Weight loss support group

RoyBeck

I'm on the above Facebook group. I enjoy it on the whole and keeps me accountable at times.

However, some members include a woman who weighed 250lbs and often tells people she ate 800 calories a day for over a year and lost 120lbs. She recommends it for a year before hitting maintenance. Others include the fad dieters who advocate the cabbage diet and the Apple cider vinegar lot who swear by it. Why are a lot so obsessed with quick fixes?

TavistockToad

RoyBeck wrote: »

I'm on the above Facebook group. I enjoy it on the whole and keeps me accountable at times.

However, some members include a woman who weighed 250lbs and often tells people she ate 800 calories a day for over a year and lost 120lbs. She recommends it for a year before hitting maintenance. Others include the fad dieters who advocate the cabbage diet and the Apple cider vinegar lot who swear by it. Why are a lot so obsessed with quick fixes?

Why don't you ask them?

RoyBeck

I do. Regularly. And now here. Is that a problem?

callsitlikeiseeit

if i only ate 800 calories people would die. im told im not nice when im hungry. i believe it.

aside from that, its not healthy nor sustainable.

people want fast. ive lost 120 pounds. it took about 2 years. the past 3 years (more or less) i maintained it with little effort. Now im back to lose the remaining weight since life has calmed down. i expect it to take a year to lose the remaining 30-40 pounds i want to lose. might take longer. its all good. I eat what i want and make it fit within my calorie goals. if im over, its okay. i workout. i enjoy life. had an amazing steak ans scallop dinner last night for my birthday and am making my birthday cake today. it comes in at about 400 calories for a half a slice LOL.

there is no quick fix. its not a race.

RoyBeck

I absolutely agree with you. It's a forum of about 2500 people and this particular member tells everyone how she went from 250 to 130 or so in less than a year by eating 800 a day and now maintains some 10 years later. She gets hundreds of likes and wows and comments like oh I'll try that etc...

I comment things like I've lost 35lbs since June and a handful comment.

I dont think it's the forum for me lol.

missysippy930

How many calories has she been eating while maintaining the loss for 10 years?
Everyone is different. The statistics show that over 80% of people who lose weight, gain it back in 5 years, no matter how they lost the weight. She’s beating the odds by having kept it off for 10 years. Kudos to her. A very small percent of people keep the weight off.
I’m not condoning her method for myself, or anyone else, but it’s clearly worked for her. Sustainability is a word thrown around a lot here. Sustainability occurs when you reach your goal weight and keep it off by consistently not eating more calories than your body burns. JMHO

By the way OP, congratulations to you on your loss! It takes a huge effort to lose weight. Keep it up!

RoyBeck

Thank you. She now eats 1600 a day a d maintains. I was interested to hear if anyone else was members of other forums and what they'd read on there.

Fatty_Nuff

It's no different here than on your Facebook group I'm sure. Not a day or hour goes by where someone doesn't post a fad diet thread. But very low calorie diet posts are not tolerated here and are quickly removed. All the long term MFP'ers who have lost and kept it off, did it sensibly. Not high fat, not one meal a day, not banana cleanses. Just the old fashioned way. Move more and eat less. But the whacky threads will never stop.

RoyBeck

For every sensible thread there are 5 crap ones on that forum. I've noticed that here is particularly sensible. I started a thread there saying that 800 calories is ridiculous and unhealthy unless you're trying a 5:2 diet. I seriously had about 30 comments like 'jerk' 'everyone needs to do different things, calorie counting don't work for me' the abuse was phenomenal.

jennifer_417

Because they've been fooled into thinking that's what it takes.

kgeyser

RoyBeck wrote: »

For every sensible thread there are 5 crap ones on that forum. I've noticed that here is particularly sensible. I started a thread there saying that 800 calories is ridiculous and unhealthy unless you're trying a 5:2 diet. I seriously had about 30 comments like 'jerk' 'everyone needs to do different things, calorie counting don't work for me' the abuse was phenomenal.

Well, I'm not sure what anyone here can do about that other forum since it isn't a part of this platform, it seems odd to call it out and bash it over here.

But as to the second part of your comment, you created a post calling something ridiculous and unhealthy except in X circumstance that you consider acceptable, and people unsurprisingly did not respond well to it. No, 800 calories per day is not healthy and we do have guidelines in place here about that, but in addition to 5:2, there are people out there on 800 calorie diets under medical supervision for whom that is their shot at getting healthy. There are also people who don't know a lot about health and nutrition, because it is not covered very well in a lot of schools, so they are doing the best they can with the information they have and now someone is coming in and calling it ridiculous and unhealthy.

The people who say "calorie counting doesn't work for me" are likely not trying to be abusive, either. Some people have undiagnosed (or even diagnosed) medical conditions where the traditional formulas sites like these use to calculate calorie intake are going to be off, which could lead to the conclusion that calorie counting isn't a good option for them. Others need to adjust how they eat or what they eat in order to adhere to a plan that will put them in a calorie deficit, so straight calorie counting might not work for them either. Others can get into a really bad place mentally through calorie counting, and not just people with an ED past. I've seen long term members here get to a point with calorie counting that they were concerned about how obsessed they were getting with weighing/measuring, and others who had to stop because they felt that it was starting to cause a negative relationship with food. The phrases "I just want to be able to eat. Not weigh, not portion, not log, just eat something" was coming up a lot.

There's a lot more to weight loss than just plugging in some numbers, so it's important to remember the person on the other side of the screen. People being desperate to lose weight really isn't anything new, nor is human beings looking to find the easiest way possible to do things.