Hair Loss!

GottaBurnEmAll

cwolfman13 wrote: »

amusedmonkey wrote: »

Drastic calorie deficit, not enough nutrients (especially fat), a diet that isn't varied enough to provide enough micronutrients, and most of all, a diet that is very hard or restrictive it causes you a lot of stress. I have noticed significant hair loss after trying diets that were not for me, and that trend stopped and the lost hair grew back when I settled on something that is easy and pleasant. I haven't had any significant hair loss since despite losing a lot of weight.

basically, pick a reasonable deficit (not one that puts you at 1200 calories and take care not to ignore exercise calories), eat enough fat and variety, and don't stubbornly cling to a dieting approach that is hard for you and you should be fine.

ETA:

PAV8888 wrote: »

What I personally term an acceptable: deficit 10% to 20% of your TDEE (energy expenditure for the day). Resulting in a loss of no more than about 1% of your bodyweight per week.

Where do you think the 1% recommendation comes from? It's often way too high of a deficit for most people and is certainly over the recommended 10-25%. This would mean 2 pounds a week at 200 pounds, when the average 200 pound woman has a sedentary maintenance of about 2000 calories, resulting in a 1000 calories budget or a 50% deficit. You would need to have a TDEE of 4000 to achieve 2 pounds a week at 25% deficit, and most 200 pound women (most people, really) aren't active enough to double their TDEE.

For a lighter/leaner person, 1% of body weight would be more aggressive but still doable if there's BF to lose. I'm 190 at the moment and need to get back down to 180...I could sustain a 1.9 (essentially 2 Lb per week) loss without much issue other than being miserable...but it would also be a short term thing...and yes, I would be pretty miserable. My TDEE is around 2,800 at the moment so I could do 1,800 and accomplish that. Of course there are limitations in regards to if you actually have body fat to lose and I think that's just assumed.

My wife is about 130 at the moment...she has a TDEE of around 2,200 calories...she could technically lose 1.3 Lbs per week as this would require a 650 calorie deficit...so she'd be able to accomplish that eating 1,550 calories per day.

The leaner you get, the more aggressive the approach is, but it still works...and in the case of someone already fairly lean, it would be a pretty short duration of time...I could be done in 5 weeks, but that's 5 weeks of hell I do not wish to endure, but other than being cranky, I wouldn't really suffer any ill health effects. I don't necessarily worry about "it should be a 20% cut" from TDEE or whatever, I generally go my 1% but I'm never that aggressive in my actual approach.

I couldn't disagree with you more. It still works in theory, but let's take the case of your wife:

Would she be able to sustain her current level of activity at its current intensity on that calorie intake?

My experience trying to follow a 1% cut (stats for me: 5'1", 116 lbs, TDEE 2000ish)? A resounding NO.

The whole endeavor was a recipe for binge behavior and running/lifting performance tanking not to mention more frequent migraines.

Compliance is something you're forgetting about here, and it's really hard to comply with that steep a deficit when you're already lean.

AnnPT77

This is just another n=1, but my hair thinned significantly at age 18 when I became vegetarian. Over the course of maybe a year, it went from too much hair to ponytail in a standard barrette, to kind of a normal-barrette medium level, but it never fell out in clumps (until chemotherapy 16 years ago, but that's a whole 'nother story).

Four decades (plus) is too long for me to remember whether I was getting enough protein as a new vegetarian, but I'd be willing to bet I was not.

So, "get enough protein" would be among my recommendations: I'd suggest 0.8 grams per pound of a heathy goal body weight, as a daily minimum. More won't hurt a healthy person, as long as it doesn't drive out other needed nutrients.

For those who think I'm saying you can't get enough protein as a vegan/vegetarian: Nope. I've been vegetarian for the whole 43 years. I'm currently eating 100+ grams of protein daily with no heroic measures required to do it. So, IMO vegetarianism is fine. Getting too little protein is not fine, especially when also in calorie deficit, and extra-especially if working out at the same time.