Does anybody do two packs and a healthy meal?

[Bigfatmess]

And what is the average weightloss? I'm struggling with not eating the wide variety of evening meals I'm used to so have been considering switching from the three a day plan to two plus a healthy evening meal. I know the whole point of this diet is going into ketosis but surely if you aren't eating many calories then you must lose, ketosis or not?

 

[Saddlebag]

If you have 2 packs and a meal you are not following the diet. You will be ill and your weight loss will stall. Stick to the plan. You must have 4 packs a day OR 3 and an evening meal, as per the Slim and Save instructions. If you are doing a lot of exercise you can add another pack.

This diet can have consequences if you don't follow it properly. Read up about the diet before embarking on it.

 

[BordersGirl]

I had 2 packs plus other food when I was refeeding but you really need to come out of VLCD territory for it to be a healthy option. So ensure that your calorie level is above 800 and depending on how much you have to lose you may lose 1 - 2 pounds per week perhaps.

 

[Bigfatmess]

Wow ok Saddle. Was just asking.

 

[Saddlebag]

It needed pointing out as so many people come on here, either new to S&S or people who haven't read up about the diet, and read threads like this one thinking it's ok to have 2 packs.

 

[Bigfatmess]

Ok I thought I had read somewhere on the S&S website that if you wished to do 2 packs per day plus a healthy meal they could provide recipe ideas. I may have got that wrong.

 

[Saddlebag]

Not that I'm aware of although somebody may come along and say different. A quick look at the website gives this advice as to how many packs to have: http://www.slimandsave.co.uk/about-vlcd.html

On the refeed plan you have 2 packs a day to start with but you have other food intake. The refeed plan is designed to reintroduce food again over 7 or 10 days after reaching goal so brings you out of ketosis but it has been written by nutritionists at S&S so it includes a sufficient amount of nutrition to supplement the fewer packs. The refeed plan is here http://www.slimandsave.co.uk/refeed.pdf

You are right in that you would still lose weight whilst being out of ketosis, many people lose weight on just low cal diets (like weight watchers or slimming world). The S&S plan spreads the whole day's RDAs of vits and minerals over 4 packs or 3 + a protein meal so the danger is that if you're not fully following the plan you aren't getting them. Effectively on 2 packs you would be skipping a meal's worth of calories, but also a meal's worth of protein etc too, which you really need.

 

[woodmouse]

Ok I thought I had read somewhere on the S&S website that if you wished to do 2 packs per day plus a healthy meal they could provide recipe ideas. I may have got that wrong.

Were you thinking of this:

On the leaflet sns send with the packs, immediately below the column giving calories of the products, there is a note headed IMPORTANT and this advises: '..... If you find the VLCD programme is not suited to you, you may use the products to substitute one or two meals per day to help lower your calories and still get results. Though not as effective as a full VLCD, this is still a great method to lose weight quickly. If following as a low calorie diet and not a VLCD contact us for some low calorie meal ideas'.

You might find it helpful to go to the site and have a discussion with Rob about this in the live chat area?

 

[Bigfatmess]

Yes! Thank you Woodmouse! I knew I'd read it somewhere!

 

[weasey]

Yes you can do that, as long as you are not trying to stay in ketosis. The weight loss will be lower. Effectively it gives you two low calorie meals a day and en you would eat a normal meal too.

 

[BordersGirl]

The key is definitely looking at it being a low calorie diet, not a very low calorie diet as 2 packs won't be nutritionally complete for that level of calories. You could do a low calorie diet and stay in ketosis but if you want the carb laden foods then that won't be possible obviously. I suppose for me the restricted types of food were a price worth paying for the fabulous losses the diet allows. For me the speed and simplicity definitely won over lower losses with more variety of food. I still have many of the S&S friendly protein meals now, just in a slightly bigger quantity than before.

 

[JanBow]

Just to add that if you do a low cal diet and are not in ketosis you're likely to be hungry, which is the big, big benefit of ketosis. Also carb foods in my opinion can be very addictive so a low-cal diet can leave you feeling constantly hungry and craving food and harder to do I think that a VLCD where once you get into ketosis and lose you're appetite it's so much easier plus you have great losses.