My doctor's recommendation: 1000 calories a day to lose weight??

lantana411

I'm sorry that you're going through this. You and I have similar stories.

My right knee has bone-on-bone contact, with significant arthritis. My right hip has a bone spur in the socket and significant arthritis. My dr. told me that our knees take 5 times our weight. So when you lose 10 pounds that removes 50 pounds of pressure on your joints. So every pound counts!

MFP said my daily calorie goal is 1200 calories. I visited the U.S.government's site to confirm the calorie amount and indeed that's the right amount. You can go to https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/to find out/confirm your daily calorie goal. The site has everything from food databases to daily activity trackers.

Regarding physical activity, get a medical assessment so you don't further damage your knee. And go to a doctor you trust. Someone who mirrors your philosophy - if you think doctors should promote health instead of just treating disease, get a doctor that thinks that way too.

Feel well!

RodaRose

Consider stopping the Zumba. Do workouts in the pool. Or ask this doctor to send you to physical therapy.

LKArgh

pateld1781 wrote: »

Let me start off with a brief intro. I am 23, 5'5", 224lb (obviously overweight) For the past 5 months, I've been working out like CRAZY to lose weight. In the past, I've tried so many things and failed, but this time I had decided that I was going to focus on doing only cardio to lose fat fast. I worked out everyday (7 days a week), for about 2-3hrs back to back! I was taking a spin class in the morning followed by zumba and sometimes another hour of zumba in the evening. Doing this started to cause some mild pain in my right knee. So I visited my doctor, got some x-rays done and went back to see him yesterday.

The x-ray report stated "mild joint space narrowing", which means the cartilage in my right knee is wearing out or started to wear out which is narrowing the space between my bones causing me a lot of pain. My doctor mainly blamed this on the fact of me being overweight and that I needed to "stop eating so much." I told him that I had been working out and following a very strict/healthy diet, consuming about 1300-1400 calories a day (considering my age/height/weight, I thought that was good). It's true that my body hasn't dropped a pound but the shape of my body has changed and I've lost several inches on my body over the last 5 months. Sadly, he didn't buy any of it and kept saying that I need to eat less. He first said that I should limit my calorie intake to 700-800 calories a day. (YES, you read that correctly..coming from a Doctor). That's like going against everything I've studied on food n nutrition and weight loss. Being a doctor, he should know that that would starve me and make me eat more later on causing even more weight gain. He kept saying that if I eat less, my body will use the fat that's already stored in there. Now I don't if that's 100% true or totally bogus, it doesn't sound healthy to me. At the end, he said "1000 calories a day, no zumba, you can do stationary bike."

I don't know if this is a good idea, I'm planning to try this 1000 calorie diet for a week with regular exercise (minimum cardio-no treadmill/zumba). If you have any suggestions for me, please feel free to let me know. (I'm scared, having problems like this at this age.)

Thank you!

Your dr is right. No weight loss at your weight and your activity levels means you are underestiamting a lot what you eat and in fact eating probably more than double. So you need either to just eat less and keep underestimating, or actually eat 1400 calories with proper calorie counting
Also at your weight and with a diagnosed knee problem, yes, zumba should be pretty much out of the question.

LKArgh

To give you an example of how off you are in your estimations, you are eating at least 3000 calories per day to maintain your weight if you are doing all thsi exercise, probably more. https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=imperial&g=female&age=23&lbs=224&in=65&act=1.725&f=1
So, either all this cardio is making you hungry and you eat back more calories than you should, or your calorie counting is pretty much rubbish.
Do not try to create a deficit by just doing insane exercise, as you have found out, not only you cannot outrun what you are eating, but you are also risking your health by doing too much too soon.
Focus on diet changes, get a food scale to be certain about your calorie counting and do exercise for fitness, not weight loss, following of course dr's instructions to prevent further injuries.

lseed87

That's sad about the doctor. You obviously need to eat if doing loads of exercise. I would cut back on the zumba. I feel like the stationary bike could even hurt the knee more? I'd focus on weight lifting and maybe walking or swimming so you aren't hurting it farther. Also maybe seek a second opinion?

You could eat 1700-2000 and still get rid of the weight.

Is it possible that he meant 700-800 calories as how much you should typically burn?

snowflake954

OP-I agree that you're probably eating too much. Tighten up your logging. See a specialist about the knee. At your age you've got to save what you can, or when you get old you'll be sorry. Look into swimming and water aerobics classes. Since you like Zumba, you should like that (there's music), and it will take the pressure off your joints. Once you lose some weight, you can go back to other things, if your doctor approves. I'm 61 and have greatly improved my joint situation with swimming and acqua-gym. Alot of friends and family, even younger than myself are getting knee and hip replacements, while I'm still hanging in and improving. Best of luck, You've gotten some great advice in this thread--please take it.

fithunni86

A 1000 calories at day I think ur safer sticking between 1250 and 1400 and exercise using hard mayb change up ur workouts a bit or introduce so weight training use measurements as well as weighing urself good luck x