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'special k' challenge

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in Health & Wellbeing
just watching tv and the special k challenge advert came on for the umpteenth time and i was just wandering if anyone here has actually tried it!!

im actually 'kind of' tempted - but at the same time im thinking its a whole lot of drivel.
am i wrong and does it actually work? did YOU lose up to an inch on your waist? :chin:

my friend at uni tried it last term and as far as i know it did not do a thing.. although in her case she didnt do any exercise so thats probably why!!

if someone here proves me wrong and tell me it works/CAN work then i may give it a go :)

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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    if you ate any cereal and led a healthier lifestyle you would probably lose an inch on the waist.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    in 2 weeks though? is it really that likely?
    im going on holiday in 2 weeks so if there is no result in that time by doing it, then im probably better off eating what i am now!
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    an inch :lol: thats not even 1 size difference.
    try it... though you'll get really bored of eating uninteresting food all the time.
    just do some exercise... it will help you loose weight a lot better than that, 'cos no doubt at the end of the 2 weeks you won't continue it and you'll just put the weight back on.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I was tempted but I didnt wanna go into work and have cereal at lunchtime and everyone be like 'OOOOOOH ARE YOU DOING THE SPECIAL K CHALLENGE?!?!?!?!'
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    soraliah wrote:
    just watching tv and the special k challenge advert came on for the umpteenth time and i was just wandering if anyone here has actually tried it!!

    im actually 'kind of' tempted - but at the same time im thinking its a whole lot of drivel.
    am i wrong and does it actually work? did YOU lose up to an inch on your waist? :chin:

    my friend at uni tried it last term and as far as i know it did not do a thing.. although in her case she didn't do any exercise so that's probably why!!

    if someone here proves me wrong and tell me it works/CAN work then i may give it a go :)
    The reason you loose an inch is actually because your stomach shrinks.

    Alot of these diets are just for selling there product. The fact is that the special k diet doesn't supply enougth calories for fat loss. It will start using up lean body mass first, when dieting you need around 1800kcals to shed fat as a priority.

    Also excersise isnt necersary in a diet as the body will shed fat via calorie conflict. Yes it does work but when people do hrs on end your actually triggering the body to store fat through overtraining. Do about 45mins a day split up.

    Good luck. :)
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    if i went on that special K diet,

    not only would i get bored of eating the same old thing all the time, id also be pretty tempted to eat the women in the advert as well, and not in any kind of sexual way, im talking full on hannibal lecter style
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Special K isn't very filling though...a portion size that they recommend is tiny... so i couldn't do it :p
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    H-face wrote:
    Special K isn't very filling though...a portion size that they recommend is tiny... so i couldn't do it :p

    Oh yes, the serving size of cereal is tiny. I swear I eat about 4 servings in just one bowl.

    I'm with G on this one though, it would get very boring eating the same thing, and with a meal that consists of a couple cereal flakes, no matter how many healthy snacks I had thruout the day I'd be starved out of my mind.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I was on a Special K diet for years and was 15 Kgs lighter than I am now...
    Oh... I just realised you're speaking about cereal...
    I was talking about an other kind of Special K...
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    SkiveSkive Posts: 15,284 Skive's The Limit
    nihilisticmadman wrote:
    I was on a Special K diet for years

    When I hear special K, I too think about something quite different from cereal. :)
    Weekender Offender 
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Skive wrote:
    When I hear special K, I too think about something quite different from cereal. :)

    I guess it says a lot about us... lol...
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    im on it. In the first 2 weeks i lost just over half a stone. I supplement my cereal lunch with fruit snacks in the afternoon. Will only work if your consuming less fat/calories than on your previous diet; because it goes on the same principle of weight loss- you need to burn more calories than your eating, the cereal doesnt do anything special.
    The only reason i decided to do it is because i love cereal and eat it all the time anyway, so for me its really easy to stick to.
    i didnt actually need to lose weight, that wasnt my plan as im kinda underweight now :S but i have definitly noticed i am smaller-as have other people
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Skive wrote:
    When I hear special K, I too think about something quite different from cereal. :)

    Same here!

    I know which I prefer too. :thumb:
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Jesus dont you people get hungry? Says Sir Snacksalot Also, whats so special about Special K? Is there a Regular K?
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    SkiveSkive Posts: 15,284 Skive's The Limit
    nihilisticmadman wrote:
    I guess it says a lot about us... lol...

    smack-crack-pot.jpg
    Weekender Offender 
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Skive wrote:
    smack-crack-pot.jpg

    :thumb:
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Also, there is an element of, you will lose weight on any diet where you eat a lot of one foodstuff because you'll get bored of it and not eat so much.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I did it for a while. I started because my mum decided to start it and all i eat is cereal most of the time anyway. I didn't actually notice any difference, but then my diet hadn't really changed. It didn't find it got boring. It's actually quite yummy and I used to chop up different kinds of fruit to put on it every morning, bannana, strawberries, cherries, raspberries, apricots or sultana's among other things.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    itll work as long as youre following it properly. ie eating the recommended 30 or 40g with semi skimmed or skimmed milk. twice a day, and then a normal meal for your other meal.
    A standard portion of 30g is approximatly what you get in a variety pack, so if it helps, buy those instead of a big box. That should mean that two of your meals will be around 200 cals each. Then with your largest meal probably isnt gonna be much more than 600 or 700 cals hopefully or less, then youre gonna be on a pretty low calorie diet. Ideal for losing weight quickly, but probably not a good idea as a long term eating plan.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Another thing to remember, to speed your metabolism up even more you should be eating smaller more frequent meals as in every 2-3 hrs. Because your body will be using energy to digest the food.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Personally i think it's one of the dumbest things you can do. The problem is, you may lose weight and size, but that doesn't mean you're going to healthy. People are so concerned with looking like the skinny girls on magazines and weighing a certain amount and wanting a quick fix to get there, but really if you just eat sensibly and exercise, you'll get where you want to be. Crash dieting loses weight, but the only way to lose weight that quickly is losing muscle and water not fat - you can sensibly lose 2-3lb of fat a week, anything else is water and muscle unless you're grossly obese. Also, after the two weeks, then what? It all just piles back on again. The recommended serving of those two bowls a day barely even constitute breakfast, let alone two meals a day. You'll be starving your body of nutrients, vitamins and minerals, is that what you want? At least you'll be a thinner corpse, sadly just one that lost weight but, thanks to idiocracy and ignorance, one with no definition or tone and simply sagginess and flab because the weight they lost was muscle and water, so all they're left with is fat. Is that what you want really?

    And, whoever said exercising too much makes you store fat, that's entirely wrong. Overtraining is certainly bad for you, but it doesn't make you store fat
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    staxx wrote:
    And, whoever said exercising too much makes you store fat, that's entirely wrong. Overtraining is certainly bad for you, but it doesn't make you store fat
    That was yours truly.

    What happens when you over train? The body increases cortisol levels, which in turn triggers the body to cannibalize lean body mass & also tells the body to store fat.

    It also lowers testosterone levels which increases estrogen levels which will also contain water retention & fat.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If you read the small print on the box it says the challenge should only be taken for two weeks as a 'kick start' to a healthy lifestyle and only if you have a BMI of over 25. They really should make that more obvious, especially as the woman in the 'slimmer waist for summer' definitely doesn't have a BMI that high!
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    you'll probably only put the weight you lost back on again when you return to your normal diet.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    HIT wrote:
    That was yours truly.

    What happens when you over train? The body increases cortisol levels, which in turn triggers the body to cannibalize lean body mass & also tells the body to store fat.

    It also lowers testosterone levels which increases estrogen levels which will also contain water retention & fat.

    True, but this doesn't happen from a lot of exercise, it's specifically to overtraining, and it doesn't turn you into someone obese. Look at it realistically, look at how hard professional athletes and fighters train, look at how much and hard Bruce Lee trained, but these people have extremely low fat levels and are/were incredibly fit. So yeah, you're right, that stuff does happen, but keep a level head about it. Also, you haven't defined overtraining - just how much are we needing to train/exercise to have this stuff happen? And just how much fat does it store? Lowering testosterone levels and increasing estrogen may be true, but let's face it, how many boxers do you see in the ring with breasts because they had high levels of estrogen? So how much are the hormones really being adjusted?

    See, these things in theory don't necessarily always translate the same way in practise.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    the special k diet probably does work, because at the end of the day you're eating two meals of about 200 cals. when they promoted the advert last year they said you could do it with Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, which are 118 cals per 30g, which is only 6 more than Special K's 112, but now they ONLYpromote the advert with Special K to make it seem like this is a REALLY healthy cereal and has a diet of it's own. i realised that this 'diet' was all about making you eat less which is really the way to lose weight.
    i also realised that it is actually quite high in calory content, or at least the same as other sugar-filled cereals such as Rice Crispies, Cornflakes, Crunchy Nut etc... I now eat Bran Flakes which are a low 96 cals per 30g,taste lovely, fill me up 'til lunchtime and are full of dietary fibre which aids digestion and is really good for you :)
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