges a day, for a total of 800 calories

Wait, 800 calories total? My first reactions is that sounds dangerously little, can you try aiming for 90% of of your maintenance intake, not under 30% (but that's just a guess, if you know more than me then don't listen to me). But I guess if you're not continuing then it doesn't matter.

I'm tired and hungry and grumpy

FWIW my experience was that every time my weight actually dipped, I went through several days of being ARGH about everything (but that did go away, even if my weight kept trending down for a long time). I think that is really common for any day or more of semi fasting.

or do I go make a sandwich and chuck the meal replacements away?

Would it be worth substituting some meals with them? Either to aim for a regime which seems more suited to you or just to use them up? I have in the past yearned for a simple system of just deciding what to eat and then sticking to it, but I've never actually had the nerve to try it, but you might find some regular meals are more easily countable than others if you fancy trying something like this plan.

[lnr]

Going very low calorie (some plans are as low as 500 a day!) is sometimes considered more effective for significant weight loss, rather than just reducing to just-under-maintenance. I think partly because you don't have to stick to it for as long to get results! To be honest keeping weight *off* long-term without constant vigilance is the nightmare, and I don't think anyone has an answer for that one.

I think I might be able to cope with keeping them for one-a-day if I don't manage to stick to the total-replacement scheme for 2 weeks anyway. I'm definitely not going back to calorie counting everything I eat though - I guess that's the other advantage of a total diet replacement plan - no having to plan/count/measure everything you eat.

I did consider Jane Plan at one point, because it's a we-provide-your-food plan with more normal calorie counts, but they still needed you to add your own veg to meals as well, which kind of ruined the point of you-do-all-the-thinking-for-me that I was looking for :)