Slim Fast

[leagunner]

We've been talking about losing weight in one thread and it's a fairly common issue around here! Just wondering if anyone tried/uses Slim Fast. That's what I did to lose my weight a couple years ago and it worked really well. I combined the SF with exercise. And honestly, half the time I "cheated" in the beginning. They recommend having SF for two meals and then eating a good meal once a day, plus snacks, fruits, veggies, etc. Well, I would often have a shake for breakfast but eat food the rest of the time, just cutting down on fat and calories and the weight slide right off. Even now I don't use SF once a day to maintain, as recommended... I just eat good food (most of the time!) and exercise a lot and the weight has stayed off (plus a couple more pounds came off before I hit a good weight). Just wondering if anyone else has had good results from it? Or maybe bad ones.

[Lostlipgloss]

My mom did it for years, and she never lost weight. She did join weight watchers and that helped her lose alot though!

[leagunner]

My mom did it for years, and she never lost weight. She did join weight watchers and that helped her lose alot though!

Was she exercising while she used Slim Fast?

[SparkZ]

i did slimfast and lost about 19 lbs in like 3 months. I rarely excercised and when I did it was just a long brisk walk at the local park. Its just too expensive for me to keep up between buying the shakes and all the ingredients for the recipes they reccomend on their site. I had it down to a pretty good system where I'd pick 2 dinner and make enough of one thing for 4 days and enough for 3 days of the other and then put them in the freezer and alternate days. I did the same for lunches and dinners. if you do the diet they have a dinner recipe for mushroom stuffed porkchops that is AWESOME I still make them all the time and my husband loves them too. They give you the full calorie count for the meal and I think its like 400 calories and its so much food. Besides the porkchop you get a serving of broccoli, 1/2 a sweet potato, like a cup of melon and 1/3 cup of fat free yogurt. It's a lot of food especially for a diet. I am thinking about doing the slimfast thing again but not buying all the slimfast crap. Their site is awesome they give you weekly meal plans and everything and if you don't like what they suggest you eat for the day you can substitute one of like 30 other things. So if it says to eat a slim fast meal bar and a 1/2 of grilled cheese but you don't like that you can sub something else. SO what I think I might do is use the meal planner and substitute all the slimfast meals like shakes and bars for something else.

[Lara]

I'm sure you all know this, but the success of Slim Fast isn't because it has some magic formula, it's because the calorie restriction. Most of us go all day eating meals--even ones we think are healthy--without thinking how many calories we are ingesting. When doing the Slim Fast plan, the calories are measured out for you.The average meal plan on Slim Fast is 1500 calories a day. Most of us eat more than that without even realizing it. A Mcdonald's Crispy Chicken Caesar salad is 310 calories, then add the dressing and it's another 190 calories. That's a total of 500 calories for a salad! Most people still get something else on the side even if it's something "healthy" like a Fruit and Yogurt parfait. That adds an additional 160 calories bringing the total meal to 660 calories. Put that total in with all the other stuff we would normally eat on a daily basis and you can see see how we have no clue how many calories we consume in a day.

My whole point is that Slim Fast is successful because it is making the consumer aware of how many calories he/she is taking in a day. You can easily follow the Slim Fast plan without having to purchase the shakes or bars. Just be aware of how many calories your body needs in a day and how much you are eating and burning off. The Slim Fast website is excellent for meal planning.

Exercise is important because it helps burn the extra calories, get's your heart in good cardiovascular condition and also helps shape and tone the muscles. Without exercise, even if one were to lose weight, they would usually wind up being a smaller version of what they previously were.

Sparkz has it down by making enough of a meal to last a few days and freezing it. This way the food is already measured so the calorie total is known AND it makes it very convenient--almost as convenient as popping the top of the Slim Fast shake. :) This is key for keeping the eating program under control because it's too easy to want to reach for something convenient.

[Lostlipgloss]

Yep, she did. Just didn't work for her.

[Irishgirl]

I used Slim Fast after having my daughter 15 years ago...I did manage to lose weight but put it right back on when I quit using them. I was skinny for 10 minutes..LOL! What can I say? I was young and needed to work a size 5. :rolleyes:

[debbie]

i would drink slim fast to lose a couple of pounds. i found that it was the temporary fix. quickly and easily. gosh i wish i had my 21 year old body back. :(