Aww sorry to seeming to be ignoring, I too managed to completely miss this thread! Poppy and PB have pretty much told you what it's all about but thought I'd throw my 2 cents in as well (as I often do around here
)
LL breaks down into the following;
- Recieving better nutrition through fewer calories
- Abstinance from all conventional food and drink to help you break bad eating patterns
- Very low calorie intake with 100% RDA of vitamins and minerals leads to a bodystate called "Ketosis" where your body is forced to burn fat for energy as it has nothing else to use
- Group therapy through Cognative Behavioural Therapy and Transactional Analysis to help you adjust your mindset to that of a healthy attitude towards food
You have a combination of 4 of the speically designed foodpacks each day, and must drink a minumum of 1.5 litres of water which can be taken as black tea or coffee as well.
During week 1, you are limited to only soups and shakes as follows;
Soups
- Mushroom
- Tomato
- Chilli
- Vegetable
- Chicken
Shakes
- Chocolate
- Strawberry
- Vanilla
- Banana
- Rasberry (being phased out)
- Caramel (being phased out)
There is also a new porridge flavour coming very soon.
During week 1, you can only have soups and shakes in a combination of any 4 types/flavours each day + 1 minimum of 1.5ltrs of water.
After week 1, 1 of the foodpacks each day can be a bar instead of a soup or shake, with bar flavours as follows;
- Cranberry (crunchy cereal-style bar)
- Peanut (crunch peanut-style bar)
- Toffee (soft and chewy but a bit like plastic)
- Fruit (soft and chewy but a bit like plastic)
- Lemon (soft and chewy but a bit like plastic)
Moreso than the ketosis/foodpacks, it is the CBT and TA combined with the group aspect that really sets LL apart from the other VLCD's around, as it really does work to change your mental attitudes towards food, so you are not relying on 'willpower' to eat healthily post-abstinance, you are doing it because you now see it as being the right thing to do for the right reasons.
In short, the RTM phase is designed to give you all the mental preperation you need to be a lifelong 'maintainer' of your weight
The key to losing the weight quickly is the abstinance though; even a little nibble on something can reduce your losses significantly within the week, so the BIG key is not to lapse, at all! Doing so makes it harder to take up the abstinance again, so hard as it may seem, it is actually far easier to not lapse at all than to lapse and then try and carry on!
