Its only meant as a quick fix (SlimFast)

Member Name: poet831

Product:	SlimFast
Date:	12/04/09 (619 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: pre - packaged, provides excessively low calories

Disadvantages: your body has to re - think its attitude to food and exercise

Slim Fast has it's uses but it is a low calorie diet plan and therefore is a shock to the system if you've been overeating up until the day before you "go on the Slim Fast diet". It is a milk-shake type drink that you are supposed to use instead of one or two meals a day; in one sense, they are good for you as they contain lots of vitamins and minerals. The other key thing to their plan though is to eat one good meal a day - meat, potatoes and a couple of veggies. The overall idea being that you'll limit your daily calorie total to around 1000, which is what they always used to use as a magical number. Well, as with any "diet"as soon as you come off it, if you haven't changed your outlook on food and lifestyle, as soon as you go back to your old eating habits, the weight will go back on.
Sensible weight loss can only come about as a long term thing by way of a change in lifestyle. Less food going in, more exercise going on to burn up the calories. The best way I have figured, to calculate the calories you need, is simply to take your ideal weight in pounds and multiply it by 11, to give you the total calories that you would need to maintain the weight that you want to be. By ideal weight, I don't mean some obscure number that a chart says someone of your height should be. I mean the weight that you are comfortable with. Then I take my current weight, and do the same calculation. My calorie intake goal is the first number, but i'm ok on "bad"days as long as I try to stay at least 500 calories below the second number.

As far as foods. If you fancy chocolate, have a piece. If you don't, you'll munch on everything else and probably still end up with it in the end. It lasts longer if you freeze it in sections - get the craving, take a piece out of the freezer and you can suck it for a few minutes! Try to eat less fat, less salt, less sugar overall. Eat more fruits and veggies, fill up with rice and potatoes, lower your portions of meat, gradually.
I batch cook curries, chili, and other savouries, and I add about a cup of dry soy granules to each batch which lowers the fat content even further in the individual portions, and is good for me as a woman because of the nutrients it contains.
If you can't live without fast food, then ask all your favourite restaurants for their nutritional guides, and utilise these every so often in your diet plan. And the key to the whole programme? Move more - walk, dance, go biking or swimming, but don't sit around. Keeping moving raises your heartbeat and helps burn up calories that bit more. If you can afford it, go to a gym. Some doctors will actually give you a free referral for a month to your local gym. Once you start and realise what fun it can be, it doesn't seem such a scary prospect.

If you want to, you can include Slim-Fast in your new eating plan but maybe as a convenience as part of a pack lunch with a piece of fruit or a yoghurt. Or if there's a particular dress you just HAVE to be in by Saturday. The thing to remember is that these plans are not made to be forever - which is what you want your weight loss to be. My advice - read all you can about nutrition, cut fats, meats and sugars, exercise more. Work out your own plan that is suited to who you are, and the foods that you like. Slim Fast is no magical cure, and is not meant for long term use anyway.

Summary: Its only meant as a quick fix