Very Low Calorie Diet ..any experiences?

Blindsided_2

haras_nosirrah wrote: »

Essentially the lady was saying she was grossly overweight and that she needs to lose 6 stone (however from her weight and height it is more like 3 stone) and that she has been eating 3 cuppa soups and two apples a day, hasn't got the energy to get up in the morning, has heart palpitations and feels sick - has anyone got any advice. I think she was hoping others would say to keep going but as this is not a pro anorexia site we were all saying she needs to stop and go and see a gp before she causes herself irreparable damage

I'm not saying anyone should have encouraged her. I just, and I think I might be wording this wrongly, I just don't see what you get out of calling someone's actions stupid or suggesting their making it up. Of course she may well have been. But there is the chance she wasn't.

I'm just feeling very sad for her I think. A few years back I was in the same place and it's an incredibly dark lonely place. I also don't think it matters if she has 3 or 30 stones to lose. If she feels this desperate there's obviously something very wrong and I hope someone helps the lass.

haras_nosirrah

I think you are probably right but no one is going to tell her to keep going and that was what she wanted to hear.

I shared my experience as I am currently dieting and having lost 3 and a half stone my bmi is still 3 points higher than hers. I have another three stone to go and am now at a similar weight to where she is starting from. Maybe people were a bit blunt but it is possible to lose weight healthily and without damaging yourself. If she is having heart palpitations at the age of 34 then she is already damaging herself and she needs to stop immediately.

purpleshoes_2

Blindsided wrote: »

I'm not saying anyone should have encouraged her. I just, and I think I might be wording this wrongly, I just don't see what you get out of calling someone's actions stupid or suggesting their making it up. Of course she may well have been. But there is the chance she wasn't.

I'm just feeling very sad for her I think. A few years back I was in the same place and it's an incredibly dark lonely place. I also don't think it matters if she has 3 or 30 stones to lose. If she feels this desperate there's obviously something very wrong and I hope someone helps the lass.

That was one post.

Someone is only going to help her if she wants to accept it

So far she said she cant go to the gym, she feels too big
walking is out of the question as she feels too tired
Shes sleeping 15 hours a day as shes so exhausted
She won't do a cal controlled diet of even 1200 cals as she feels she doesn't lose the weight quickly enough

I dont know who is going to help her under those circumstances. If she won't help herself, it's going to be incredibly hard for anyone else to.

purpleshoes_2

When I was really big and I dont mean when I was big two years ago, around 6-7 years ago. I sat in my flat day in day out, week in and week out and hardly saw anyone. My mum used to say to me, just get a big t shirt on and go and do the classes you used to enjoy. I just couldnt do it, because people knew me slimmer and I thought everyone would have been looking at me saying look at the state of her.

I did start teaching classes after that and a lot of weight came off as I did, but I still had no confidence to go and do one. I eventually started swimming and I was active every day, but my portion sizes were too big and I hovered around the 14 stone mark.

My brother who is a PT offered on numerous occasions to make me up a gym programme and I still couldnt do it.

I know its not easy, its really tough for lots of people, but the only person in the end who could help myself was me. I could have access to people giving me nutrition advice and people offering me bootcamps and gym programmes, but I had to go and do them.

If I see someone who is big in a class or a bootcamp I think good for you. There was a girl who did the last bootcamp I did as a participant who must have been about 19 stones. She lost 3 dress sizes in 8 weeks.

I have food issues. Ive spent over half my life being obsessed with and feeling guilty about my food. I like food and I put weight on easily. Its no way to live. Eating a meal and all you can think about is when you get your next one, beating yourself up if youve eaten too many calories for a day, Ive been there and done that. Ive never been bullimic or anorexic or starved myself or done very restrictive diets, but I had a horrible relationship with food even up to around a year ago.

You have to find the courage to change your life from somewhere, many people have issues with food based on past experiences.

If I hadnt done something about my weight two years ago I can guarantee right now that Id still be sitting in the house eating massive portions, eating crisps, drinking wine and I probably wouldn't have stayed almost 16 stones, my weight would have continued to rise.

Sometimes, you need to grab the bull by the horns as it were even if its the last thing you feel like doing, because otherwise, you are going to spend another decade and then another and another feeling crap every time you eat something and beating yourself up over everything when you already feel low.

I also hate to think what my insides looked like, never mind the excess weight I was carrying on the outside.

Blindsided_2

I agree with all your points purple shoes. But if people felt they had nothing helpful to add, if they felt the lass was beyond their scope of help, or not going to listen to anything they could offer, maybe moving on to another thread would have been a better option.
Adding fuel to a fire was never going to help either. Maybe though other posters or googlers will come across this thread and find it helpful though.

Blindsided_2

purpleshoes wrote: »

When I was really big and I dont mean when I was big two years ago, around 6-7 years ago. I sat in my flat day in day out, week in and week out and hardly saw anyone. My mum used to say to me, just get a big t shirt on and go and do the classes you used to enjoy. I just couldnt do it, because people knew me slimmer and I thought everyone would have been looking at me saying look at the state of her.

I did start teaching classes after that and a lot of weight came off as I did, but I still had no confidence to go and do one. I eventually started swimming and I was active every day, but my portion sizes were too big and I hovered around the 14 stone mark.

My brother who is a PT offered on numerous occasions to make me up a gym programme and I still couldnt do it.

I know its not easy, its really tough for lots of people, but the only person in the end who could help myself was me. I could have access to people giving me nutrition advice and people offering me bootcamps and gym programmes, but I had to go and do them.

If I see someone who is big in a class or a bootcamp I think good for you. There was a girl who did the last bootcamp I did as a participant who must have been about 19 stones. She lost 3 dress sizes in 8 weeks.

I have food issues. Ive spent over half my life being obsessed with and feeling guilty about my food. I like food and I put weight on easily. Its no way to live. Eating a meal and all you can think about is when you get your next one, beating yourself up if youve eaten too many calories for a day, Ive been there and done that. Ive never been bullimic or anorexic or starved myself or done very restrictive diets, but I had a horrible relationship with food even up to around a year ago.

You have to find the courage to change your life from somewhere, many people have issues with food based on past experiences.

If I hadnt done something about my weight two years ago I can guarantee right now that Id still be sitting in the house eating massive portions, eating crisps, drinking wine and I probably wouldn't have stayed almost 16 stones, my weight would have continued to rise.

Sometimes, you need to grab the bull by the horns as it were even if its the last thing you feel like doing, because otherwise, you are going to spend another decade and then another and another feeling crap every time you eat something and beating yourself up over everything when you already feel low.

I also hate to think what my insides looked like, never mind the excess weight I was carrying on the outside.

First of all well done ! :T can I have some of your motivation :rotfl:

But you can't just say everyone should grab the bull by the horns, not everyone can. We, well anyone who read the lasses posts, got a glimpse of her mental state I dare say it's not great. And joining a gym or even losing all the weight in the world won't fix it.
when you have reached your lowest ebb even the most dangerous ideas like these vlcd seem like they will solve everything. Of course they don't. But you can't see that.
Poor lass.

purpleshoes_2

Blindsided wrote: »

First of all well done ! :T can I have some of your motivation :rotfl:

But you can't just say everyone should grab the bull by the horns, not everyone can. We, well anyone who read the lasses posts, got a glimpse of her mental state I dare say it's not great. And joining a gym or even losing all the weight in the world won't fix it.
when you have reached your lowest ebb even the most dangerous ideas like these vlcd seem like they will solve everything. Of course they don't. But you can't see that.
Poor lass.

Im sure mine wasnt great over the last few years either, I had issues relating to work, I was suffering from anxiety which led me to change career and at the end of 2012 I was suffering from work related stress (again), having changed career to get away from all that. I put myself into counselling, I was on anti depressants due to sleeping issues, my GP rarely prescribes them and I had to have an almost mini meltdown in her office due to sleeping for 2 hours a night before I was prescribed a course of them that helped my sleep pattern.

It was also one of the worst years I can remember for one of my family, the total year from hell and it was at the end of that year that I smacked my tailbone on black ice, broke it and put on even more weight.

Ive spoken about this before. I had to do a video to send away to a company and I had to watch it because the sound wasnt good quality. I was dreading seeing it. Even though I knew I was very overweight on some levels I was still in denial, because if you were as I was, going around in casual wear every day, you think, well I can still get them on Im ok, these are a size 16. I wouldnt have been able to get a size 16 pair of jeans over my ankles at that point.

I got 30 seconds into the video, Ive never watched the rest of it. But I can remember how I felt about myself that day being videod and it was that, that made me realise I needed to get my act together.

I have support, Ive always had support, I have a family would love me whether I was 10 stones or 17 stones.

But the getting off my backside even though I didnt feel like it at that time, had to come from me.

I get people who contact me for PT and to do my classes who are terrified to come because they feel too big. So they don't. They might turn up 6 months later, they might not turn up at all. But I can guarantee you a lot of people who are overweight and are too scared to come in, if they message me in a years time, they'll still be overweight, like I was 6 years ago and again 2 years ago.

Wanting to change but being too low to get that workout gear on and get to a gym. I have been there, more than once. It is hard, but if people don't make changes, and positive changes, they'll still be sitting in a year or two years time doing no exercise and stuffing their face with whatever junk food they have to hand and feeling crap about themselves. I know exactly what that is like.

There is no magic wand, that is the problem. Sometimes you need to get that motivation from somewhere, go and do a class even if you feel like the biggest person there, step away from the junk food even though you are dying for a bag of crisps.

Id love to be the kind of person who could eat anything they like and for it not to show on the scales, I'll never be that person. It will be a lifelong battle for me. But the way I feel about myself right now compared to the way I felt about myself 2 years ago is like night and day and its been worth every class where Ive felt like dying at the end and every time Ive eaten something healthy as opposed to shoving my face full of cheese and onion crisps.

Mojisola

Blindsided wrote: »

But you can't just say everyone should grab the bull by the horns, not everyone can. We, well anyone who read the lasses posts, got a glimpse of her mental state I dare say it's not great.

That's why several of us suggested that she stopped the 'diet' and asked the GP about help for her mental state.

Until she sorts out the reasons behind the over-eating, any weight she loses now will come back and she'll feel even worse.

purpleshoes_2

If you look at one of the posts that are still there because someone else quoted it, she said that she was bulimic in her 20s and maintained her weight, but "fell off the wagon".

That's horrifying to me.

Blindsided_2

purpleshoes wrote: »

If you look at one of the posts that are still there because someone else quoted it, she said that she was bulimic in her 20s and maintained her weight, but "fell off the wagon".

That's horrifying to me.

Yes agreed that's a very scary thing. I only hope her family can see whats happening or perhaps her gp and get her some help. I can't see from the thread whether she was very big, someone mentioned 6 stones and 3 stones overweight? But I will say I'm currently about 20 stones. I have lost 2 following a healthy eating plan just cutting back and exercising more but in the past I have done vlcd and starved and all the rest. It never works for long.

What I'd give to only need to lose 3 stones ! I'd feel like a skinny minny, just goes to show its all about how you feel inside that counts I suppose.