Hello dezzie, I'm glad you've come to visit us here. We will be delighted to fill you in on both the good and bad sides of our experiences here, in fact, you won't be able to shut us up!
I understand your reluctance to embark on another VLCD, I was too, did one before and had a particularly bad time with it. It took a lot of soul searching before I gave it another go, and even then on the basis of 'I'll try it for 4 weeks, and see what happens'. Not hair loss, but something else. I'm pleased to say this time things, for me, seem to be OK - it was around about this stage in my diet that things started to go down hill, but I'm pleased to say this time round, I'm still here. I'd rather be fat than suffer that again.
I can appreciate your point about hair loss, especially as yours sounded pretty damn drastic! I can imagine wondering what's the point of being thinner, but ending up feeling worse about yourself. It's a common side effect of a long term VLCD, and I appreciate you not wanting to go there again. However Exante recommends an 'add a meal week' every 4 weeks (if you order off the net), and the addition of the extra calories and nutrients on a periodic basis may keep the hair loss at bay. LL doesn't really give you any breaks, as I understand it.
I also understand that Exante are phasing out counsellors, and are pretty much a web-only operation now. I'm surprised they've not got back to you though, Lack of communication is not a common complaint. However personally I'd rather not have a middleman making their cut out of my health issues or other people's misery and insecurities, but I'm just jaded and cynical!
As a product, I'm getting on OK with it. As long as you remember what it actually *is*, (ie a low calorie nutrient delivery system) and don't expect every last product to be 'delicious' or 'tasty', they're not actually that bad. There will always be a flavour or two you don't really get on with, but there's a developing 'swapsies' thread. Better than Lipotrim was a decade ago, anyway.(*bleurgh!*) If you keep it in context, I certainly find I can live with it.
So I'd suggest give it go, see how the first box-full (4 weeks) goes, make no long-term promises to yourself, but take it one step at a time. If that works out, have a careful week off, and do another 4 weeks. Take it one step at a time, one month at a time, you're not obliged to stick at anything that's going to make you miserable, and should anything start to go pear-shaped, just stop. Even if you don't take it all the way (which is by no means a mark of failure), you will at least be several steps closer, in a shorter time.
A reasonable set of instructions are included with the box, but ultimately, you are in charge.
If you go for it, best of luck and do hang around.
