VLCD menu based diet

I am doing LL, and after completing Route to Management I do not want to have to eat this bunch of rather poor tasting chemicals again. I want to try to formulate a healthy VLCD that I can use from time to time as needed to control my weight - e.g before or after a holiday, or after a business trip with hotel/restaurant meals.

My plan is to construct menus that provide 100% nutrition using foods readily available in shops and supermarkets but which total no more than 800-900 kcals per day.

My initial thoughts are that the meals will be very low carb and higher protein - lean ham, lean steak, chicken, tuna, salmon etc. served with low carb veggies and salads - lettuce cucumber, tomatoes, celery, aubergine, mushroom, peppers, green beans, mange tout, baby corn, cauliflower, broccoli, swede, spinach, courgette etc. with herbs and spices and vinegar-based dressings. Fruits will be low carb - berries, melon etc. and some seeds and nuts will be included for their protein and omega oils. Where I do have carbs, they will be low GL carbs (rather than low GI which is similar but not quite correct) - couscous, bulgar wheat, quinoa etc rather than potatoes, rice, pasta that are usually in low calorie menus.

I want to calculate the vitamin and mineral contents of each of the meals and will then work out if a multi-vitamin is needed. I imagine that it will be, not least because I strongly believe that the RDA figures are not high enough - I believe in the Patrick Holford approach and the idea of an Optimum Daily Allowance rather than the Recommended Daily Allowance.

It may be that somebody has already done this, or that there is a book available (though I have not found anything other than the standard Low Cal books that I do not think will help).

I'd welcome your ideas and recipes if you have any, and also would like to know whether you think my plan is sound or achievable.

Perhaps this thread could be a collection of healthy very low calorie meals that we can all use to help us continue our new slimmer lifes.

Please do contribute to this thread.

Thanks
Mike

Thanks Dancing for your comments and support.

I am hoping not to get too many negative comments, but happy to accept whatever comes my way good or bad.

I do hope that if people see fit to be negative that they make a positive suggestion to "balance the karma"

Here's hoping!

Cheers

This is a very interesting thread and has really made me think, as I'm maintaining myself and over the past 11 months my weight has fluctuated. If I'm a couple of pounds over I sometimes go into panic mode so the idea of using a vlcd style diet would seem appealing to use for a week or so to get rid of any extra lbs.

This is what I have done in the past it hasn't affected me physically but now I'm further into the maintenance journey I've realised for me this isn't psychologically healthy.

As I'm a CDC it's been easy to dip into my stash and follow the 810 for a week, or so I thought What actually happened was I would 810 successfully for about 4 days then have an almighty binge due to feelings of depravity. So weightwise I have maintained but it hasn't done me any favours mentally.


I'm now finding that if I've overindulged following a 1000 - 1200 low GI diet is a lot more achievable for me as I don't feel hungry or deprived and therefore it dosent lead to a binge.

Are you looking at constructing a vlcd that would put you into ketosis? If not would only consuming 600-800 cals a day put you into starvation mode?

Please dont think I am criticising your theory, I'm very interested to read more of your ideas and although I dont feel this is right for me (unless you can convince me otherwise). There are probably many other maintainers that it may help.

Tracey
x

I've already read something like this on the web. It involves lots of pulses for the protein and fibre to fill up on. Apparently it works?
You may want to check it out.
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/06/how-to-lose-20-lbs-of-fat-in-30-days-without-doing-any-exercise/
I would be interested in an easy to follow maintenance diet once I've finished with CD.
x

Thanks for all your comments.

I think that I will need to experiment and maybe have an 800kcals version and a 1200 kcals version.

by keeping protein high and carbs low it should be fairly easy (???) to get into ketosis on either. After all on Atkins, I must have sometimes consdumed 3,000 kcals and reamined in ketosis and losing weight.

I will get some time to look into this more tomorrow I hope.

Cheers again

Hi Mikey

Not sure if you have seen or heard of weight to go, diet chef and go lower.
Check them out would like to hear your opinion.

Hi, I do something like this although at the moment I am over my target and dealing with it!

For times like this I do 800 cals during the week and 1200 at the weekends.

But the main thing for low cal diets is that the protein must be above 50g a day otherwise your body starts to effectively eat its own muscle and this can have a bad effect on the heart muscle. I did have some papers on it but binned them in a clear out a while ago.

Everyone focusses on the vitamins and mineral but a good vitamin will give you most of those, its the protein you need to watch.

It's one of the reasons people don't tend to market VLCD's that they've devised themselves. Even CD has moved up on a few programmes to above 800 cals where technically it can drop the V!

I look forward to seeing what you come up with, the details of the vitamins and minerals would drive me nuts - I'm really not patient enough!

I'll watch this post with interest as I'm going to be without packs for about 4 days next week, and want to be on a LCD and in Ketosis during that time.

I think Soraya's comments about a multivitamin providing a large chunk of the nutrients in a VLCD sachet are interesting, as well as the Protein aspect, which was something I wasn't aware of and will definitely bear in mind over the next week. It'll be worth finding out whether a standard multivitamin would affect ketosis (or are there 'Atkins brand' vitamins which would be acceptable?)

I guess you may need to pick and chose from the RTM/higher level CD plans as well as looking into Atkins and basically do a b*stardised version of that.

Keep us informed on your findings

Tange said:

Hi Mikey

Not sure if you have seen or heard of weight to go, diet chef and go lower.
Check them out would like to hear your opinion.

Click to expand...

Thanks Tange, I'll take a look

Soraya said:

Hi, I do something like this although at the moment I am over my target and dealing with it!

For times like this I do 800 cals during the week and 1200 at the weekends.

But the main thing for low cal diets is that the protein must be above 50g a day otherwise your body starts to effectively eat its own muscle and this can have a bad effect on the heart muscle. I did have some papers on it but binned them in a clear out a while ago.

Everyone focusses on the vitamins and mineral but a good vitamin will give you most of those, its the protein you need to watch.

It's one of the reasons people don't tend to market VLCD's that they've devised themselves. Even CD has moved up on a few programmes to above 800 cals where technically it can drop the V!

I look forward to seeing what you come up with, the details of the vitamins and minerals would drive me nuts - I'm really not patient enough!

Click to expand...

I agree - I am a strong advocate of protein - we live in a protein deficient world - there isn't enough to go around and all the manufacturers replace protein with carbs.

Lean meat and fish will form an important part of my plan (I am sure there is something for the veggies - quorn/tofu etc.)

I amsure we would be interested in some of your meals if you have the calculator handy ...

Dinosaur said:

I'll watch this post with interest as I'm going to be without packs for about 4 days next week, and want to be on a LCD and in Ketosis during that time.

I think Soraya's comments about a multivitamin providing a large chunk of the nutrients in a VLCD sachet are interesting, as well as the Protein aspect, which was something I wasn't aware of and will definitely bear in mind over the next week. It'll be worth finding out whether a standard multivitamin would affect ketosis (or are there 'Atkins brand' vitamins which would be acceptable?)

I guess you may need to pick and chose from the RTM/higher level CD plans as well as looking into Atkins and basically do a b*stardised version of that.

Keep us informed on your findings

Click to expand...

Lean meats - chicken, ham, steak are very good for you (esp if organic and no chemicals added) add the veggies I suggested in the OP and you will not go far wrong. If you can restrict carbs to 20g per day whilst away you should not go out of ketosis (that is the basis of Atkins in initial stages)

20g is not a lot though!

I found an interesting link of 1000 kcal meals at 1000 Calorie Diet Menu

It is a very simplistic menu and I would remove the potatoes and bread and replace with more protein and leafy greens.

I just found a brilliant website that anailyses foods and the nutritional value they have. Nutrition facts, calories in food, labels, nutritional information and analysis – NutritionData.com . You can even create your own menu/meal and have it analysed with its analyse recipe function. Lots of good info all over this site.

I got the link from Epicurious.com: Recipes, Menus, Cooking Articles & Food Guides who have great healthy recipes (and not so healthy ones) many of which have full nutritional data and analysis.

mikey said:

I found an interesting link of 1000 kcal meals at 1000 Calorie Diet Menu

It is a very simplistic menu and I would remove the potatoes and bread and replace with more protein and leafy greens.

Click to expand...

I just looked at their sample menu, and it's LOADS to eat

I guess if I replace the Potato's/bread with 50% protein / 50% extra veg and take a multivit, I'll be ok for 4 days. I'm planning on doing 1 day low carb eating/1 day SS to make sure that I don't a) slip off the SS bandwagon and b) get my 'nutrients' in as stable a way as possible.

Hi,

I'm really not an expert, I learnt what I know through sites like this!

A not very exciting menu today was:

Atkins shake 10 cals 2g carb 15g protein
chicken breast (200g) 232 0 44
green salad 18 3 2
extra low cal mayo 15 2 0
baked sea bass 300 1 46
asparagus 4 spears 15 3 1
mushrooms 6 27 4 3
4 sprays butter/oil 4 0 0
blueberries 20 15 4 0

Total: Cals: 793, Carb 18g, 111g protein

pretty high in protein and I struggled with the 2 bits of seabass. Thank goodness Tesco sell cheap(ish) fish in the frozen section!

These are the figures according to a combination of fitday.com and because it's very american and doesn't have UK foods like Marmite (!) in, I spend a lot of time typing in the backs of food packets!

Look forward to seeing what you come up with! Loads of people have posted some really good menus on the low carb menu post too, I've nicked some great meal ideas from there!

Cheers for your comments and ideas all - looks like I should be able to make a plan to meet my requirements - a couple of weeks every now again of healthy food at VLCD levels.

Hi Mike,
what a great idea..would you be willing to share? To be honest once I'm done with CD I would rather try and avoid these rather bland things myself...

Will be watching with great interest..

xxx

Fantastic thread, although I am a long way off "real" food just now. I would really like to be able to dip in and out of protein based diets as there are times when I personally find the restrictions of a long term VLCD far too anti social. I am fine with water, black coffee etc, the no alchohol doesnt affect me at all (altho I am def NOT t-total!), but being able to go out to eat with friends, share a summer bbq or whatever is so very hard.

The thought of being able to follow a diet that is possibly nutritionally complete yet, more acceptable socially is very appealing.

I shall follow this thread with great interest. Thank you.

great thread Mikey....will be watching this one !

thanks

Debz x

I'm with minilady on this one