Yambabe
Bad Girl
I noticed this comes up on here every now and again so I thought I'd try and explain the reasoning (as I understand it) behind the Exante recommendations to add a meal on a regular basis.
Basically, there is an organisation in the UK that is part of and linked to the NHS, called the National Institution for health & Clinical Excellence, or NICE for short. NICE look at all sorts of health issues, review scientific studies and issue guidance to health professionals at all levels to ensure that procedures keep up-to-date with new developments and are carried out with patients best interests as their main basis.
One of the subjects that NICE has looked at in some detail and provided guidance on is obesity. I'll give you a link to the pdf of their guidelines later so anyone who wants to can have a browse, but basically the guide tells health professionals (and individuals!) how to recognise obesity and what methods are available and/or recommended to treat it.
You will see if you read the pdf that NICE's main recommendation for weightloss is a reduction in calorie intake to a controlled level, an increase in activity, and regular monitoring. This is basically what happens when you go to a slimming club such as WW, SW etc, but can also be done by your GP, a hospital or a suitably qualified person at a health clinic, specialist clinic or even a gym or health club.
OK so that's the recommended approach, but for a lot of people it just doesn't work for various reasons.
So if a calorie-controlled approach isn't working, the VLCD comes in as a further option. Again NICE have looked at many many VLCD studies and outcomes, and provided certain guidelines for those prescribing them or following them.
The first one is that nobody should follow a VLCD of less than 600 cals per day without clinical supervision. This is why you have to get a sign-off from a doctor before following LL or CD or see a pahrmacist each week if you are doing LT.
For a VLCD of over 600 cals regular health checks are recommended in the guidelines, but are not essential.
The next thing to bear in mind is that VLCDs do have known, documented side-effects because the diet is essentially a starvation one. For this reason NICE also recommends that nobody follows a VLCD of any sort as the sole source of nutrition for more than 12 weeks.
It is up to the diet provider to decide if their literature and advice follows the guidelines of course. On LL and CD you have counsellors to do this, on LT you have your pharmacist. Because other VLCDs (including Exante) are not so regulated the onus is on both the diet provider to ensure that proper advice is given and the dieter to ensure that they understand it!
There are various ways in which the NICE guidelines can be complied with, but the most obvious is to ensure that for at least a short period and at least every 12 weeks the VLCD is NOT used as a sole source of nutrition.
I have to admit I have no idea why Exante have chosen to recommend the add-a-meal week each 5 and 8 weeks into the diet. I do know though that this ensures the diet follows the NICE guidelines, and the VLCD will never be used as the sole source of nutrition for more than 12 weeks.
So that's the reasonong behind it. In a nutshell, following a VLCD only for more than 12 weeks is likely, according to NICE, to damage your health. Possibly permanently.
Only you can decide when you want to add food back into the equation during your own diet. But bearing in mind the research that NICE have studied, to go against their advice would, I think, be extremely unwise.
If you are following Exante with the knowledge of and under the supervision of your GP you can of course turn to them for further advice on this subject, and follow whatever advice they give. But for those of us who are going it alone it seems sensible that if our diet provider is acting responsibly and advising us to follow a plan that falls within the NICE guidelines we should do just that, no?
Here's your pdf link:
http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/pdf/CG43PublicInfo1.pdf
Basically, there is an organisation in the UK that is part of and linked to the NHS, called the National Institution for health & Clinical Excellence, or NICE for short. NICE look at all sorts of health issues, review scientific studies and issue guidance to health professionals at all levels to ensure that procedures keep up-to-date with new developments and are carried out with patients best interests as their main basis.
One of the subjects that NICE has looked at in some detail and provided guidance on is obesity. I'll give you a link to the pdf of their guidelines later so anyone who wants to can have a browse, but basically the guide tells health professionals (and individuals!) how to recognise obesity and what methods are available and/or recommended to treat it.
You will see if you read the pdf that NICE's main recommendation for weightloss is a reduction in calorie intake to a controlled level, an increase in activity, and regular monitoring. This is basically what happens when you go to a slimming club such as WW, SW etc, but can also be done by your GP, a hospital or a suitably qualified person at a health clinic, specialist clinic or even a gym or health club.
OK so that's the recommended approach, but for a lot of people it just doesn't work for various reasons.
So if a calorie-controlled approach isn't working, the VLCD comes in as a further option. Again NICE have looked at many many VLCD studies and outcomes, and provided certain guidelines for those prescribing them or following them.
The first one is that nobody should follow a VLCD of less than 600 cals per day without clinical supervision. This is why you have to get a sign-off from a doctor before following LL or CD or see a pahrmacist each week if you are doing LT.
For a VLCD of over 600 cals regular health checks are recommended in the guidelines, but are not essential.
The next thing to bear in mind is that VLCDs do have known, documented side-effects because the diet is essentially a starvation one. For this reason NICE also recommends that nobody follows a VLCD of any sort as the sole source of nutrition for more than 12 weeks.
It is up to the diet provider to decide if their literature and advice follows the guidelines of course. On LL and CD you have counsellors to do this, on LT you have your pharmacist. Because other VLCDs (including Exante) are not so regulated the onus is on both the diet provider to ensure that proper advice is given and the dieter to ensure that they understand it!
There are various ways in which the NICE guidelines can be complied with, but the most obvious is to ensure that for at least a short period and at least every 12 weeks the VLCD is NOT used as a sole source of nutrition.
I have to admit I have no idea why Exante have chosen to recommend the add-a-meal week each 5 and 8 weeks into the diet. I do know though that this ensures the diet follows the NICE guidelines, and the VLCD will never be used as the sole source of nutrition for more than 12 weeks.
So that's the reasonong behind it. In a nutshell, following a VLCD only for more than 12 weeks is likely, according to NICE, to damage your health. Possibly permanently.
Only you can decide when you want to add food back into the equation during your own diet. But bearing in mind the research that NICE have studied, to go against their advice would, I think, be extremely unwise.
If you are following Exante with the knowledge of and under the supervision of your GP you can of course turn to them for further advice on this subject, and follow whatever advice they give. But for those of us who are going it alone it seems sensible that if our diet provider is acting responsibly and advising us to follow a plan that falls within the NICE guidelines we should do just that, no?
Here's your pdf link:
http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/pdf/CG43PublicInfo1.pdf