Good point, Supervixen. I think that's why it's good to have a plan that reintroduces a real protein meal at some stage during the weight loss phase. Alizonne reintroduces it when 70% of the weight is lost. So we learn for a period of time (probably 3 months in my case) to eat a small amount of protein (140g white fish etc or 120 g lean meat) 120g of lean meat is small - I had it last night. It doesn't seem enough. I used to eat 2-3 times that much meat or fish twice a day. We eat it with low cal non starchy vegetable in the evening, and one tablespoon of olive split as needed for the lunchtime salad and evening meal.
It's key to refeed or phase off slowly and properly according to your plan, or adapted longer (not shorter). Search refeed threads on here and also see what the successful maintainers do. See
http://www.minimins.com/slim-save-refeeding-maintenance/279266-weaseys-re-feed.html and
http://www.minimins.com/lipotrim-maintenance/266504-two-years-since-i-finished-tfr.html and
http://www.minimins.com/lipotrim-ma...s-maintainence-diary-year-3-diary-runner.html
Irish Molly just posted this: "Planning is the key to both maintenance and refeeding. Plan your menus carefully, stick to the refeed sheet to the letter and keep up your water intake. Weigh foods initially to help visualise correct portion sizes. I find it is very easy to overdo portion sizes. Weigh yourself weekly without fail as it helps keep you focused. Once refeed is complete find a food plan that suits you and your lifestyle and then it will be easier to maintain your losses."
It is true that more people regain than maintain after all sorts of weight loss programmes. So it's worth researching this and also following how successful manintainers here are keeping it off, and where re-gainers went wrong. Here's one example of some info:
Long-term weight loss maintenance.
So we need good plans to enable us to be in the group who maintain - not just for one year but for 5, 10 and 20 years and more.
It's really useful to get a test to work out your calorie requirements at goal as many people with weight issues have a lower than usual requirement and also underestimate portion sizes and calories (by as much as 20-30% - enough to regain lots of weight). Alizonne uses the Medgem test. Some gyms also offer it. There are people starting Alizonne who at their fattest will put on weight if they eat more than 1600 - a level at which the diet clubs say they should be loosing weight. Our BMRs go up if we do some more exercise - so adding in sustainable exercise nearer goal is obviously worthwhile. It's also an indicator of likely long term success - regular exercise.
So now is the time to resolve any psychological issue that led to weight gain. Bingers are more likely to regain than others. The US National Weight Control Registry reports that "successful long-term weight loss maintainers (average weight loss of 30 kg for an average of 5.5 years) share common behavioral strategies, including eating a diet low in fat, frequent self-monitoring of body weight and food intake, and high levels of regular physical activity. Weight loss maintenance may get easier over time. Once these successful maintainers have maintained a weight loss for 2–5 years, the chances of longer-term success greatly increase".
It's also interesting to me that the Alizonne GPs do not set a BMI below 25 for all their patients. Those of us who have been fat for a long time as adults will often have a higher target - as they believe that it were we will be more likely to be able to maintain it.
So my take on this is that the weight shedding phase is the easy bit, just the start. We need to be committed to developing and manitaining a new way of life and eating to sustain our new bodies. For me, I think alcohol will be a treat not a weekly thing. I expect to monitor and write down my food for several years and thereafter to do so (and weigh sizes portions again) if I am not staying the same to see where the extra is coming in. I think i will also do the 10,000 step approach as I don't care for gyms.
Vigilance will be needed. I feel that having done the vlcd, I've had a re-set terms of body weight so will find this easy than I did loosing weight by calorie counting in the past. I also have decided that not all food it equal. So not all calories are equal> For me, it will be better to eat real food with real fat so I will be combining paleo style eating with calorie counting to manage portion sizes:
LCHF for beginners | DietDoctor.com
Good luck SuperV and Rendarida with your journeys. I wish you both success in getting to your target weights and staying there.