Thread: Re-Feed Disaster

Well I started off great having phoned Lipotrim before starting re-feed to ask for advice. I felt really confident despite initially feeling scared about moving away from the security of the shakes. So I started off with 2 shakes and then had a chicken breast with 5 sprouts for my tea. My word it was delicious.

Lesson 1: I always have my shakes at 12 midday, 4pm then 9pm. Re-feed was different, i.e. had to have a breakfast, lunch then tea so 9am (ish) 12 midday(ish) and then 5pm or 6pm (ish). This was something I had not planned for so it was a shock as I struggled to get first shake down me so early then was looking for something around 9pm despite having had my 3 meals (2 shakes & 1 real food meal). Need to alter times of shakes 1 week before re-feed in preparation to lessen the shock and make the transition easier.

So managed days 1 to 3 but then it became tooo difficult following the re-feed advice on the official sheets. During our time on TFR 100%, we have no choice on quantity and do not leave ourselves open to interpretation. We open a shake packet & mix with 250ml of water......that's it!!!!! Re-feed directs us to select from small/moderate sizes and 2 heaped tablespoons....what on earth do these crude measurements amount to in ounces or grams??? I was worried to death I wasn't having enough or worse still, too much....I need specificity......not an approximate guess. Re-feed also allows lean meat with all visible fat trimmed off.......but it doesn't state how much of this lean meat we can have.....again, did I over indulge.....innocently??? Could explain my 2.5lb weight gain after my 1 week of re-feed!!

Lesson 2: Don't try to guess quantity of food items, find out before embarking on re-feed!

Maintenance products or regular shakes......why do we need to change when we're happy with what we've been having!!! I decided to try one of the free sample maintenance meals (caramel bar) but it was absolutely disgusting to me. So why do we have to move onto them?? Why do we have to continue to have a Lipotrim product if we've lost weight?

Lesson 3: Find out more about Liotrim products on re-feed and maintenance.

Now re-feed well underway but I still have to restrict my vegetables.......why??? They're supposed to be good and healthy for us and what I think I should be filling up on to stop me from being hungry!! I so wanted to eat lots of sprouts and cauliflower and broccoli but oh no...it's restricted to 2 measly heaped tablespoons.......how on earth do you measure out 2 heaped tablespoons of sprouts or broccoli or cauliflower?

Lesson 4: Discover more about the mystery of vegetables and their quantity when re-feeding and maintaining

Re-feed going bad and more bad with every passing day but what next........I'm supposed to now be eating potatoes & bread and meat......in unknown quantities as long as it's lean!!!! How many calories am I supposed to be eating a day??? I had no idea so I lost it and got myself spiralling out of control and heading fast to the chocolates where I fell into for 3 whole days!!!! Total and complete disaster.....binge eating like the old days.....I now realise I'm not yet ready to re-feed....I'm nowhere near as prepared as I need to be to keep the control.

Lesson 5: Learn how many calories I need each day and how many from each food group to stay healthy and avoid blood sugar highs and lows to stop the urge to binge.

With all that went wrong for me, I decided to go back to 100% TFR for another 4 - 5 weeks to lose a further 1.5st and give me enough time to learn all the lessons I need to before carefully planning a more successful re-feed for next time. I have emailed Lipotrim with the following questions and when they reply, I will post the answers I receive from them because I firmly believe that there are many others like me who struggle and fail at the last hurdle so hopefully the answers to these questions will go a long way to stopping a second failed attempt at re-feed for me and everyone else. Here is what I've asked to have answers to:

1. For days 1 - 3, it states moderate serving of salad (small breakfast bowl). 'Moderate & Small' mean different things to different people. Can you please state in either ounces or grams what you mean by moderate or small breakfast bowl? Is it 6oz of salad or 400g? Being more specific would be of great benefit to people like myself.

2. Why can we not have cauliflower or carrots on days 1-3 as vegetables and at what stage can these vegetables be introduced?

3. Does the amount of potato or bread on Day 4 onwards have to be as much as 8oz or 2 slices etc... or can it be less than this? If not then why not?

4. From Day 4 onwards, it states 'lean meat with all visible fat trimmed off' but it does not specify what the quantity is. Again it would be much more beneficial to have an amount stated in either ounces or grams. Also is this the amount to have for the rest of our lives to maintain weight loss?

5. Again it states small servings of fruit. How much is a small serving? It would be more helpful to either state 6oz of grapes or 1 small satusuma or 1 medium banana or 1 medium apple etc.. Simply stating small serving is far to subjective and will be interpreted by each individual differently.

6. Is gravy made with instant granuals allowed and if so, on what days can this be introduced and is there a limit to how much?

7. Can you continue to use the Lipotrim foruma rather than the maintenance products during refeed and the weeks following the first week as I've tried the sample maintenance products and didn't like them.

8. There is no mention of eggs on the re-feed sheets, are these permitted and if so, from what day and again, what is the quantity, small medium or large (as stated on the boxes they are purchased in).

9. Is tinned crab meat or tinned clams allowed during re-feed in addition to or as a replacement for tuna in brine and if not, when can these be introduced and in what quantities?

10. Once the first week or 2 of re-feed has been successfully undertaken, are we then expected to adhere to a low calorie diet and if so, how many calories should we be aiming for and how many calories from each food type, i.e. 300 calories from protein, 300 calories from carbohydrates, 200 calories from fat, 400 calories from fruit, 300 calories from vegetables???? Information like this would be invaluable in helping to plan ahead and maintain weight loss for the future.

So this is the story of my disastrous re-feed attempt so back on 100% TFR and hoping to do it successfully early February.

Nina, did this answer your questions about re-feed, did it help at all?

I was only thinking this morning that although I want to be at goal as soon as possible I don't want to lose the security of my shakes! After reading your refeed disaster I'm even more wary now when it's finally my time! It will be good to hear Lipotrim's reply to your questions. We could do with a few Lipotrimmers who have successfully maintained posting to let us know how they did it!

Oh my goodness Ms R!

Really tough. From all the certainty of the shakes to be 'abandoned' to so much open ended choice and fluffy quantities with no firm structure sucks. Hard to stick to the refeed to the letter when you're not sure what all the letters are. It all sounds so easy, but much harder to put into practice and no wonder that many that did their refeed before Christmas have struggled so much and gained. Great questions to ask and look forward to LT's reply.

Good luck with your restart x x x

it is really hard ending the security of the shakes, dont worry mrs R, i did the same, lost the plot and put in 1st 2lbs :/ its gonna have to be strict slimming worldfor me after, as istarted over xmas it was too much temptation around me. hopefully onc im done with refeed ill stillhave the routne of work as opposed to being off work etc with the festive season so will beeasier sticking to a plan.i have actually already planned out a weeks food plan on SW so i know exactly what i will be eating when i come of it. Im going to treat it liek LT in the sense I have to STICK to it and I am not allowed to go of the plan. otherwise I open myself to to many crazy doors!

Goose, I have 5 x A3 size spread sheets already printed off with cells for food item, quantity & calories doe breakfast lunch & dinner plus a snack section then a total cell to add up total calories for the day in preparation for when I re-feed next time. I am going to do he same as you & plan my food 1 week at a time so I know what to shop for & I will always have the right foods in and no temptations plus if I know what I'm having then there's no delay when I get home from work in preparing evening meal so no time to binge because of hunger.

I also agree with you that in hindsight, re-feeding over a holiday period was a bad idea. I need the routine of work to help keep my on track, I only have weekends to try and keep strong so hopefully my next....and final re-feed should be more successful, especially if Lipotrim indeed give me the answers I seek.

Yes Teapot, it was much harder than I thought once I lost the guidance after Day 3! Lipotrim is so restrictive which in a way makes it easier to stick to but to be thrown into the world of food without a hand to hold is a very scary thing and no wonder I failed. I will post the replies once (if) I get any.

BM I think that if I do get some answers & learn from this disaster then the next and hopefully final attempt at re-feed will work and you can learn from that to be successful first time around.

Thanks Ms R, I have started refeed,read your post and I agree,these are all the questions I was asking and am sure that many others have too.I hope it will work out OK for me,just going to give it a go and see .X

Very interesting read. I can't wait for the answers.

" Lesson 1: I always have my shakes at 12 midday, 4pm then 9pm. Re-feed was different, i.e. had to have a breakfast, lunch then tea so 9am (ish) 12 midday(ish) and then 5pm or 6pm (ish). This was something I had not planned for so it was a shock as I struggled to get first shake down me so early then was looking for something around 9pm despite having had my 3 meals (2 shakes & 1 real food meal). Need to alter times of shakes 1 week before re-feed in preparation to lessen the shock and make the transition easier"

In regards to the above hun - been meaning to reply to this. Im not a breakfast person and neitehr is my mum! but everyone also says ypu ahve to wat breakfast, if i eat breakfast im hungry again by 9.30am!! wheras if i didnt id be fine till 11 when mybody is naturally telling me its hungry. ive heard people saying that feeling hungry is good because it means your metabolism is working –I don’t know if its true or not but I figure if im hungry im more likely to want to snack or eat junk. So ive decided ill be having my breakfast between 10 - 11am, lunch between 2 - 3pm and dinner between 6 – 7pm. Who said that we have to have braekfast at 7am, lunch at 12 etc etc?! I think u know it might be odd having my lunch at 3pm but if that is what works for me than so be it! Just a thought, I don’t know what your eating habits were before but thought if you were like me it might be useful as id made up my mind to make sure I have berkky everyday – a proper one once I finish LT and than thought well im not hungry in the morning! So decided that ill try these timings. Obviosuly if I find I am hungry I will have breakfast wen im hungry!

Well I've now come up with a new idea for when I refeed!!! I'm going to become a grazer!!! No more huge meals just 3 times a day, I'm going to eat less but more often. Here's the cunning plan!!! Bowl of porridge (25g) and I mean the boring no flavour added Scottish Porridge Oats made with water and then add a bit of artificial sweetner if necessary but hoping not too as palate should have been cleansed so dont' want to introduce sweet flavours if I can help it. Then I plan a snack around 10am which will be a piece of fruit. Lunch will be 12 midday and consist of a salad with lean meat or fish. Another piece of fruit around 2pm and then around 4pm before I leave work, have another light snack of say 2 or 3 crackerbread slices with 2 or 3 Laughing Cow Extra Light Cheese Triangles (Crackerbread 19cals per slice, Cheese Triangles 17 cals per triangle) so all in all either 72 calorie or 108 calorie snack which should tie me over until I have my evening meal around 7pm after a bit of exercise and this will consist of vegetables, carbs & lean meat followed by a fruit dessert. I will then have my final meal of the day around 10pm which will be something like celery with salsa (homemade of course to limit the calories). So I think that this constant grazing on lower calorie meals and smaller meals could work!!!

I've also been planning foods, finding out the calories in foods I will eat and based it all on 100g size which will be easy to amend for the actual size of the portions I intend to have. I'm thinking of sticking to around 1200 - 1500 calories per day (1500 if I'm exercising) so by knowing the calorie content of my food, I can plan way in advance and know what my portions sizes need to be. I've categorised the food into the following:

FRUIT
CARBOHYDRATES
SALAD
VEGETABLES
DAIRY
PROTEIN
SNACKS (such as crisps, chocolate bars etc..)
DRINKS
MISCELLAENOUS (for gravy, herbs, oxo cubes etc..)

I'm going to be approaching my future healthy diet sooo much differently than ever before. I'm going with the mindset that I can have any food I like, as long as it's accounted for and I get a good balance from the above groups.

I've also been experimenting in my mind and on paper with creating my own healthy snacks. For example, I absolutely love dips and things to dip in. So I thought, how about Raita??? I can make it with 0% Total Greek Yoghurt (56 cals per 100g), cucumber (15cals per 100g or there abouts) and fresh mint leaves (12 cals per 100g). All in all, it should be a very low calorie dip. All I need to do now is source a low calorie poppadom or tasty cracker that will keep my healthy snack to around 100 calories per portion.

Again, another idea of mine is to make my own salsa. Tomatoes, chilli, onion, herbs....etc.... and then have that with celery sticks. I'm planning on having these types of healthy snacks around 10pm of a night because they will feel like naughty food but will actually be very healthy.

I'm now thinking of how I can make a healthy low calorie cheese & chive dip to have with celery or even carrot batons. Also I've seen a recipe for Kale Crisps!!!! It looks marvelous and will be just like having a bag of crisps. I just need time to research more and experiment making different healthy snacks and working out the calorific value in them and hopefully will have sufficient variety to keep me on track to maintain and change my eating habits for the rest of my life. I'm convinced it's just a matter of getting used to different foods and as long as they're healthy, low fat/calorie and within my daily calorie allowance then I shouldn't go wrong. Let's face it, years ago (and I mean many years ago) there wasn't diet foods available so readily as they are now but we soon changed our shopping lists to look at nothing but diet foods, diet cokes, diet cottage cheese, diet this, diet that so my theory is I just need to create a wealth of new foods for me to choose from and then embed the new way of eating in my life.

All sounds easy on paper and in my head but hell, I need to give it a good go and see if it works. Also the new way of eating, i.e. eating little but often is going to be a real challenge for me as I love to have huge meals (hence the weight problems) so changing over 40yrs of eating habits to graze is going to be difficult but I reckon it will help to control my blood sugar levels and thus avoid spikes which I'm sure trigger me (and probably others) to reach for the first edible item and binge!!! Don't know about you but I've always found that naturally slim people eat this way so there must be someting in it.

I think we should start up a thread on the Re-Feed forum to give ideas about foods such as I've mentioned and everyone can then add to it. It will be a wonderful useful resource and hopefully help us all stay slim once we reach our goal.

Did you get a response from LT?