Lighterlife - it's working for me! (Lighter Life)

Member Name: Kittikins

Product:	Lighter Life
Date:	07/06/09 (834 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Takes away the stress of wondering what you're "allowed"

Disadvantages: Ketosis breath!

I am currently in my 7th week of this very low calorie diet and am loving it. So far I have lost 3 and a half stone and have quite a way to go, but know that, slip up, notwithstanding, this is the best, easiest and healthiest way for me to lose weight and learn the right psychological mechanism to keep it for - for life is the aim!

By eating/drinking 4 packs a day, you apparently take in 100% of each vitamin and mineral that your body needs. This then takes away any physical hunger, any stomach rumblings are down to your body getting rid of fat (I think?) and as most "hunger" that people feel is psychological hunger, you can soon easily overcome it. Or that's my personal opinion anyway! Your body goes into a state of ketosis - fat burning, which means that whilst you're taking in roughly 500-600 calories a day, just walking around and living your life on a day to day basis, you have to lose weight as you burn more calories than you are taking in. (The downside to ketosis is that you do need to brush your teeth more often as your breath can become rather 'unfragrant', lol...)

The first step of the Lighterlife programme is to commit (no contract) to abstain from eating food, and just have the packs for 100 days (roughly 14 weeks). They "guarantee" that if you stick religiously to the programme, you will lose 3 stone. You have to have a BMI of 30 or over to do the original Lighterlife programme. There is a programme called Lightlife Lite for people with less weight to lose, but I can't comment on that as I'm sadly nowhere near there yet...but I will be soon at this rate!

The diet is rather expensive - £66 a week for all the food packs (sachets of either soup or milkshakes and one cereal bar a day after the 4th day of starting the diet), but you also get an hour of group cognitive behavioural therapy counselling - which for me was the real draw.

I have struggled with my weight since I was in my teens, and have tried every diet under the sun, and then some! I have lots of mental issues surrounding food...I'm sure a lot of people reading this review will nod when they think of the excuses I've used to myself when having a bit of a binge...

1. If noone sees me, then it doesn't count
2. I've eaten rubbish today, so I may as well carry on
3. The diet starts tomorrow/Monday/sometime never
4. I'd better eat this, my friend has cooked it just for me

you can see what I mean.....

By being able to sit down once a week in a group of people (single sex groups) who are going through the same thing, you quickly create a bond with them and are able to work through deep-seated fears, emotions and habits surrounding your former eating pattern.

What LighterLife does, is take away all the "temptations" that you get on a more traditional diet and by allowing you the packs and water/tea/coffee only, stops you (99% of the time), lets you focus your mind on real life rather than obsessing about food. On other diets, I've often found myself 'robbing Peter to pay Paul', i.e. eating a lot one one day and then trying to catch up by half-starving myself the next to try and even everything out. Ultimately I would end up eating myself into oblivion when it didn't work....

The soups and shakes are all delicious in their own ways - personally I don't like every flavour, but I believe that people find their own favourites and I like to stick to mine. With the unofficial recipes that people have given me, I've been able to vary my 'diet' quite well - chicken crisps anyone? Yummmy.

Lighterlife has had a lot of bad press after some people didn't READ the books you're given relating to the amount of water you are supposed to drink. A while ago, the recommendation was to drink 4 litres of water a day, however, due to people making themselves seriously ill by drinking 4 litres or more in less than an hour (I struggle to see how this is physically possible, but don't want to try it...), the official stance is now that you should treat your body as a water wheel and have little and often, so approximately 2 litres a day.

I feel that by combining the foodpacks and the counselling, I am working towards a new understanding of how best to live in the world of food and feel confident that with the new psychological tools, I will be better able to resist the temptations once I have achieved the weight I would like to be.

Another element that I think is really good, is that once you get to your goal weight, you are able to pop along for free to chat about how you are getting one, without any pressure to buy packs, for the rest of your life. It feels a bit similar to AA, they are taking a lifelong interest in you, okay, the counsellors are out to make a living, but you wouldn't last long as a counsellor if you didn't actually care about your clients. I am treating my relationship with food as an addiction, I know that certain food types have a big draw for me, and the goal is to curb it, to know why I'm suddenly craving bread/Kitkats etc, and learn how to manage it so that I only snaffle one instead of a family multipack.....

Lighterlife is a quite a big commitment - in terms of finances, time, and emotional involvement. It's not for everyone, you have to be in the right frame of mind to do it, but once you're there, it's honestly the easiest system I can think of!

Summary: Look forward to losing weight quickly!