Watermelon, I've thought a lot of about why people regain the weight after doing a VLCD and I think it's due to a bunch of factors - not many of which are connected to the VLCD itself. One thing that *is* directly linked to the affect of a VLCD on the body is that you tank your metabolism and you have to spend time, probably at least as much time as you were on the VLCD, teaching yourself to eat 'normally' again. I think the best way I've read for describing is that is the metabolism is like a muscle, so basically you stop using it for half a year or longer. You can't just expect it to suddenly work exactly the way it did before the moment you start trying to use it again.
The rest of the factors, to my mind, are about education and psychology and stuff. A VLCD is an excellent short-term fix for people who are basically too obese and depressed to manage anything else: it's easy (in the sense of you have plan, if you stick to it, you'll lose weight), there's measurable and visible loss quite quickly, and you don't have to do anything with your body while you're on it (since exercising when you're obese is bloody awful, take my word for it). The problem is all the attention is on the weight loss part: someone lost 293734893 stone, hurrah! But actually you have to pay as much attention to what comes *after* the weight loss.
And that doesn't mean being a fitness freak or remaining forever partially on a VLCD but you have to essentially change your life so that you are *sure* the amount of calories you are taking is is not more than the amount of energy you are using. And that's a profound and important period of adjustment and it should be given as much weight (no pun intended) as the actual 'miraculous' weight loss.
The reason I did a VLCD and then put all the weight back on was because I simply didn't realise that. I assumed once I'd lost the weight the problem was solved and drifted back to all my old bad habits. No. The VLCD is the ... mechanism that allows you to make long-term changes to your life and your relationship with food but it isn't the answer to the problem. Does that make sense?[/
Yes - I see what you're saying, and I think I'm going about the same thing but in a slightly different way. Rather than do it all at once, then have the period of adjustment that you mention, I'm trying to make sure that I keep the adjustments going as I go through. So, I stuck on it for 5 or 6 weeks or so, did the food week at week 4, and then shifted to the 1200 plan at about week 7. Then, last week, I balanced meals with treats on holidays, and I've only gained 300g, which isn't necessarily real weight until a couple more days have passed. That feels like a huge achievement - a week away, with wine when I wanted it and tastes of the food on offer, without coming back having gained loads. I can live with that!
This week, I'm trying to do the week again all on meals, and I'll look at reintroducing dinners next week - or something! I'm keen to make this work in my lifestyle so I am on a path, rather than rush it all and have no transition plan.
I did a VLCD because Slimming World wasn't working for me anymore - partly because my syns were creeping up, but also because my body had gotten used to things. I wanted to crack down that last 10kg or so and the VLCD seemed an option I'd never tried before.
