NHS very low calorie diet help

Thanks for the info adding it to the suggestions log i'm creating ^_^ , it's causing problems in my day to day, I don't like how I look, I can't find clothes that fit, It's giving me back problems as well.

Find a new dietician.
With 65lbs to lose, there is no reason to eat that little.

I've been given a diet by my dietitian for twelve weeks, I was hoping people could help me find ways to makes this diet less of a strain, e.g. vegetable recipes i.e. soups/stews/roasted etc.

-Can add spices/herbs/stock
-1000 Calories max per day.
- 2 Fruit portions 50 calories max each
-Skimmed milk allowance = 1/2 pint
-2 Portions of veg [no potatoes] = 75 calories max
-No other foods allowed.


The diet:
Breakfast: 1 meal replacement + Tea/coffee with skimmed milk allowance

Mid-Morning: Tea/Coffee or low calorie drink

Lunch: Serving of salad/vegetables + 1 portion of fruit.

Mid-Afternoon: 1 meal replacement

Evening Meal: Serving of vegetables/ Salad

Bed-Time: 1 meal replacement.

Find a new dietician.
With 65lbs to lose, there is no reason to eat that little.

THis^^ x1000

Responses like this always amaze me. Did you read the thread? If the OP swears she's not losing at 1200 calories per day over a sufficiently lengthy period of time such that fat loss could not be masked by water retention, why would eating more ever produce better results in terms of weight loss? That's just illogical. What's more likely is that due to inaccuracy in logging, the OP's 1200 calories is not truly 1200 calories. Just because I log 1200 calories doesn't mean that I didn't eat 1600 or 1800 calories, and telling me to start eating more just exacerbates this problem (e.g., I log 1600 and eat 2200). What's also a very real possibility is that all of these diets the OP has tried haven't lasted long enough for the OP to see results. Yoyo'ing between various diets with breaks of uncontrolled eating in between and not sticking with any of them long enough to see results is a great recipe for getting bigger over time. But if that's the case, eating more during the diet phase of the yoyo will just make things worse. And there's always the possibility that the OP is 100% accurate and is dealing with an undiagnosed medical issue or a side-effect of a drug she's taking, but if that's the case, telling her to eat more is again just going to exacerbate the problem. In short, there's almost never a situation where eating more will break a long-term plateau or will stop long-term weight gain as we're seeing here.

This is a bit of a rant on my part at this point, but weight loss goes beyond just plugging numbers into a calculator and getting a calorie target. That simply gives you a rough estimate for your starting point and going forward you should be adjusting your targets around the results you're seeing. If you're not losing at the rate you should be over a lengthy period of time, drop the calories ~10%. If you're losing too fast over a lengthy period of time, up the calories. But it needs to be based on results, not just ballpark estimates based on someone's stats.

Just my $0.02, but the OP's doctor is probably putting her on "meal replacement" products because it's a controlled environment. I can log 1200 calories but that doesn't mean I actually ate 1200 calories, and if I'm not weighing my foods and/or preparing my own foods, it can be difficult to get a very accurate estimate. On the other hand, "meal replacement" products are fairly well controlled. A shake is always going to be around X calories, a prepackaged meal will always be around Y calories, and so on. I suspect they're recommending that sort of diet plan to see whether the OP truly can't lose at 1000 calories or if perhaps the reason for the lack of loss was inaccurate tracking. But in any event, I just can't understand all the posts saying "your doctor is a quack, eat more!"

Has your doctor considered / tested you for metabolic syndrome? I've read that can stop people from losing weight even when they are exercising and eating right.

Depends is that the same as hypothyroidism?

ETA: You don't 'test' for metabolic syndrome - you fit into a criteria, it is usually used to describe a person's hightened risk of complications like CVD. Mostly it's a combination of diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity. So rather than an actual thing in itself it's a term to describe a cluster of conditions in one individual. - Metabolic syndrome is not a "thing" that would effect your weight, as it's not an individual condition, however along the same lines - insulin resistance /// pre-diabetes is something that can make it very difficult for someone to lose weight, it's very hard to diagnose as it basically has little/un-noticable symptoms if any are present at all.

Insulin resistance and pre-diabetes are not hard to diagnose.

You can be diagnosed through a simple blood test or mixed meals test.

that's a dumb *kitten* dietitian...