the bars!

bubbles

Regular Member
hi all ive been doing exante for the last week & half and i like the products but i think the bars are stopping me go into ketosis as im constantly hungry and when i did cambridge/LL i was only hungry the frst 4 days, does anyone else find this? i find the bars filling but half hr later im hungry again!!
 
Hi Bubbles,

i am only on day six.....but i seem to remember reading another post about this interfering with some people.
I am hungry also....but as i have not completed a week yet, think i need to give it a little longer before i can make any judgement.
Maybe you could try and split the bar up for now.
I am sure that someone wiser will be along to post soon.

Shaz x
 
It's not necessarily the bars, they only have about 4-5g net carbs more than the shakes or soups so it's not a huge difference in terms of intake.

However, saying that I don't know how familiar you are with the theories behind the Atkins diet? Basically Atkins says that everyone has a CCLL (Critical Carb Level for Losing) - stay below it and you will stay in ketosis, go above it and you will be out of ketosis and stop losing weight. (Note that with Atkins this is because calories are not controlled, not because you are not in ketosis, see below) He reckons this varies from person to person and also depends on excercise levels. In some people it can be as low as 15g net carbs a day, average is around 60ish and in people who excercise more it can be as much as 90.

Exante soup-shake-bar consumption gives you about 45g net carbs so should cover most people to stay in ketosis. However if your personal CCLL is much lower than this you will not necessarily be in ketosis.

Note that you will still lose weight (on 600 cals a day you pretty much have to) but the "good" side-effects of ketosis - the appetite suppression and feeling of well-being - may not be present.

If this is the case for you then Exante may not be the best diet for you in the long-term.

My advice would be to stick it out for a little longer and see how you get on. If things improve, great. If not it suggests that you probably do have a low CCLL and a low-carb or low-GI diet mught be a better option for you.

HTH. :)
 
hi bubbles, have you lost any weight in the past week & a half? i'm worried about the bars affecting ketosis with me aswell ): x
 
I'll say it again in plainer terms shall I? :)

BEING IN KETOSIS IS NOT THE REASON YOU ARE LOSING WEIGHT ON THIS DIET!

You are only eating 600 cals a day on this diet and simple laws of physics mean that you will lose weight! Energy in is less than energy used so the difference has to be made up from your stored energy (fat!) - it's called the law of Conservation of Energy if anyone's bothered.

Ketosis is a desirable state for a VLCD because it naturally stops you feeling hungry and can also leave you feeling mildly euphoric and well. Being in ketosis is not a guarantee that you will lose weight, not is not being a guarantee that you won't. OK?
 
sorry, yambabe! i thought ketosis meant that your body was tapping into fat resources instead of muscle & going into starvation mode etc. i have a lot to learn lol thanks for explaining :p
 
Nothing to apologise for. :) In fact I'm sorry for getting shouty again. :eek:

You are also right, ketosis (or at least the production of ketones as a by-product) is an indication that your body is indeed using its own fat stores for energy, but your body will do that anyway. Even in ketosis you will be losing a certain amount of lean mass as well as just fat I believe.

It's just not the be-all and end-all of a VLCD, is all, and some people seem to rely on it way more heavily than is mertited (in my opinion anyway :eek:)

You can lose weight (and body fat!) without being in ketosis - otherwise WW, SW and all those other long-established diets wouldn't work. You can also be in ketosis and still not lose weight, read up on some of the studies on Atkins over the years - the reason Atkins works despite being an "unlimited" protein and fat eating plan is that the ketosis supresses the appetite and people doing it eat a lot less calories than they used to, often without realising. If you eat too much on Atkins even if it's non-carb stuff, you don't lose weight.......

Ketosis does make doing a VLCD so much easier though for the reasons I mentioned before. It's just not the end of the world if it's not happening for you - unless the hunger becomes too much in which case a different diet plan may suit you better.
 
Let's say I bought ketostix, and after the first flush of interest, they are in the bathroom unused

I think you get to the point when you say
"hey, the hunger is not there," or controllable

and you are losing weight

it's a win win, really
but
we all went through the same questions as you, really

ask away
:D
 
I think there is more to Ketosis than my sister shouter Yam has already helpfully talked about. From his research Atkins talks about the "metabolic advantage" of being in ketosis. He theorised and proved that the calorie burn from a low carb diet when you are in ketosis is greater than a regular fat burning. I know it's only a few carbs difference but I have found that since I substituted a bar for a shake my weight loss has increased. I couldn't say it's been a lab condition controlled experiment but it could be that those few carbs tip the scale, for me, of course everyone is different. You could try swapping for a shake or soup for a few days and see how you feel.
 
The bars are so
nice though
even with the dodgy aftertaste
chewing
yum!
So easy too, and you can snack on bits of them
which I suppose I could drink half a shake
but I thunk I am hooked!
 
Out of interest I actually looked at the ingredients list of the various items last night and noticed that the Choc Orange bar contains citric acid.

Of course the benefits of the bars are that they are easily transportable so covenient to have one about your person if you are going to be out and about.

Love Myr xxx
 
The bars are really quite yummy, hopefully they won't mess with me too much once the weight loss gets going.
Like Yambabe says though - whichever way you lose it, you're bound to lose weight on 600 calories a day faster than most other diets so it's all good!
 
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