What Is This Program About & How Effective Is It?
That's the bottom line that you need to find out before you go investing money into this diet plan.
The LA Weight Loss diet is a diet plan that is focused around structure and support. Each week you will have a "one-on-one meeting" three times per week with one of their diet counselors where you will discuss how you have been making out and what foods you want to eat that week.
When first signing up with LA Weight Loss you will fill out a questionnaire that will then help them come up with a personalized diet program for you. This will largely be based upon your personal characteristics such as height, weight and activity level as determinants of how many calories you are allowed per day.
There are three stages of the plan that you will move through as you progress towards your goal weight.
First Stage:
The first stage is the "jump start program," which will put you on a high-protein plan for a number of days. During this portion of the diet your total calorie intake will be between 1100 and 1800 calories, depending on your current weight, sex and activity as specified above.
Second Stage:
After that stage is done, then you will enter into the second stage that lasts for a six week period and allows you to begin adding more calories to your plan.
Third Stage:
Finally, the third stage, which you will continue on indefinitely if you so choose, will introduce you to foods that were removed from the program initially. You will still be required to make regular visits, however they can be toned down from the three per week that was seen earlier in the program.
The program encourages a high consumption of fruits and vegetables, along with lean protein, while curtailing fatintake. The beginning stages will be much more strict in terms of food selection than the later, however the company has a wide range of pre-made meals and supplements that you can choose from to make sticking with this diet that much easier.
So, How Does This Diet Stack Up?
First off, this diet program is quite costly so that in itself might be a limiting barrier for quite a few people. If you choose to cook a lot of your own food that will reduce the costs, however they will push you quite hard to purchase the foods they are supplying because for the most part, it's built right into the diet plan.
The general approach to the diet is fairly good, increasing consumption of lean protein along with fruits and vegetables is always a good choice; however, their avoidance of fat is not the smartest move.
Increasing Fruit Consumption Is Always A Good Choice.
Most dieters should keep fat intake between 20-25% of their diet in order to promote a healthy body system andhormone levels. Plus, many people, particularly women, tend to feel more satisfied on a slightly higher fat diet (as opposed to a higher carbohydrate one), so usually it's a better way to go.
The initial stage has you eating very low calorie along with a large amount of protein. This is likely very similar to the protein sparing modified fasting diets that are out there since basically all you'll be eating is protein with some vegetables thrown in.
This is a fine way to jump start weight loss so long as it is not followed for an extended period of time simply because of the fact that it is so low in calories.
Furthermore, the "diet counselors" you see are not certified in nutrition but merely salespeople who have been trained by the company. While they might be able to listen to any psychological troubles you have following the diet and offer you support and encouragement, they aren't exactly going to be able to provide sound, constructive nutritional support.
These employees also work on commission so you can be guaranteed that you will likely be feeling pressured to buy into all of their program offers. For someone who doesn't know very much about nutrition themselves and is easily intimidated, this could lead to a lot of high bills that are not necessary.
Additionally, this program really doesn't take into consideration the needs of exercising individuals at all, aside from potentially allowing for slightly more calories when they are participating in some form of structured program.
When you are exercising vigorously you will also want to ensure you are getting in more protein (which likely will happen automatically in stage one however potentially not in the other two stages). Your carbohydrate needs may also go up, depending on the type and duration of exercise you are performing.