| | What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?Page 1 of 6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) | Coming from a serial, forever failing dieter - I will list those that I have tried with my excuses why they did not work, in no particular order 
Weight Watchers - shopping was a nightmare
Slimming World - got 10 chocolate bard for a week and ate them all on the way home from the first meeting so never went back
Lighterlife - sole source, 3 sachets a day and 4 litres of water, lost 2 stone in 2 months, put it back on within 6 months
Lipotrim - same as Lighterlife but less than half of the price - lost 2 stone, put it back within 6 months
Currently following Ian Marber (Food Doctor) diet plan and fingers crossed.
My biggest problem seems to be chocolate (totally addicted) and very late nights munching on whatever I can find at home (dog/cat food are safe for the moment ...)
All diet advice says that one should not eat 3-4 hours before bed time. I can not manage that.
Can go without food all day but at night - wake up at unsane hour like 3 am and head for the fridge , regardless of how much have I eaten the day before
Which diets have you tried and what did/did not work for you? | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/3/2008 4:03:14 PM | Diets don't work. Common sense works. You know what's good for you and what's bad for you, if you eat sensibly and excercise, you'll notice a difference. I know easier said than done. The reason diets don't work is because you're denying yourself the foods that you crave, if you include them, in smaller amounts, but don't deny yourself you wont want them so much. Plus whatever changes you make have to be long term, there's no point saying I'm going on a diet for a month and then going back to eating chips for breakfast because you'll just put more weight back on than you lost, if you starve yourself your body thinks it's in danger and shuts down, then when you start feeding it again it hoards the callories in more fat than you lost.
That was a bit of a ramble wasn't it? sorry.
H.x | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/3/2008 4:04:03 PM | All diet advice says that one should not eat 3-4 hours before bed time. I can not manage that.
Most diet advice says not to skip breakfast as well. Both statements have merit but they are just recommendations, nothing more, nothing less. they just get repeated and passed around so many times that they are given as gospel. Not following those recommendations does not mean you are doomed to failure (I hardly ever have breakfast, and I had my dinner tonight as usuall at 10.30pm 
At the end of the day, the key is in your head, not in garbage written in magazines and books (that is designed to relieve people of the other kind of pounds). The head is the bit that gives in when you feel hungry. You have to train yourself to ignore pangs. It's like giving up anything else, bit of a struggle to start off with but after a while it becomes second nature.
One of the best recommendations for losing weight is not to change what you eat, but to change how much you eat - control the portion size. | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/3/2008 4:05:15 PM | Well, sure - I know that.
Actually I am not at all into any type of fast food or ready meals - never was.
Got to vive up that chocolate.
Anyway - I am not actually asking for advice for myself, this is not a self centered/self pity thread.
I am asking which diets have other tried ?
control the portion size.
I am on my 7th ricecake with philadelphia as I type, damn LOL | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/3/2008 4:14:11 PM | Slimming World.
You can eat soooo much! And still lose weight.
You have a chocolate problem? Try buying it and putting it in small portions in the freezer. Then take out one portion in the morning and promise yourself you can only eat it if you have been good for the rest of the day. You see, the rest will be too cold to eat if you want to binge without freezing your innards or breaking your teeth, and choc doesn't taste until it is at mouth-temperature... Small bags of Buttons are good for this trick.
Increase your fibre as SW recommend and drink lots as well - of any drink based on water and not containing alcohol.
Go for unprocessed foods - potatoes not crisps, fruit not fruit juice... - oh, and rice not ricecakes...
And if you can't really hack that try a low-GI diet - it is actually what the SW diet is based on, it was well before its time. Tesco do a lot of foods marked up with GI values. I think the bigger stores have the Tesco low-GI diet books.
Oh, and you and I aren't following this last bit of advice: Get 8 hrs minimum kip-time. It increases a brain chemical whose name escapes me at this moment - not serotonin, but something similar - it decreases the appetite and so you won't want so much to eat anyway! | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/3/2008 4:18:11 PM | Sorry 
I tried slimfast for a very short while, it made me irritable, I had no energy, I felt light headed. I lost some weight but it went straight back on when I stopped.
I tried the atkins for an even shorter time, that made me very ill.
I've never tried one of the callorie counting - weightwatchers type ones although a friend of mine did and was quite successfull till she stopped and has now put it all plus some back on.
Excercise and sensible eating did it for me, I lost 5 stone in six months., that was 5 years ago and now I don't even think about it.
H.x | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/3/2008 4:22:51 PM | i have used every single diet going, not one of them works, they never do!
ive taken every single slimming tab on the market, guess what, they dont work either!!
only thing that does work is regular exercise and healthy eating, and if i could just get me arse up off the sofa on a monday/ANy night, then i reckon that i might get this extra stone off me!!! | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/3/2008 4:34:32 PM | I have tried Lipotrim and had great success with it, but needless to say what weight i lost a few months ago i have gained back now. I am determined to give it another go, but finding that willpower is really difficult, lol.
I thought it was a really good diet as it was total food replacement, so instead of just craving foods you could not have as a result of a diet, every food was a taboo and no no. So there was no cravings as such for me, as the shakes were sweet enough too.
This diet treats food as an addiction and sure enough after a short while, you do lose interest in food, well i did anyway, can't say its the same for everyone.
But you have to be very focused to do this diet i think, and i really need to get my head into gear for it again, as i do have some excess weight to shift, boo hoo  | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/3/2008 4:44:08 PM | Hiya Grumpy....
Personally I'm on a see food diet ---------see food = eat food...lol
All joking aside, weight control & a diet (IMO) should be a way of life rather than a corrective measure (unless you have a medical issue)...
In my younger years, I was very much overweight & tried all manner of fad diets, none of which worked... but found no difficulty in shedding the weight (& keeping it off) after I came to realize that nutrition content is of the utmost importance & no amount of "dieting" will make much difference if its not accompanied by exercise... Does this mean bland, tasteless food or "no pain, no gain" exercise? Hardly... it means a little extra effort in preparation or learning what's in your food & regular exercise to keep your muscles working (using up your calories)... Eventually there will be an increase in your metabolism to burn the calories even faster...
A couple of hints I've discovered along the way: greasy food stuffs are not your friend for many reasons; spice/seasonings are friends for more than one reason (some spices act to increase your metabolism themselves as well as add flavor); if you crave something then eat it, just in small portions though; green things, such as green beans, often contain what's known as a "negative calorie effect"; take the word "dieting" out of your vocabulary; & try to eat as little after 6 pm as possible on a regular basis... Educate yourself about what you eat & exercise ... good luck to you in your endeavors...
cata | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/3/2008 6:57:17 PM | I currently employ no real diet other than actually eating healthy. Things like, switching your carbohydrate intake so that it used for actual activity (ie. larger breakfast, small dinner; around going to the gym or walk; etc.), smaller and more frequent meals( around 400 - 500 cals every 3 hrs, almost no processed foods, almost no refined sugar (including artificial sweeteners) and added sodium in my food; lots of raw veggies; out-of-excercise meals stress higher protein intake and raw veggies. And, the biggest thing thatI have done is create a calorie credit, rather than deficit, when snacking. ie, no junk unless I have worked of the calories before hand.
Oh, yeah - and lots o' discipline
ab hinc | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/4/2008 12:54:42 AM | to the OP
don't diet, try a lifestyle change
you will only lose weight if you consume less calories than you use in day to day life
check out psyllium husks on the net, some site called greenlife does them fairly cheap and in bulk instead of tiny pills
add that to the cereal or other food and it makes u feel full. put a spoon full into a glass of water, stir and leave overnight or so, in the morning u can turn it upside down and nothing comes out - expands to make you feel full
doing fad diets and then going back to having all meals fried will put on weight - friend tried it and had a major heart attack a few months back, he had other issues, but being 18 stone did not help | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/4/2008 1:20:02 AM | lived of very little for most of my mid teens, through my 20s and most of my 30s trying to live up to what the magazines told me. Woke up one morning and had enough. At 5' 10 i am not suppose to be a size 10 for sure. So no more low fat, low sugar, low salt ect. |Eat 3 meals a day, walk to work 3 times a week and eat all the chocolate i want. Am now a size 12 to 14, fairly fit and happy as hell. My point is it does not matter what everybody else tells you how you should look. Be real and be happy and you will be more beautiful with a few extra pounds then you ever were with the so called perfect weight. x  | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/4/2008 1:28:28 AM | All "diets" work, if you follow them. It's the returning to "normal" eating that is the problem. If you want to lose weight you need a change of eating habits permanently, which I am sure you know.
Slimming world - did this after the birth of my first son (nearly 20 years ago) - it worked, I lost all my baby weight of which there was a considerable amount and returned to my prebaby weight of 9st 7lb.
Fit for Life - did this after the birth of my second son (16 years ago) - it worked, lost all of my baby weight of which there wasn't quite so much, and returned to my slightly heavier weight of 10st.
Over the years the weight has crept on and I've subsequently done various other diets.
Rosemary Conley - worked
Atkins - worked
Slimming Magazine diet - worked
Slimming World again - did not work, but I didn't follow it properly
Rejoined WW about 4 times over the years, but only ever went for a couple of weeks before thinking "I know what I'm doing" and stopped.
I rejoined WW last April at not quite my heaviest weight of 14st 10lb. Lost a stone by June, and stopped following it properly but still went to class (having prepaid) Lost a maximum of 19lb, but have now put some weight back on, and when I went last night weighed 14st 1lb. At 5'2" that is 5 stone overweight!!!!! At least.
The moral of this story - Change your eating habits - For good.
And this is the year I do it - she says, the way she'd said every year for the past 20 years. | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/4/2008 1:43:22 AM | A diet for alot of people seems to mean something you do every so often to lose weight then you go back to your old ways and put it all back on again. It shouldn't be like that you should be eating a varied diet everyday and taking regular excercise which will maintain your weight at a sensible level.
I don't do anything special I have a couple of rounds of multigrain toast in the morning before work, a chocolate biscuit and a cereal bar mid morning, sandwich with a piece of cake and an apple for lunch then I go home and have a full meal at night meat and veg etc. I don't drink milk or eat dairy products very often and I don't snack throughout the day so I am hungry when the next meal comes round. Also as people will know who have met me I drink vimto alot.
Most people who are overweight are the weight they are for a good reason and if they spent a day with someone who did lead a healthy lifestyle it would be immediately obvious. | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/4/2008 2:06:13 AM | all diets are succesful if you stick by them and will give you weightloss,its keepin the weight off after diet that seems to be the bigger problem
i did atkins couple of years ago and it does have its faults but i lost 4 and a half stone in 6 months,like every other diet you have to exercise it really is the key,having lost the weight i abandoned atkins(just had to eat bread again!!!!!) and now i simply eat 3 balanced meals a day,no snacks in between ,drink water instead of fizzy drinks or coffee and always have vegetables,rice or pasta with my main evening meal | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/4/2008 4:40:12 AM | I lost 4 stone in 9 weeks on Lipotrim total food replacement from October to December 2006, then switched to low carb 1600 calories a day food, so I could stay in ketosis as I wanted to eat food over the Christmas period. Needless to say I found it too appealing and was not able to restart Lipotrim after Christmas 2006.
I liked the fact that ketosis controlled my hunger as it is a natural appetite supressant and also being in ketosis and losing weight meant that I am now a non-diabetic. (I was not following Atkins as I belive all the fat allowed in Atkins is not good for you. I was eating just normal and convenience foods, not more than a couple of fruits a day, but lots of salad and steamed veg).
I spent almost exactly a year in ketosis but decided that more than a year may be unwise, although there are no documents to say it is unwise, so I increased my carb intake around last September and that's when it became harder - more carbs = more choice. In my opinion it is harder to stick to a reasonable calorie allowance than it is to low-carb.
All in all I have lost 10 stone, with another 10 stone to go. I made another attempt at Lipotrim last weekend and can manage a Lipotrim flapjack for breakfast, but lunch and dinner I have to have food. It is hard to restart a very low calorie diet such as Lipotrim, Lighterlife and Cambridge diet - the first attempt always seems to be the easiest.
A lot of help can be obtained from various dieting message boards and support etc.
I know you have a chocolate and munchies addiction and I could give my views but that is not what you want to hear. My personal problem is overeating on normal dieting food such as cottage cheese, fruit etc., because I simply don't buy anything else.
If I could afford it I would attempt LighterLife as it has counselling sessions, although from what I have heard, whether you get a good counsellor or not is hit and miss.
Other posters have posted that a food diet with everything in moderation is the best way to go, and I would agree, although for someone with a chocolate addiction a square or two of chocolate may not be enough and it is tempting to eat the whole bar.
I wish you luck in your attempts to diet, although I gather you probably don't have too much to lose.
I type for doctors offering weight loss surgery. Patients are assessed beforehand quite intensively and it is very evident from the patients' history of dieting in the past, that weight is very often regained, particularly on diets where a dieter has not retrained his or her eating habits.
Pam xx | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/4/2008 4:49:43 AM | How i agree with you "free n easy"......Sheer will power is the key to success.
The diet that worked for me was Weight Watchers.....I lost 3 stone. However, i did a daily swim and the thought of not losing weight when i was paying money each week to be weighed really spurred me on. | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/4/2008 5:12:51 AM | I'm ashamed to admit it, but I found the infamous cabbage soup diet really did work. To those who claim it's unhealthy, sheesh, it's only for a week. I had no 'windy' side effects and sometimes, you just need something to kick-start you. In fact it's more of a 'vegetable soup diet' and you reintroduce meat towards the end of the week. I did that for a week then I did a day a week maintenance. There wasn't the promised initial weight loss but the weight just fell off in time.
The other thing which really worked was dieting (eating healthily) in competition with a colleague. We pinned a graph with our weights on to the office wall and had a weigh in every Monday. This was a great incentive not to over indulge at the weekend. And it was great seeing that graph line travelling down. You can do this at home though of course you are missing the mutual support/competition element. | |
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| What diets have you tried? Which ones worked for you and which did not?
Posted: 1/4/2008 7:34:20 AM |
It is hard to restart a very low calorie diet such as Lipotrim, Lighterlife and Cambridge diet - the first attempt always seems to be the easiest.
How true, first time on Lipotrim was a walk in the park so I assumed that going back on VLCD would be easy as anything and went for Lipotrim (much cheaper than LighterLife and I did not like paying double for "counselling" session).
I was very wrong, struggled all the time on Lipotrim as it was my second time on this type of diet.
Trying to be sensible now, will see how it goes...
Thanks for all the posts, keep them coming | |
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