Dodgy stuff happening on Exante....

[laughingbean]

Third time or so I’ve started this diet and I’m now a month in. Male, 22 stones. Well, I was. Now I’m a male, 19.13 stones. Thing is, the last week has been a nightmare. Just about nothing has shifted. In the past six days, I’ve lost about one pound. It’s doing my head in. I get up each morning, go to my scales, hold my breath, place two feet on, wait for the irritating bleep….and it’s still on the same digit as it was the day before. In fact, this morning, over about two hours, I had to get back on and off them again and again to get them to move from 20.0 (where it’s been forever) to 19.13. Eventually, I picked them up and threatened to throw them from the top floor window unless they gave me the result I wanted. Eventually, the scales wisely complied with my demands.

Years back, I did Slimfast and generally lost about 4ibs a week (on average) to get down to 13 stone – one wonders if the extra effort required by Exante is actually worth it?

However, I have been following it 100% - none of this “I've been totally faithful apart from on Tuesday night when I went out and had a Harvester style eat-all-you-want buffet followed by six pints and 3 packs of pork scratchings,” and “Oh, and on Friday, I decided to treat myself by making the Exante shakes on condensed milk.” I've been utterly loyal and I’m just hoping this plateau goes…. On the Kee Diet website, a poster has described how week three or so can often be a big slow-down, but things will return to normal. Anyone else finding this true? The diet itself, however, isn’t that bad. I generally don’t ever really feel hungry as such and try to drink water/Dr Pepper Zero when I can. Maybe this is something I should work on. I generally don’t do the 3 litres a day, I wouldn’t have thought.

I did, on Friday, go into Superdrug and buy some Ketosticks. I made out they were for someone else, as I didn’t want the bloke behind the counter to think they were for me. Eleven Pounds. What a stitch-up. I took them back to work and urinated on one. Don't worry:- I undertook this activity in a toilet cubicle; not in the staffroom in front of fifteen or so colleagues (although that would have been more entertaining). Anyway, the tip of it went the same colour as a glass of Ribena in about three seconds, so, from looking at the little colour chart on the side of the box, it would seem I’m absolutely ‘in Ketosis.’ But I hate that word. And I hate, hate, hate, hate it when people write on here “Will eating a XXYY knock me out of ketosis?” Angers me. I feel like saying, "Well don't eat whatever-it-is you're thinking of eating and you don't need to worry about it do you?!?"

I also hate it when people, on various websites, slag-off a diet (any diet) by making sweeping statements that have no evidence or foundation whatsoever, such as the famous ‘A VLCD simply hammers your metabolism down to zero and you’ll end up losing nothing.’ One contributor, in a very well-written post, claims he did a VLCD for a while before enduring “three months” of no weight-loss whatsoever. This is not only a lie but biologically impossible – we do know that the average male, even when relatively inactive, burns around 2,500 calories a day, so the 1800 or so he presumably wasn’t getting must have been coming from somewhere in order to maintain his phantom weight. Why do people write stuff like this...? A nasty article in The Daily Mail (where else?) last month hammered Pauline Quirke, not because she was in Birds of a Feather (a sin in itself) but because she'll pile the pounds on again very quickly because, of course, she did a VLCD. Everyone does, apparently. This was a doctor writing these sentiments, by the way. Well, I have a colleague at work who's now onto her fifth post-VLCD year, having dropped about 5 stones. She hasn't gained a damn thing.

Honestly....

I'm getting married in July next year and need to be about 13 stones for it. My target is somewhere in the 16s by Christmas, but, right now, this is looking about as likely as Jimmy Saville getting awarded a posthumous award for child welfare support. And I believe it’s meant to be add-a-meal week next week. Should I actually bother? How important is it? Opinions please.

By the by, continued, sincere support for all you people doing this diet. I know it can be challenging and ruins your social life. But it should be worth it. I hope.

 

[huwiesmummy]

Though I am a girl I did start out about the same weight as you. I have a bit of an odd circumstance but ill try to advice from my own experience.

First off get off the scales you are just going to drive yourself nuts. Put them somewhere where you aren't going to want to go right early in the morning. Some people put them in the car boot or garden shed so they aren't tempted. I have never done anything other then calorie count and Slimming world so i cant really talk about other TFR diets.

Good job on keeping to 100% though you are having issues. Though have you had a food week break of upping your food to 1200 calories a day? You should do this as it will kick start your metabolism and help weight loss as you go on. Not feeling hungry is good it means ketosis is there, but you need to drink more. Everyday set up 2l of water or coke zero and make sure at least all that is gone before bed time. Water/fluids are very very very important. If you don't have them you have nothing to flush the bad stuff in your body away. I tend to drink about 6l a day between coke water and shakes.

Ketostixs are a waste of time in my opinion but they its not for everyone. I have to agree on people asking what i keto friendly it is a annoying because its pretty basic rules. I find that making a egg white omelette with a lot of meat in it is great for my food days (i do 1200 cal once a fortnight) You also have to understand not everyone here does 100% some do use working and simple solutions so they have a right to be asking what can help keep them in. There is a 100% forum where no food is allowed to be mentioned.

VLCD are good and bad. It can be life changing if you can keep the weight off, but to do that you have to change your relationship with food. If you lose 5st then go back to eating chocolate sweets, fry ups, and takeaways every night yeah it was pointless. TFR diets is a good way to take food out of the way and just learn to live without it. Its learning to not use for as the crutch that many of us who are over weight do. In most cases people tend to eat when emotional or stressed. If in the time you dieted you haven't figured out how to control the urge to eat a whole packet of hobnobs when you get stressed over work, you obviously are going to put weight on. The problem is the media make VLCD look bad because the big names that use them tend to put it all back on because they use it as a quick fix. There are a lot of people who never end up in the papers because they aren't important enough to write about even if they did lose 20st and managed to not put any back on and life a happy life. It just doesn't sound as good as Oh movie star so and so is going to put all that baby weight back on.

If you don't want to do a food week you don't have too. As I already stated I day a day a fortnight and that works for me. You can easily drop the weight you have to just be determined and forget food as you knew it. Good luck I hope I helped and not just rambled on for ages! If you need any help or suggestions I'm always about!

 

[Midnight-Sparkles]

Having weeks when you don't lose is quite normal on this diet, I have gone 19 days before without a weight loss and have even had weeks when I go up in weight (and yes I was 100% too) but eventually the scales do start moving again. It's probably just your body holding onto water. My husband is also back on this diet after losing 4 stone at the beginning of the year, but because he didn't change his eating habits he put a stone back on. Anyway today was his 2nd weigh in and he was up half a pound despite sticking to it rigidly, but he knows it will most likely come off next week. Hope this reassures you.

 

[laughingbean]

Good responses guys. I must admit, I'm surprised some people are reporting such long time spans with no weight loss on this diet. This sort of seems to break the laws of human biology! One undisputed fact about diet and weight loss is that a human being, on average, will burn about 2500 cals a day (500 less for females). This can change a little, of course, depending on a whole stream of things. Add-in exercise, it'll be more. So, when your intake is only about 600 cals, it stands to logic that your body is going to have to get the energy from somewhere in order to keep you going. I admit that this won't necessarily lead to pound after pound dropping on a weekly basis, but, provided the 600 cals is stuck to, the energy-burning process should be reasonably rapid.

Well, on paper it should. But we all know dieting is never quite like this. I think what comes amazingly confusing is when you get entirely conflicting opinions on things. For instance, I note that one kind poster here suggests that eating a meal will speed up metabolism if things have slowed-down. Lovely idea, but hop over to a forum on the kee diet website and it indicates that this would be the entirely wrong thing to do. In reality-world, there is a) no evidence whatsoever that a VLCD 'slows down' metabolism and b) that placing in a meal will 'speed things up.' However, I do appreciate your ideas and kind words of support.

I was actually 19.12 this morning. I would like to get down to 18.10 by the start of November, which then means I have until Christmas to clear a few more stones. Wow. I'm actually getting married next July, and would like to get down to around 13 stones. So, I am already on my way to clearing stone 3, and it does loook likely I'd be able to do 5 before December 24.

The diet has actually been Ok all in all. I have a dry mouth in the morning, and sometimes have a, erm, slightly dodgy tummy, but, from reading the above posts, I have vowed to kick-off with the water consumption properly and, in 2 weeks time, I'm off to Scotland for a weekend, so, on the Sat, I'll have a 'meal' (first evening 'off' in 7 weeks) to just put this kick-start thing to the test.

 

[huwiesmummy]

I've never really stalled as some are saying.

I read a while back a great explanation of how fat cells work. I'll try to do it justice as I can't find the post

Basically when you use of the energy that is in the fat cells you body replaces that loss with water as it unsure weather or not to deflate the cell yet. If you arent getting enough to drink and so on you hold more water. Between all this happening it can keep scale numbers the same but you technically have lost fat.

Try measuring week to week in your biggest problem area you may see changes there.

Keep in mind we are all different. Food works to remind my body to lose weight weather its kick starting my metabolism or not I cannot be sure. Find what works for you and the pounds will fall off eventually.

 

[Eclipse]

Judging by the colour on the ketostix, I think you need to drink a bit more water. The darker the stick doesn't necessarily mean the more you are in ketosis, it just means your wee is a bit more concentrated so needs to be diluted. Sounds strange doesn't it, need to dilute your wee lol. The more water might help with the weight loss too x

 

[meoww]

dark ketostix is bad indeed, you just want a pale pink colour to show. more water will definitely help, I aim for over 2L closer to 3L of pure water, anything used mixing shakes, in coffee, or any other drinks I dont count.
its true if you dont drink enough water you will retain which will leave you bloated and heavy -1L water weighs 1kg

 

[shellreed2011]

First off thank you so so much for cheering me up! Your first post had me in fits of giggles! Secondly there is a stall I myself stayed at 13.0 forever last year only to get up one morning and I seemed to have dropped 8lbs overnight! It's the world famous whoosh! Please don't get down heartened and stick to it it does work and as for your statement about putting it back on you don't put it back on unless you are a total idiot like me and stuff yourself stupid! In which case obviously you will gain - like me and you will crawl back to the diet full of shame with your tail between your legs-like me lol

 

[shellreed2011]

Obviously it was the daily mails statement not yours but you get what I mean lol