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[diaamericana]

I'm very hesitant to post this because I think I haven't tried everything and there's so much to read!  But, I need help.  I need to know why the oil isn't just additional fat calories every day?  I understand the science of the set point and tasteless calories, but it's not translating into my life.  I've been doing this for 4(?) weeks and have had very mild AS - I get full faster, but am hungry just as often throughout the day.  But, when I look at my before-oil calorie intake, it's not that much lower.  I can't help thinking that without the additional calories from the oil, I'd be losing weight.

I want to increase my flavorless calories, but am not sure how to do it.  I tried making a shake yesterday with some protein powder and the oil (one of the recipes posted somewhere on this board), but even nose-clipped I was able to taste the vanilla powder - maybe not as strongly, but it was definitely vanilla.  (GNC didn't have any unflavored powder.)  So far, today, I haven't noticed a difference in AS - I'm typically not super hungry in the mornings.  I may try the shake again tomorrow (adjusting the noseclips better, etc) depending on how today goes.  I'd really love it if I could replace lunch with something like this - I'm getting my oil and nutrition for lunch all in one shot.

I thought I was just eating and "feeling" hungry out of habit, so I tried replacing my lunch with the oil but was unreasonably famished at the end of the 2-hour window.  The next time, I tried to eat some protein (cottage cheese) and fruit before hand, and was still starving.

A little about me: I'm 5'7" and weigh 190 (I hate typing that because then I have to admit it).  I'm within 10 lbs of my final pregnancy weight.  Anyway, I need to lose about 50 pounds (30 pregnancy and 20 that were hanging around before I got pregnant), so I definitely don't fit into the close-to-healthy BMI category.  I also didn't lose any weight before starting SLD - I was breastfeeding until November (anyone who says breastfeeding helps you lose weight has clearly never experienced the uncontrollable hunger that comes with it) and then it was the holidays.  I've always had a relatively healthy diet, with a few random unhealthy treats once a week or so.  I started working out last week (9 days in so far - yay me!).  I've been taking 4 tablespoons of ELOO (I tried canola first, but could taste it) - more than the recommended amount, but I want to see some results!

I don't know what to do.  I'm torn between just giving up all together to do a traditional diet and continuing to try SLD with more flavorless calories.  I guess I need to know that other people have had success even with a non-existant start.

[August]

How many flavorless calories are you getting?

I have a baker's scale, and I found weighing out my portions to be helpful.  I'd get hungry but get full faster as you do and I found I could get full on 4 ounce portions (usually 4oz of meat + 4oz of vegetable to equal 8oz total).  This made a big difference, because as you can imagine, it's easy to eat far more than that before the stomach triggers satiety.  I figured I could eat a small portion, wait 20minutes and eat again if I really felt hungry, so I didn't feel deprived. 

Also, it's a good idea to keep track of what you eat in terms of how long it takes you to get hungry after you eat it.  Keeping a journal like this will help you see which foods/flavors are triggering the most of your hunger throughout the day.  It comes down to creating a calorie deficit while maximizing nutrition.  Don't think of the oil as additional calories- think of those calories as a basic part of your nutrition.

I had a similar slow start with SLD too.  It wasn't until I realized my habits kept me eating far more than I needed to that I started losing significant amounts of weight.

[goblyn]

Well, I'm relatively new to the diet, and do not consider myself an expert, but I thought I'd offer some help anyways (forum regulars, feel free to correct me).

1.  There are plenty of documented cases where the AS takes a while to kick in, and for some people, it never seems to kick in as strongly as it does for others.

2. Are you definately taking absolutely no other flavors during the 2 hour window?  You aren't smoking, using lip gloss, drinking soda, etc? 

3.  You've been on ELOO for 4 weeks, perhaps you should consider a change to a different oil or even a different brand of ELOO.  Some oils will need to be noseclipped (walnut oil, virgin coconut oil, flaxseed oil, etc) so keep that in mind.  I people report varying degrees of AS with varying oils.  HOWEVER, you should be aware that you may need a week or more to build up the necessary enzymes that it takes to digest the new oil properly.

4.  Have you considered trying some of the alternative flavor free calories yet?  There are the benke balls, some people, myself included have found heavy cream to work just as well as oil, not to mention the good old sugar/fructose water Seth first experimented with. 

5.  There is a pretty long thread about noseclipping lots of food in the tips and innovations board.  If you're okay with noseclipping food, you may want to give Heidi's technique a try.  Basically she eats around 60% (or more) of her calories per day noseclipped.  She finds she doesn't need to do oil at all, or obey any sort of two hour window and has lost more weight than she expected to.  Its an interesting, inspiring read that, at the very least, may get you interested in trying more noseclipping.

6.  I don't really do the crazy spicing stuff, but some people find that helps, for me, personally, I don't really get it, however, I am a big fan of spicy food, and I have recently tried putting some Sriracha (its an asian brand of hot sauce) on some "ditto" foods and found that having them with the extremely spicy sauce really helped me to stop eating as much (in this case it was chicken fingers and fries).

7.  Do you weigh yourself daily?  I find, personally, that if I weigh myself every day, especially if i do so after a big meal or while bloated, I get EXTREMELY discouraged by the scale.  Though those of us who've been dieting practically our whole lives can't quite break ourselves from the scale habit, trust me, you'll be much better off weighing yourself once a week at the same exact time every week.

8.  Though I personally don't believe it works (as I've tried something similar before) PLENTY of people report really great AS and are losing weight with flavor free calories.  There is a thread on the tips and innovations board about this as well.

9.  I wouldn't obsess about the oil if I were you.  Yes there are calories in the oil, but the point of the diet is that your body will eventually stop processing flavorless calories period.  Meaning that the old "calorie in - calorie out" way of thinking is kinda flawed.  The SLD is pretty revolutionary, and in many ways, still doesn't make total sense, but the proof is, as they say, in the pudding, so many people on these boards have lost a good deal of weight making no other adjustments to their lives other than drinking oil.

10.  Finally, don't forget, you actually do need to take in calories to survive.  I know, its crazy, after years of dieting that almost convince us that eating anything at all is unhealthy and greedy and gluttonous, but your body learns to deal with your yo-yo dieting and can enter "starvation mode" if you don't take enough calories in.  What this basically means is that your body will try its damndest to hold onto the weight.  So instead of "replacing meals" iwth the oil, think of the oil as a supplement, and make sure you are still eating enough to be healthy.  What SLD has done for me is really made me listen to my body, there have been days when the AS is so strong I barely want to eat, and others when the AS seems to be faltering, I don't think its the diet failing, I think its my body finally being able to communicate whether I'm full or need to eat!

Don't give up! 

[bkbigfish]

I'd venture a guess that, like everything else in the world related to biology, SLD and AS don't work exactly the same for everyone. That said, it has worked for me - but there were times, particularly at the beginning, that it sure didn't seem to.

I sometimes have trouble digesting the oil - one time, after stopping for a week for travel purposes, I took about five tablespoons (all that was left in the bottle), and I had major stomach cramps and spent about an hour in the bathroom, praying for the sweet release of death. It was that bad. Wait, why am I posting this as a response to a newbie? I guess the point is, it's not a perfect system, and you can have serious hiccups (though I should note the pain went away after the second bathroom trip, almost as if by magic, it was the only time, and as far as I can tell there were no long-term consequences).

I suggest that most people who start out, take too little oil. That's a mistake. It IS important, as my little anecdote suggests, to build up to the proper dosage. But at first, don't worry about the extra calories the oil contains. Yes, you almost certainly will gain weight at the beginning if you eat the same amount, then add the oil.

But the point of SLD is really to change your eating habits, and (if it's possible, which in my case seems to be) to accustom both your body and mind to the way you feel eating less. You need the AS for that, over a period of months (at least) - and to get that, you need the ELOO or SW (I actually switched to CO, as it's a lot cheaper - I live outside the US). I suggest:

1) Gradually increase (over a period of about a week) dosage to even 2 times whatever you calculate is the proper dosage for you. Like I said, individual biology may mean that you need more than usual, and as far as I can tell, except for some potential digestive problems caused by sudden increase, there's no danger to taking "too much." You really, really need to feel the AS, and it's better (and still safe) to take too much oil than too little. It's like being in love - if you're not sure you feel it, then you don't. So the next day, take a little more (or add a second dose, although I find this too troublesome).

2) In the beginning, change where and with whom you eat. Even with the AS, it's too hard to resist the temptation to eat too much (or as much as you normally did before SLD) if you're in the same restaurant with the same large portions of the same delicious food with the same friends and family who order the same big meals as always. You need to change your eating habits, at least in the beginning (eventually, you will develop new, healthier habits, hopefully), and it won't matter so much where you are or who you're with. But at first, make a change.

3) Eventually, you should naturally (or maybe you have to do it consciously, at least for a while) develop a new standard of fullness or satiety, so that less food feels right. In my case, I used to eat three big meals a day. With the SLD, I cut it to two reasonably sized meals, plus the oil. I often slipped out, especially during holidays, and gorged (note: SLD will not stop you from gorging, although it might make it less pleasant) At some point, however, about 6-9 months (it's hard to be more specific) after I started, I realized that, even on the days I skipped the oil for some reason, I wasn't as hungry as I used to be, and I wasn't eating as much to be full. I actually felt a little nauseous trying to eat as much as I remembered I used to (my mother taught me always to finish whatever was on my plate, so if I order what I always used to, I try to finish it all). It's actually gotten to the point - surprise, surprise - where I don't actually take the oil on a consistent basis (maybe 2-3 times a week), yet my former appetite hasn't returned, and my weight stays around 78-80 kg (usually 78kg empty, 80kg full), which was my original goal.

So that's the goal - SLD is less a diet in itself than a tool that helps you change your lifetime eating habits. I think all doctors point out that that's the only basis of any permanent weight loss. The power of AS is that it enables you to make those changes, whereas most other diets simply help you lose weight temporarily, but do nothing to empower you to eat less on a more or less permanent basis.

So that's my simplified blueprint. Don't be afraid of the oil!

[diaamericana]

I just thought I'd come back in and do a quick update.

First, to answer some questions:  I am neurotic about the 2 hour window - to the point that it usually ends up being a 3 or 4 hour window.  I do weigh myself daily, but it only counts on Sunday and only gets recorded in my tracking spreadsheet every other week (along with my waist and hip measurements).

What I've been doing lately is having an approximately 700-calorie nose-clipped shake first thing in the morning (1 cup 2% milk, scoop of protein powder, 4 tablespoons ELOO or Canola and a couple tablespoons of dry oats to give that full feeling).  The past week or so, I've hardly eaten anything else throughout the day until dinner time.  Though, my daily weigh-ins aren't showing much progress yet.  I'm currently losing about a pound a week.  Which will put me at my goal weight just in time to have another baby and gain it all back.  :lol:  I might do an extreme dieting plan (raw foods, probably) for a week just to boost my weight loss a bit and give myself some extra motivation.

One interesting thing that has happened is that I stopped doing SLD for a week while my baby was very very sick - the last thing I was concerned about was my weight and what I was eating.  Since starting up again last week, my AS has been really good.  I wonder if the week of full-flavor calories reset everything so that when I started the no-flavor calories again, my body interpreted it as a lean time and reset my set point.  Has anyone else taken a short break and then had better results?

[goblyn]

I'm glad to hear things are going better for you! 

You may find that as time goes on, you can decrease the amount of oil in your drink, because that still sounds like a helluvalot of oil! 

But definately congrats on finally having some degree of success!

[bigbaddar]

           Though, my daily weigh-ins aren't showing much progress yet. I'm currently losing about a pound a week.

Congratulations on the pace of your weight loss....it does takes a little time to get used to the slow but steady pace.