Comparing

Lucy_Jucie

Silver Member
Thought I'd start a post off about comparing VLCD's. I'm comparing Lipotrim to SLim and SAve.

I done lipotrim for a good while, at first it was great, very hard but weight loss quick. After a while I found it really hard just having the same shakes day in and out, couldn't drink tea with milk and just really missed chewing lol. I also wasn't that happy with the fact that I felt so guilty if i ate some chicken or ham or anything like that. The fact that I was 'cheating' just made me feel worse. Lipotrim has not taught me about portion size or what I should eat after, but it has disconnected me from emotional eating. I do t think I will ever go back to lipotrim, I find it's a torture not needed. I also found the rules to much, especially on the discussion boards, if you flaunted the rules people would make you question weather you should do the diet and I hated that. So slim and save is the one for me, I can manage it better and if I eat then so what... As long as I'm losing and becoming healthy then that's all that matters
 
I can only compare LT to S&S too since they're the only 2 I have done.

LT - worked really well for me (did it in 2005) but I hated everything but the choc shake so I spent 4 months just on chocolate shakes and drinking peppermint tea. It was so strict, and whilst internet forums weren't as popular back then I was on one but there were only a few people however I don't recall anyone getting a mega hard time. I lost 5 stone in that 4 months but because I didn't really like the shakes and ketosis made me not hungry I would often skip shakes and so sometimes only had 1 or 2 a day, which is BAD! I was so deperate to lost weight then I would have done almost anything. The downside was that my pharmacist wasn't very supportive and didn't give me any information. I didn't know about ketosis at all until I went on the message boards and I was never checked for it. I didn't cheat once in those 4 months but after that time I knew I couldn't continue. I was skipping the shakes so frequently I knew I had to find a healthier alternative, and as I had shifted the majority of the weight I had to lose I moved onto a low calorie / low carb diet and lost the other 2 stone over a period of a few months. Whilst LT didn't teach me about portion control etc. it was the break from food I needed at the time and once I started back on food again I was obsessed with reading the nutritional labels on every packet. If it didn't look healthy I didn't have it. Maintained quite well for 2 years before things started to go awol again.

It did colour my opinion of VLCDs for years afterwards though, and when I did try to return to LT to get the last stone off when I was dieting I caved after 2 weeks. I know that I couldn't go back to a shake only regime again.

The good things I took away from it were a. losing the bulk of the weight that I needed to lose and it didn't take very long, and b. I've never been able to drink milk in tea again.

Roll forward 6 years, and I came across S&S last August when internet browsing. I'd never heard of it prior to that. Someone at work was starting LL and I was determined that I would not be sat opposite the incredible shrinking woman so was looking around for an online diet to do. Nearly settled on Exante but was attracted to S&S because I could order a pack for a week containing all the flavours, and the meals were a draw too. And I've never looked back. I really enjoy the packs (well most of them), I find it easy and convenient, and the flexibility to include protein and veg helps me enjoy eating vegetables and assists with portion control. It even means that I can have a night out and not blow the diet by choosing wisely.

So now I can eat 100g of chicken and a few veggies and feel full, and even enjoy eating them. Who knew! The support on this board is better than I'd ever get from a counsellor (that sort of thing is not really me), and it's worked out much cheaper too. I know that I can stick to this until I get to where I need to get, and I am not horrified by the thought that I may have to do this again at some point in the future if (heaven forbid!) I do find my weight creeping up again.
 
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I am doing both lighterlife and Slim and Save so a comparison would appear to be in order!

Lighter life is expensive. Anyone who has a bmi of 30 or more goes on the total programme, which is 4 packs a day and nothing else. No veggies, no protein, no milk. This costs £72 per week. However, as well as the food packs you get group counselling once a week. This isn't a WW style presentation at the front of the room but a small group of people (up to 10 but often smaller) being given therapy using standard techniques (transactional analysis and cognitive behavioural therapy) by a trained counsellor. This is when the official weigh in is too and you can get advice from the counsellor on the programme. Most people stay on total all the way through but if you start with a bmi of less than 30 or if you choose to change once you are at that bmi you can do their lite programme. 3 packs plus a protein meal at £54 per week, with the same counselling etc.

Some of the packs on lighter life are really nice and some are horrid! The meals are terrible for example - but of course some people love them. I really like the vanilla shake in a coffee to make a latte - it's nice and thick. I actually found the strict rules around LL very helpful. I did total for over 6 months and only went off plan once, for a planned protein meal on Christmas day. I had always said that if I could give up food then I thought I could lose the weight. This is the closest you can get to giving up food and it has really worked for me. It enabled me to reassess my realtionship with food, why I eat, when I eat etc. I don't believe at I would have got to the same level of understanding if I had any food in my life (including the veggies!). The therapy has also been really useful and is the only reason I am still on LL. I think I'll need the support especially through the re-feeding process when I start to reintroduce my trigger foods. I can also go and weigh in with the counsellor whenever I wish to following this - and I intend to do so once a month forever. I'm also considering whether it would be useful to go to a professional therapist for one on one counselling once I'm in maintenance. At the moment I'm thinking not as I'm feeling really sorted mentally. But if I start to struggle I'll be right there.

A few weeks ago I moved from total to lite. Mainly because I wanted to see how I would handle having food in my life again and practice for maintenance. It's amazing having these tastes and textures in my life again and I'm loving it! I also seem to be handling it well which is great!

So why do I post on the Slim and Save forum?! Because I discovered SnS a few months ago when I was looking for somewhere that I could continue to get vanilla shake packs after I'd finished the diet and at a cheaper price than LL... I did day that I love my vanilla shake lattes didn't I?! I am not good at eating in the morning but I can have a latte without problem so it seems like a good long term solution. I sent for some SnS samples and I thought that I'd try a few of the other samples whilst I was at it. Well, I have to admit that the vanilla pack was a disappointment, as it's much thinner than the LL one. However, then I tried the spag bol! OMG!! Unbelievable! It was gorgeous and huge stride ahead of anything LL has. Then I had the choc truffa bar!!! There was no going back after that! So now I have 3 packs a day and 1 or 2 of those packs will be SnS. I can honestly say that I would have stuck to the LL diet but I have enjoyed it a lot more and found it far easier with having some SnS packs too. It also means that I can save up some of the LL vanilla packs for lattes when I'm maintaining! Also my husband uses the LL bars instead of protein bars so all of the packs get used.

SnS offers so much more choice, in general the food packs are much nicer and having the choice of vegetables and milk makes it a much easier programme to stick to. However, the therapy with LL has been really important to me and my time without any conventional food was actually very powerful for me - if a little tough.
 
I suppose that I should add that for the first 6 weeks I did S&S I had 3 straight packs, nothing else (the protein wasn't part of the diet back then when I first started) and it gave me the complete break ffrom food that I needed. I started to introduce veggies into the diet after I took a break for a holiday. I had them a few times a week to start with and now I have them every day. I have the protein every day now too. I guess that's the beauty of S&S. There are plans with just foodpacks and you can choose to have nothing else at all if you need a complete break from food, or there are plans where you can have veggies and protein and learn to eat small portions of healthy food that will help the transition from diet to maintenance. So another big tick from me - a plan to suit everyone.
 
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