Louise's Exante Adventure

louise56

Full Member
I've made my mind up - after a lot of deliberating between the different vlcds - that I'm going to start Exante on 2nd Feb.

I've ordered a month's supply of stuff, and am hoping that I'll like at least enough of the varieties to make it worth going for the bulk-buying option. But in the end, it was less about the price and more a choice based on not having to go to classes / therapy / weekly consultancy etc. I'm not hugely averse to that sort of thing (and I could imagine that, with a good counsellor, I could do lots about working through my reasoning for being overweight in the first place). But I don't want to have the 'excuse' of having to work, or not being able to get transport or whatever - and if I can order packs in advance and get them through the post, I won't have those excuses available to me.

So I have the packs, and hubby has instructions to buy me a couple of shakers when he does the weekly asda run next Saturday. And I'm not quite sure what else I'll be needing along the way, but I'm pretty confident that's all I need to get started.

I've been dieting for years. I'm not someone who's tried everything, but I've had a few good attempts at both Slimming World and Weight Watchers. The fact is that my weight loss on those things is too slow to be motivational.

I thought that if I tried something much faster and totally new to me, I should have more chance of making it work this time around.

The only time that I've ever done anything like this was a very brief dalliance with Cambridge some time around the age of 18. I think I lasted about three days. I can remember being at my Saturday job, utterly exhausted and giving in to eating something. And I never attempted anything like it again.

And then, this morning, I've had a couple of mouthfulls of my hubby's chocolate SlimFast (he's having a burst of it this week whilst he's deciding what his definite choice for weight loss will be). It wasn't what I expected; I still wouldn't choose to have it voluntarily, but it wasn't anything like as horrid as I'd expected. So if Exante's a similar kind of thing, I'm sure that it's do-able.

I'm quite looking forward to getting started. I've held back my start date 'till next Tuesday as I have three eating-related things on this week. Plus I'm off work on the Tuesday so I have a day to get to grips with it a bit.

I've read and read posts on MiniMins over the past couple of days and am incredibly inspired by the stories that I've read here - and I'm so looking forward to being able to share mine.
 
Minimins is great!

I totally understand what you mean about not losing weight fast enough to feel motivated. Sometimes I feel like if I can't lose weight quickly then I can't do it at all, and it's so frustrating.

I am not familiar with Exante but I wish you the best of luck. Welcome to minimins, I look forward to reading about your progress. :wavey:
 
Good luck on your journey, I look forward to reading your diary.
 
Welcome and good luck for the 2nd

xx
 
Welcome & well done on your decision & determination!

The one thing I'd recommend to help this diet along is a blender or stick blender, it really does get the lumps out of the shakes & soups. The shakers aren't too bad and I suppose it's a bit of a work out trying to get the lumps out, but a blender is quicker and better.

Good luck!
 
Welcome and good luck. Its been many years since I tried slimfast but if memory serves they are nothing like the Exante shakes - they are much sweeter. You can add a tablet sweetner if you feel the need though.
 
Thanks for all the encouragement, everyone. I'm so looking forward to getting started.

My monthly bumper box of delights arrived today. It's so weird to think that all of my 'food' for February is packed into two little boxes!

I had a bit of a kerfuffle with my box of soups; one of them had split a bit in the post and had gone everywhere, and I've just spent the best part of half an hour stood in the kitchen washing and drying soup packets - this wasn't quite the exciting start that I'd expected!

One good thing, though, was that I've now had a bit of a smell of the soup powder (it was the chicken one), and it actually smells reasonably tolerable. I'm still really confident that I can do this.

I feel I should be starting to wind down a bit on the eating front, perhaps trying to reduce carbs over the next few days so that I'm at least using the time constructively. But then the devil on my shoulder is thinking otherwise while I still have time!
 
Last supper syndrome!!

If you can cut down on the carbs a few days before it should be easier as the carb withdrawl symptoms should lessen

xxx
 
Well, I finally managed to get started this morning (I had to go away with work for a couple of days and decided that it would be a bad idea to try and do the early days of the diet while not being at home).

I had a vanilla shake for breakfast and then a bar at around 2pm. I'm not feeling at all hungry and it's almost seven o'clock. I'm a bit dubious about the packs (I found both quite difficult to get down), but I'm taking the 'medicine to make me thin' thinking rather than pretending that it's going to be like eating food. I think the biggest thing for me is that I don't like milky things unless they're really heavily flavoured and so the milky taste is getting to me a bit. But I'm determined that I'm just going to have to get used to it!

And I'm going to have a soup shortly and might find that I really like those (here's hoping!). I don't actually feel like needing anything else, but do feel that I should keep to the 3-a-day thing and not miss one.

I've not drunk much water, although I've had my usual bucketsful of coffee. I'm getting quite a 'thick head' type of headache and am hoping that I'll be able to shift that with a couple of paracetamol.

I'm so pleased to have been able to get started at last. I've not got any eating-related committments for a good few weeks, and that will give me a really strong start to get into the swing of it all.
 
Day 2 and I'm struggling with this but telling myself that it's the right path for me to go down. All of the reasons for doing this still stand - I've never been able to lose weight and keep it off with other diets, and I know that this gives me a real chance to do it in a completely different way.

The thing that I'm finding most difficult is the actual packs. I know that I've tried a few flavours up to now, but it's the whole thing - the general taste and texture - that I have to get used to.

Those things are just me, though (in case anyone's reading it and wondering if it's for them). I'm really not keen on milky things so that puts me on the back foot to start with.

But it's do-able - I keep repeating that to myself over and over!
 
It is doable Lousie and if you stick to it will get you the results so much more quickly than a conventional diet. Well done on getting day one out of the way. It will get easier.
 
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