Has LL or any VLCD ever "not worked?"

Twinny

Full Member
Have any of you ever heard of LL not working? Or any other VLCD for that matter. Im not asking for any particular reason - I haven't even had my second weigh in so I would never say that its not working (yet :D) and I lost 5lb in week 1 :D:D

The reason I ask is because its well known amongst my family and friends that I dont eat a lot. I DO like 'naughty' foods and I do like a good drink but not to the extent that they would put me 8 stone overweight. Anyway, someone said to me today "Imagine if THIS diet doesn't work and you are doing yourself loads of damage. You drop dead and when they do the autopsy they discover what was wrong with you all along"

I thought - thanks for that :confused: But it got me thinking - are there any circumstances when it doesn't matter what you are doing, weight just does not come off?
 
I've never heard of a vlcd diet not working - how can it not - we're on such a limited calorific intake.

I think the person who made that comment was scare-mongering. VLCDs are used in the medical community all the time, and what are we doing after all? Fooling the body into turning on the switch to a natural survival mechanism to help us lose the weight!
 
Thats what I thought too! -I think she thought I wouldn't be able to stick to it and I have - 100% :D

I think she just struck a chord and it got me thinking - I wonder if a VLCD has ever not had the desired effect.
 
I was pretty sure it wouldn't work for me. It did though :clap:
 
Not answering your question, but have you had medical tests?

Could be your thyroid, or PCOS, or any number of other things that made you more overweight than you should be. While you'll still lose weight on LL, if there is a medical problem underlying it will be MUCH harder and slower.

I think everyone is different. My lifestyle and diet were AWFUL! Binge eating when depressed (and frequently depressed!), little or no exercise, irregular meals, frequent takeaways etc. Despite that I weighed the same as a friend who did 2 hours of exercise a day and ate regular, mostly healthy meals. My weight was capped, and when I started LL I didn't weigh any more than when I started WW 5 years previously. :confused:
 
You actually don't need to overeat to put on weight, if you are eating too little food and what you are eating is high in fat and sugars then you will put on weight much quicker than if you were gorging on slow release foods and vegetables.
I was about 8 stone overweight and thought that I ate a fairly healthy diet, liked el vino a bit too much but I couldn't understand why I was putting on weight even though I was doing 4 hours a week at the gym until I wrote down everything I ate in a day over a few days and used a calorie counter to add the figures up.

It scared me so much that I looked for a solution and came to LL. That packet of crisps whilst watching tv, that extra slice of cheese that won't fit into a sandwich, that sausage roll mid morning, that soup and 2 rounds of sandwiches for lunch, that chinese take away for dinner and that bottle of wine because you've deserved it can add up to more than twice your daily calorie allowance. :( and it's so easy to do.
 
You'd need to be a medical miracle not to lose weight on approx. 600 calories a day - and I've never yet met anyone who's one of those I'm glad to say.

VLCDs are completely safe as you're getting the EU regulated recommended daily allowance of vitamins, minerals and nutrients. I like to think of it as formula food for adults - in the same way that powdered milk is formula food for babies to help them grow strong and healthy, we grow (or rather shrink) to be slim and healthy :)
 
Not answering your question, but have you had medical tests?

Could be your thyroid, or PCOS, or any number of other things that made you more overweight than you should be. While you'll still lose weight on LL, if there is a medical problem underlying it will be MUCH harder and slower.

I think everyone is different. My lifestyle and diet were AWFUL! Binge eating when depressed (and frequently depressed!), little or no exercise, irregular meals, frequent takeaways etc. Despite that I weighed the same as a friend who did 2 hours of exercise a day and ate regular, mostly healthy meals. My weight was capped, and when I started LL I didn't weigh any more than when I started WW 5 years previously. :confused:

I gained 4 stone and was diagnosed with underactive thyroid :eek: was put on thyroxine "phew, that 4 stone will come off now" I thought but it didn't I just got bigger. So more tests later (after people thought I was binge eating :mad:) it was discovered I have also got polycycstic ovaries :rolleyes: so I do have double whammy and I think thats what 'friend' was getting at when she made her comment.

It will definitely work though won't it? It can't not if you see what I mean...:confused:
 
Not answering your question, but have you had medical tests?

Could be your thyroid, or PCOS, or any number of other things that made you more overweight than you should be. While you'll still lose weight on LL, if there is a medical problem underlying it will be MUCH harder and slower.

I think everyone is different. My lifestyle and diet were AWFUL! Binge eating when depressed (and frequently depressed!), little or no exercise, irregular meals, frequent takeaways etc. Despite that I weighed the same as a friend who did 2 hours of exercise a day and ate regular, mostly healthy meals. My weight was capped, and when I started LL I didn't weigh any more than when I started WW 5 years previously. :confused:

Sorry - stoopid double post!
 
Oooh I should be a doctor! :D

I don't think LL will NOT work for you at all. It might be a tad slower, but I expect it will still be faster than a conventional diet for a 'normal' person.

PCOS makes it harder to lose weight, but not impossible.

My friend had the same problem with her thyroid, once on the medication she stopped gaining weight, but didn't lose it.

I think you'll have to prove the sceptics wrong :D

One things for sure, the symptoms of your PCOS will be hugely helped by losing weight.
 
Excluding medical conditions, the diet cannot fail to work.

It would seem that although you do not eat much, your choice of bad foods has given you an excess of calories, and has probably slowed your metabolism down - a double whammy,

Carb high snacks are bad bad news - Carbs (starches and sugars) all raise your blood sugar level. The more processed or refined (e.g sugar, pasta, white rice, flour/bread) the quicker they do so. Excess sugar in the blood will kill you so the body uses insulin that can only do one thing - turn the sugar to fat. Unfortunately insulan is not an exact science and the body will generally produce a bunch of it, and it will cause too much sugar to be turned to fat, You then feel weak or hungry or both (A good example is how you are starving a couple of hours after a chinese meal). Most fat people (and a lot of thin ones too) end up on a roller-coaster ride of high and then low blood sugar leaving then fatter but also less energetic (the so called slow-metabolism perhaps??)

On one of the TV progs at the beginning of the year (Jamie Oliver I think) they looked at why a particular lady was overweight, and basically it came down to a single Latte and danish a day.

If a Latte is 250 kcals, and a danish is 350 kcals - the total is 600 kcals. 1 gm of fat takes is worth 9 kcals so the latte/danish snack (if not burned off) will add 67 grammes - not much in itself, but in 100 days that is 6.7 kilos - in a year that is 24.4 kilos. In 4 years that is nearly 100 kilos or 15 stone.

OK let's be more realistic and say that you only have the coffee/pastry every other day, and that you have a non-fat (skinny) latte and a small danish - this will quarter the calories and weight gain so that you will only add 3.5 stone in 4 years.

It is astonshing how such a seemingly small thing can have such huge effects.

Food for thought!
 
I too thought that I ate pretty healthily - but then I was counting the WHOLE pizza I had, the HUGE portions of 'healthy' pasta and the far too regular bottle of wine/pint of cider. I always thought life was brutally cruel by making me fat when I ate so little and so healthily - but now that I REALLY eat little and healthily I realise what an absolute PIG I was before!!

Your body will always reflect your lifestyle. If you exercise, eat the correct amount of the right types of foods you WILL be slim and healthy - you can't NOT be! If you exercise little, eat fatty/sugary foods and big portions, you WILL be fat! It really is as simple as that, excluding any medical problems.

Get some tests done by the doctor, but in the meantime keep a food and exercise diary - you may be surprised!
 
This great comment Mikey, it made alot of sense to me. I was never a huge eater, just everything I did eat was very unhealthy, hence why I ended up almost 17 stone. As far as PCOS goes, might be wrong but I'm sure lighterlife claire on here has recently been diagnosed with it (if I remembe her post rightly) and I'm pretty sure shes lost about 5 stone up to now so it shouldnt hinder your progress too much. As the others have said, If you stick to this diet 100% then scientifically there's no way it can fail. That's what I like about LL it has the scientific facts to back up WHY it works and it makes sense to me.

p.s
summerskye I LOVE the way you described it as formula food for adults, cos if you think about it, it's exactly that!!
 
Bloody hell talk about your friend trying to scare you!

I know! :eek: She's had worse luck dieting than I have over the years and I think was just trying to put me off (it wont work - no way!)

I still dont understand what possible medical conditions could stop this diet from working? Surely ANYONE existing on 500ish calories a day would have to lose weight regardless of whats wrong with them? :confused:
 
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