Total Solution My trials and tribulations (and hopefully jubilations) of being an Exante dieter

lorrs.mcd

Full Member
Well, day one is pretty much done and dusted so I'll give a wee overview of my day.

Got up, went to shower and weighed in then. 18 stones 10 pounds and 6 ounces. Eeek! Not that it was any surprise; in recent months I've been a bit crazy with the comfort eating. I'd say the past couple of weeks have been filled with nearly daily food binges where I seem to be trying to eat for Scotland. Not fun at all - especially with the recent development of having hip pain and having probably the worst eczema outbreak since I was about 10 years old! It's all the sugar I've been eating, no other excuse there. I have a week off work this week so I decided it's probably a really good time to get into the swing of things before work distractions get in the way and give me 'excuses' to not start it.

Anyway, I weighed in and got dressed, after that I headed off downstairs to make up my first Exante product. Now, I was on Exante before, about a year and a half or so ago and I have a fair idea of the flavours I like and dislike so when I bought this box I went with 50 strawberry shakes plus 7 porridge and 7 pasta carbonaras to try out. So this morning it was the porridge; firstly - I definitely didn't make it properly. It more resembled very watery wall paper paste but I decided to eat it anyway. It tasted ok to begin with but I got to the halfway point and it started to leave a horrible aftertaste which was reminiscent of the Exante bars I hated so much the last time. I tried to choke it down but ended up leaving about 2 spoonfuls as I started retching. Great way to start the day! This was followed by lots of water and, I know we're not meant to have it, but a pellet of sugarfree gum. Ah well, things can only get better...

I went up to visit my Granny this afternoon and drank a black coffee with sweetener up there. I was tempted by her sweets and cakes (she's tiny, always been thin and munches through sweets and cakes all day and really struggles to put on weight, why didn't I inherit those genes???) but I managed to stick with the coffee. After that I came home and had a strawberry shake around 2.30pm this was fine, it didn't taste of much, I'll add a sweetener tomorrow methinks. I made it up in the shaker bottle which I think will be fine for work and days when I'll be out but I'll use the stick blender in the future. This was followed by a fair amount of water and a peppermint tea.

Around 5pm I started to get pretty hungry and my tummy started to feel like it was twisting in knots but I was trying to hang off as long as possible before making the final meal of the day. I'm house sitting at my parents place this week and there's lots of food around to tempt me. I started to get a headache and generally was beginning to feel pretty rubbish. I drank more water then had a big glass of dr pepper zero but this just gave me indigestion. Headache, indigestion, hunger and feeling sick from hunger all at once, not fun at all. So I decided at 6pm it was time to make the pasta carbonara. I was a little dubious about it as I'd started to browse the forums and loads of folk were saying it was horrible. However, if it was rubbish I was ready to bin it and have a shake instead. So I made it up by taking the little by little water adding approach with zaps in the microwave and lots of stirring and I was pleasantly surprised as it turned out fine! :) I think I'll be ordering more of the pastas.

I'm also somewhat intrigued by what people have been saying on these here forums. When I did Exante the last time I hated the bars and so, it seemed, did lots of other people here on the forum but this time round a lot of people seem to like them. I wonder if they changed the recipe at all? I'm not sure I'm brave enough to test out that theory by purchasing them as they really used to make me heave. I've also noticed a lot of folk saying the chocolate is nice. Back when I did the diet the last time the first batch of chocolate shakes I got were lovely, really really nice tasting. Then it turned out my nice chocolate shakes were a faulty batch (people were finding them too sweet) and they corrected the error and next thing they started tasting terrible, as bad as they smelled! No matter how many sweeteners I tried, I could never get them tasting nice again. Anyway, I'm also tempted to order a sample of chocolate to see what I think now. I'll be ordering banana flavours too and maybe vanilla, it was a bit hit and miss last time. I can't stand the soups so I don't see much point in trying those again. At least the pasta carbonara is good and the strawberry shake is alright :)

So yes, that was today, about an hour after eating my pasta I got hungry again so I distracted myself with a magazine then fell asleep for a few hours. Hence why I'm wide awake and up typing this at nearly 3am!! Now I'd say I'm mildly hungry but the plan is to drink a glass of water and go back to bed.

Oh and I have a metallic taste in my mouth already but still hungry so I don't think I'm quite there with ketosis but hopefully it won't take long. Tomorrow, I'm picking up my boyfriend then we're heading for loch lomond for a walk so I'll be taking my shaker bottle with me. Here's hoping tomorrow is a good day!
 
Hi :D
Good luck :D
I hope you find a bit of variety in the products that you can take :)
I'm fairly lucky and dont not like any of them.
Marge
:D
 
Everyone on here seems to have different tastes as far as the packs and bars go. I like the choc shakes and the vanilla ones (but have to put coffee in the vanilla, can't have it without), but not a fan of the strawberry or banana ones, I find them too sweet and artificial tasting. I love the mushroom soup, haven't tried the other flavours, they dont interest me. I love the carbonara but most people dont, I liked it's saltiness and the texture, it's different from just shakes and soups. I dont mind the choc orange bar but can't eat the other one due to allergies. I have the Tesco UltaSlim choc bars instead, they're lovely.
 
Success - I made up the porridge with slightly less water; added it little by little, which resulted in a thick porridge, plus added some cinnamon and it was good! I actually scraped the bowl clean. Very pleased about that! Day two and going out a walk by loch lomond with the fella, packed my shake, shaker bottle and water to take with me :)
 
Hope you have a good day. I like the porridge, I havent tried the carbonara so not sure about that yet. The only things I dont like are mushroom and Strawberry shakes.Good luck going forward
 
Well that's me back from Balloch - we were rerouted which meant I was driving for a heck of a long time then went for a nice walk and to the aquarium and down by the loch to see the ducks :) I took my shake with me + water + diet coke zero and also had some black tea with sweetener whilst I was there. I drank my tea whilst OH ate a panini and drank orange juice - he did offer not to, but I figured I better get used to being around other people eating food at some point so I was ok. Not long in now and I'm pretty hungry but I'm hanging on til 6pm at the earliest. I did open the fridge and eye up a few things - I even considered boiling up some broccoli for a minute but no way am I cracking when it's only day two. So I'm sitting sipping on a coffee and typing here for distraction. I think it'll be easier when I got back to my own flat on Sunday as I've already cleared out my cupboards there and donated any tempting things to the local foodbank. So yeah, a wee read of the forum for a bit then it's pasta carbonara time :)
 
Hello, welcome and good luck :)

You're doing fab so far, long may it continue! xx
 
Arrgh gurgly tummy, headache and no sleep :( I'm not even that keen on them but I'd love a cup of options or a horlicks right about now. Tea and coffee black seem to give me indigestion - same with peppermint tea, even water is doing it tonight. This is rubbish!

Keep telling myself it'll all be worth it. :sigh:
 
Have you had all your packs ?
I have heard some say a hot vanilla with some cinnamon is quite nice. I havent tried it myself :)
I suffer terrible from heart burn. I find splitting the packs helps :)
But also take ranittadine for it :)
Sometimes rennie, if I need to get rid quicker :)
 
I take ranitidine/Zantac too, although much less often than I used to have to do before. Sometimes for no reason a pack will give me bad reflux. I have suffered with it all my life, it's very noisy for me and my family called it my "gurking" cos that's the noise it makes, very unpleasant. It's nice not to wake up with a mouthful of acid these days though.
 
I was reluctant last night to take a rennie incase it messed with anything but I'll take one in the future. Well, feeling better today. It's day 3 and I've not consumed anything aside from water yet as I'm trying to hang on. I was reading the thread about meal timings and it hadn't even crossed my mind to wait until later before I have my first pack as I've always eaten breakfast so I'm gonna give it a go. That's ok for this week but not sure how I'll feel about not having anything til later when I'm back at work on Monday; not sure it would be good for me either. I work in a fairly mentally exhausting job and I don't wanna go in all dazed and confused from hunger lol. However, if I can wait it would be better as it's the evenings where I struggle the most and it's evenings when I prefer to eat and having nothing at all in the evening after last pack is a struggle for me.

Anyway, today I am picking up my wee granny and we're going for a wander around the shops. It's stressful because she has dementia, is deaf and too vain to wear a hearing aid (!!!) and mostly lives in her own wee world so it's difficult to have a conversation with her n stuff but she enjoys it and she's always pleased to see me so I enjoy it for that. We will inevitably be going for her to get a tea and cake so here's hoping I manage just having the tea side of things.

Also, might pick up some bouillon if I see it when out. Thinking about swinging by Tesco on the way home and picking up some ultraslim bars too - I didn't get any exante bars as I just can't eat them, I find them revolting. Not sure about these ideas though. Kinda early to be veering off the path. Will think aboot it.

Hope everyone is having a good day :)
 
I've had an UltraSlim bar nearly everyday this week and it hasn't affected my weight loss. I really like the chocolate one, I find the raspberry one a bit sweet for my taste. I've been having the bar for my dinner with a cup of coffee and eat it in tiny bites so it lasts longer, lovely :)
 
Things will get easier as you get more into the diet, you might find it easier to wait for your first pack. I usually have my first around 10.30 or 11am, and then spread out. I have a bar in the evening which I split in 2. Half at around 6pm then the other half around 8pm.

Hope you have a lovely day
 
I know what you mean about breakfast.
Thats another reason I split my packs :p
I always have heard that breakfast kick starts your metabolism, and to delay it can make your body go into starvation mode.
How true that is for all of us I don't know, as some people seem to do well waiting until later in the day.
But at least half a pack first thing eases my mind :)
 
Och I cracked yesterday :( just felt terrible with headache, hunger, indigestion, weakness etc I ended up buying some chicken to eat from the shop then came home and just started eating anything I could find in the cupboards. I may have stuck this last time but finding it too hard this time; aside from the strawberry shakes I'm finding everything else from Exante sort of scunners me and I've decided I can't live with it. I think I need to learn how to eat normally instead of this all or nothing approach e.g. vlcd vs. binge. Have spent last night and this morning reading about atkins and the dukan diet and thinking about doing one of them as essentially they do the same thing with regard to ketosis but at the same time will hopefully rid me of my sweet tooth. So, farewell my exante friends, I hope you all do well and manage to stick with it but I'm going off to try something else before I go off the rails completely.
 
Good luck lorrs :)
 
I can recommend Dukan, I did it for a while and im a complete carnivore so I liked all that meat. The only problem is that it can be quite expensive buying so much meat and fish.
 
Good luck Lorrs, hope you find something that works for you xx
 
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