Lighter Life Diet
The Atkins Diet asks dieters to leave the carbs behind. The Grapefruit Diet and Cabbage Soup Diet asks dieters to eat and drink only grapefruits and grapefruit juice or cabbage soup respectively. The Blood Type Diet suggests that a person's blood group is the key to weight loss. Now, we also have the Lighter Life Diet.
Sounds fluffy doesn't it ... Lighter Life. It even sounds like weight loss is given on 'Lighter Life' diet.
However, the Lighter Life Diet, like so many other diets, has a catch. But with the Lighter Life Diet this catch is pretty extreme. Lighter Life dieters don't eat anything. That's right. It isn't a typo. On the Lighter Life Diet users don't a simple thing. No protein, no carbs, no fats.
What the Lighter Life Diet does offer is liquid meal supplements. Oh and counselling.
How does the Lighter Life Diet work?
The Lighter Life Diet combines counselling and weekly support groups with a very low calorie diet where Lighter Life dieters are encouarged to replace all meals with low calorie shakes, soups and other Lighter Life branded foods. Each day Lighter Lifers consume, on average, only 500 calories a day!
Like many other comsumption support groups Lighter Life believe that people who need to lose weight are addicts. Lighter Life believe that much in the same way an alcoholic would kick booze or a drug addict beats the need for a fix, people who overeat need to beat their dependence on food by going 'cold turkey'. This means stop eating and also stop the decision process behind eating.
By replacing all meals with very similar shakes, albeit in a few different flavours - vanilla, strawberry and chocolate - the decision making process about what to eat is taken away from someone on the Lighter Life Diet programme.
Couple this with weekly counselling sessions where dieters discuss the 'habit' and you have what, on the surface, seems like a recipe for success.
The Lighter Life Diet programme
Each week Lighter Life dieters attend the counselling sessions where they discuss their issues and also purchase the following weeks Lighter Life food packs.
The initial part of the Lighter Life Diet runs for 100 days where users of the programme eat and drink only the Lighter Life food and meal replacement shakes.
After this stage successful diets are reintroduced to conventional food and reduce the dependence on the Lighter Life food packs.
Lighter Life and the need for water
People on the Lighter Life Diet programme are encouraged to drink 4 litres of water a day. This is for three main reasons:
- Clear waste from the body via urine - rapid fat loss increases toxic ketones to flow through the body which need to be excreted as often as possible.
- No food means no water from foods
- Drinking water keeps helps to regulate blood pressure so that dieters don't feel dizzy
Advantages of the Lighter Life Diet
If people who are overweight or obese are in fact food addicts then the idea of changing their attitutes to food and their dependence on the need for food is a good idea. Whether going 'cold turkey' where food is concerned is a good idea is another question altogether.
Also, supporting a dieter via counselling and friendly support groups is a fabulous idea. Often a problem shared is a problem halved and if you can discuss your issues and attitutes with food with other like minded people then this can only be a positive.
Although following a very low calorie diet for many would be dangerous to their health, those people who carry an excessive amount of weight will greatly benefit by allowing the body to burn body fat for fuel. This will allow them to become effecient to burning body fat rather than storing it, which consequently means that their weight will indeed go down.
Disadvantages of the Ligther Life Diet
Giving any addict a replacement to own habit can cause problems. Replace heroin with morphine and drug addicts can become dependent on the replacement. Could replacing food with easy to use meal replacement shakes make food addicts dependent on the Lighter Life food packs?
Also following the Lighter Life Diet can cause damaging side effects, including:
- Dizziness
- Feeling of sickness
- Constipation
- Diarrhoea
- Dry skin
- Menstrual changes
- Saggy skin
- Gallstones
- Cardiac problems
Following the Lighter Life Diet can also isolate people from friends and family who enjoy eating and drinking. This can make the Lighter Life Diet a lonley experience for users when they are away from the Lighter Life counselling and support groups.
Also, the Lighter Life Diet food packs are not cheap. A batch of weekly shakes and bars etc will hit your wallet or purse. Make sure that you are ready to make some financial commitment to changing your eating habits before you attend your first Lighter Life support group.
The Lighter Life Diet - Conclsuion
There is no denying that the Lighter Life Diet programme does see individuals lose weight. For those people who have tried dieting in the past only to see no weight loss at all then perhaps the Lighter Life Diet may help.
Also for the clinically obese the nil by mouth (well nil solids by mouth) attitute of the Lighter Life Diet programme may see dramatic weight loss and the start of a normal life.
One word of warning before embarking on a Lighter Life Diet, rapid weight loss can be balances with rapid weight gains once the 100 day programme is over. It is of paramount importance that after the initial foundation stage of the Lighter Life Diet has been completed that changes to eating habits are including within a new diet. This will mean reducing the amount of fats consumed, eating more fruits and vegetables and not missing out meals like breakfast and lunch purely because you don;t have time to prepare and eat these meals.
Finally, with most diets individuals should consult their local GP or doctor. This is especially true before embraking on the Lighter Life Diet. Even before attending a local Ligher Life support group consult your doctor and discuss the option of the Lighter Life Diet with them to get a professional medical opinion.
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