Thursday food for thought – Ali Campbell Maintenance Mindset

Are you worried about weight gain after refeed?

A lot of people worry about what will happen when they finish their VLCD total food replacement plan and return to normal eating and wonder if the weight will go back on.  It is important to understand that when you return to healthy eating that you should expect to put on a few pounds as your body adjusts to not being in ketosis anymore, this is NOT FAT, the weight comes from glycogen.

If you eat healthy and eat the proper size portions, you WILL maintain.  It doesn’t matter what diet plan you follow, once you get to your goal, if you go back to old habits you will go back to your old weight.

I am sure we all know people who have went to their local slimming class and lost weight and put it back on again, I am sure you might even be one of those people!  So the possibility of putting weight back on is a threat to anyone who has just lost weight, IF they return to the old habits that made them fat in the first place.

If you are determined to keep the weight off you will.  You need to be focused on eating small portions of healthy foods.

Understand GLYCOGEN

You will see in the first week weigh in’s that weight loss results are at the highest, that is because in the first week of a total food replacement / VLCD diet plan your body uses up its stores of Glycogen.  This is on average 4-5 pounds, maybe more in some people.  When you return to eating carbs your glycogen levels will fill up and this will add water weight to your body.  THIS IS NOT FAT, this is simply your body filling up its glycogen stores.

If you do not refeed properly the glycogen stores will fill up too much, and you could add 10 pounds of water weight, this happens to some people who just go on a big binge one weekend while they are on total food replacement without doing a refeed. They feel quite shocked when they stand on the scales on the Monday, but this is simply the result of overloading on carbs without following the refeed plan.  If you get back on Total food replacement your body will use up the glycogen stores within a few days again.  This is NOT FAT gain.

This is why it is important to REFEED SLOWLY and not jump into a basket of bread when you get to your target weight.  You will be able to eat carbs again, but you just need to introduce them to your diet slowly, partly because of glycogen and also partly for your own self discipline so that you can take your new healthy eating plan seriously.

It is also important to understand the concept of glycogen and refeed, as some people see they have been eating very healthy and following the plan and yet the scales show that they are 5 pounds heavier! “How can this be?!?!”   The shock of this, after being so good, can make people panic and think healthy eating is pointless and then throw in the towel with the healthy eating “malarky” and resign themselves to being fat forever!  DON’T PANIC!  Be prepared to see the scales go up around 5 pounds even with healthy eating, after the first week or two then you should find that you are not putting any more weight on IF YOU ARE EATING HEALTHY.

Is your target weight important to you?

If being a particular weight is important to you, then you should aim to get about 4 or 5 pounds under the weight you want to maintain at, to give yourself this leeway for glycogen weight on your body.  So if your healthy BMI is 10st 2 and you want to get to 9st 12, then you might want to consider aiming for a weight of about 9st 8, to allow for 4 pounds when you start your refeed.

If you really want to maintain your weight you really do need to take your menu planning and healthy eating seriously.  Don’t go back to your old habits, you really need to say goodbye to all the things that got you overweight in the first place.  If you don’t say goodbye for good, then you will soon be saying “Hello” to excess fat again, as it will creep back on.

When I spoke to Kay who was the creator from the diet plate, she said the one thing everyone says when they see the portions on the diet plate is “Is that all I can have!??!!??”  People are shocked when they see how small portion sizes should be.  Make sure you take the time to reeducate yourself on portion control, and do a proper refeed and have a healthy approach to eating lots of fresh produce.

REFEED TIPS

We recommend taking 2 or 3 new you plan meal replacements per day.  At the initial stages you would not use the carb section on the diet plate, but through time you can start to add some low GI carbs.  You can have “bad carbs” as long as you stick to the portion control of the plate, we would recommend that you aim to eat healthy most of the time with the odd cheat meal as long you stick to the portion control of the diet plate.

After using the diet plate for a while at home you will soon get a good eye for what size of carbs you should eat when you are out in a restaurant, this will help you when you eat out to NOT CLEAR YOUR PLATE if the portion sizes are too big, you need to know what the right amount is to allow you to have a treat without it ruining all your hard work.

Remember that we are called the new you plan for a reason, because we want all our customers to CREATE A NEW YOU, with new healthy habits, new healthy positive mindset and a new healthy attitude to food and nutrition.  Total food replacement should be used as a spring board to help you get to the place of living a slim healthy lifestyle.

Your Task today is to answer the following questions: 

1) Are you worried about weight gain after Refeed? If yes why?

2) From doing total food replacement do you feel you have more control with food?

3) What do you feel is you biggest downfall when moving onto a conventional diet?