Hi Mollymai,
I am so sorry that your question was never answered. I am a registered dietitian so I can answer you question on this board. You can use alli with any diet that provides 30% of your calories from fat. A diet that goes above that will increase your risk of treatment effects and one that goes below that will end up with too little and too much of something else. You can put your LA Weight loss foods into this site or use www.fitday.com to analyze how much fat you are getting from it.
I have a post that explains the importance of reaching your fat intake. Until I can get it to stay at the head of the line on this board I have to copy and paste it in the new posts. Here it is:
The way to lose weight is to consume fewer calories than your body needs. If you are sticking to your calorie goal for at least two weeks and you do not lose anything that means you need to cut your calories back a bit. You can cut back by 200 to 300 calories per day from what you were doing.
Now for my explanation on fat. I believe that fad diets have done a great deal of damage to peoples view on diet and nutrition. We have guidelines for good, healthy nutrition based on extensive research and yet the fad diets, that usually have no research to support their claims, have more impact on shaping our eating than the guidelines. There is such a thing as too little fat and it will cause problems for your weight and health. If you want the research to support this I would be happy to provide it.
The guidelines for our diets can be seen at http://www.iom.edu/?id=12702 and are:
- 45 percent to 65 percent from carbohydrates
- 20 percent to 35 percent from fat
- 10 percent to 35 percent from protein
The alli plan requires that 30% of your calories come from fat. Out of those calories, 25% are going to be excreted. This mean that your diet is actually 22.5% fat, which close to the minimal amount recommended. For anyone who consumes less than 30% and takes alli, you are going under the recommendations for fat. That means that you are also going over the recommendations for carbs and/or protein. Too much and too little of any nutrient is a problem.
You have all invested your money, time, and hopes in this so why not trust it and do as recommended? When you need to cut back on your calories that is fine. The key is the balanced diet component. If you read the credentials for the people who have told you how to follow the fad diets you will be amazed to see how few have any training in nutrition. You're being given advice from nutrition experts on here and are being told the truth about how to do this the "right" way. If you can commit to learning to balance things out for the next 3 months it will be an investment that can end up improving your health and well-being while losing weight. Wouldn't it be great if this were the last diet that you had to go on?
Let me know if there is anything else that I can help you with,
Betty Kovacs, MS, RD