Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: Liquid Diet Drink

Question:
What about Diet Drinks (Success, slim fast) as a supplement to a diet plan and daily exercise routine? What is the current medical opinion on these as part of a diet program?Can you give me information about Liquid Diet Drink?

Answer:
The problem as I see it, with any sort of liquid meal replacement, and I have used The Cambridge diet, Medifast, Slim Fast, Herbalife, Nestle Sweet Success, even carnation instant breakfast, (so sue me it takes a while for some things to sink in!), is that you are not learning to make wise food choices. You avoid having to make choices because there are none to make. There is a certain freedom in that if you are an uncontrolled compulsive over eater, but you change you never behavior. Even with behavior modification classes while on medifast, I still hadn't really learned to change my food choices because I never had to make any food choices. All I did was send my body into starvation mode and when I stopped using the supplements, and went back to my old way of eating my starved body sucked up every available nano calorie that crossed my lips. I never knew it was possible to gain 100 pounds so fast. Almost got whiplash :-o One of the theories about a liquid diets I learned at my nutrition/behavior modification classes was that you would have completely reeducated your taste buds. They would not need refined sugar and fats to have the food taste good. That was true. Those first real foods I ate after stopping the supplements would have tasted good if burnt to a crisp. But the sheer volume of food I could not stop myself from consuming because I had deprived myself so long. would have probably made me gain weight on celery and water! Plus since I hadn't changed my eating habits, shopping habits and cooking habits, I went back to the sugar laden and high fat usage of the past. Do they work, yes. I did lose weight on every single one of them. Even carnation instant breakfast which I used for other meals than breakfast. But when I stopped I was a human calorie vacuum sucking up even the smells in the air and depositing them on my hips. YMMV, but I know of others who followed these plans and had the same results. On the medifast a close friend did it with me. It was great. A diet buddy to commiserate about the deprivation with and a co patriot in bingeing on Hagen das bars when we stopped. She gained back her weight plus too. And let's not talk about what all those screwy supplements did to my metabolism. My doctor tells me I will never have a normal metabolism. I will always suck up more calories then a normal person would. I hope he's wrong. I am obviously not able to severely deprive myself and then eat in a normal fashion when I stop. Took me 20 years and a lot of yo yoing to finally learn that little gem. The only way I can be successful is to exercise portion control, low-fat, low-cal, and moderate carb. That way, nothing is a bad food. I can occasionally splurge on small amounts of foods I love. That is why low carb wouldn't work for me. I would eventually binge on carbs. This is me and YMMV, but the sheer percentage of numbers of people who have not been able to keep off the weight lost by using meal supplements is defiantly slanted heavily against you being successful. To me, it's not worth drinking that awful tasting shit, fighting cravings and the need to feel my stomach is full and my taste buds sated, having the either the shits or constipation all the time, only to gain the weight back in what seems like an instant.