Help?! 1000-1200 cal. A day plus 1 hr exercise and not loosing an ounce....

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  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 2,869 Member
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    From my 12 years as a WW receptionist, I certainly saw people that were struggling to lose while eating too little. Why? I don't have the science, but I did see it happen. Your numbers sound very low to me.
  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 2,869 Member
    edited October 2020
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    All I can say, and it will be unpopular, is that from what I observed there is a window-ish area of calorie consumption that just messes with you. It makes no sense and you all can be mad at me as much as you want, but I am reporting what I observed, the advice that I learned to give over time to certain members, and the thanks I received the following weeks. I agree it makes no sense and I always prefaced it that way to the member. And I agree with every above argument that is against me, but what I observed is different. I just took a calculator for a second and estimated how many people I weighed in and spoke with over my years at WW, and it was over 70,000 people (edit: I should have said 70,000 weigh-ins not individual people). I can't explain what I saw.


  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 2,869 Member
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    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    SModa61 wrote: »
    All I can say, and it will be unpopular, is that from what I observed there is a window-ish area of calorie consumption that just messes with you. It makes no sense and you all can be mad at me as much as you want, but I am reporting what I observed, the advice that I learned to give over time to certain members, and the thanks I received the following weeks. I agree it makes no sense and I always prefaced it that way to the member. And I agree with every above argument that is against me, but what I observed is different. I just took a calculator for a second and estimated how many people I weighed in and spoke with over my years at WW, and it was over 70,000 people (edit: I should have said 70,000 weigh-ins not individual people). I can't explain what I saw.

    It is possible to eat so little that fatigue and weakness suck calorie burn out of daily life, and at that point, it's possible that subtle calorie expenditures (hair growth and what-not) are also reduced. This doesn't *stop* fat loss, unless it brings calories so low that the 1200 (or whatever) is now actual TDEE or above. (In the Minnesota Starvation Experiments, extreme lassitude overtook some participants in late stages. Weight loss would be expected to slow. If the deficient calorie intake continues, loss of body tissues will continue, and eventually death will result.)

    it is possible to eat so little that binges occur, and shame about them causes people to hide them (perhaps even to delude themselves). Understandably, they may feel that they are being "so good" and that an exceptional eating event was deep failure, and that they are "still good" because "trying so very hard". Odds of someone reporting accurately, in those circumstances, are reduced. Depending on food tracking methods in use, portion creep can pay a similar role, though not as dramatic. Ditto for free foods, in contexts that permit them. Ditto for forgetting, in the context of record keeping. (Undereating can have negative cognitive effects, but is not the only possible explanation for forgetting).

    It reportedly is possible, in a context of extreme dieting and stress about the dieting, to cause quite dramatic cortisol increases, which can involve multiple pounds of extra water retention, hiding fat loss (or alarmingly, loss of other useful body tissues) on the scale.

    I'm going to go in hard for the laws of physics, and therefore the idea that calorie balance drives body weight. But it's not a simple, linear, obvious thing: CI affects CO. Things other than fat storage affect body weight on the scale. The things above are only a few possibilities.

    I don't doubt the truth of what you're reporting, what you saw in other people, or that you're accurately reporting what they told you (or put in food logs, etc.). I do believe there are cases where people will see better results on the scale if they increase daily calories. But I'll bet on the laws of physics every single time, as being at work.

    I totally agree that physics makes the most sense. I spent 12 years working at WW and in the beginning as well as the preceding years when I was a member, I would have never said "eat more". That just does not make sense. Somewhere along the line, I did say it. Was that a corporate instruction, a particular leader I was supporting, or my own idea? It's been too many years and so many rule changes within WW that I honestly cannot remember but I think it came from corporate. Eventually, I tip toed into the subject. Talk about a scary instruction to give someone trying to lose weight. As the positive feedback came in, I was logically more willing to mention this instruction when it seemed appropriate for a member. It was all very odd, but happened.

    Your breakdown above was great, and much of it could be the behind the scenes explanation of what was going on with a given member. I certainly saw plenty of odd things from the member eating whole water melons because they were "free" (points +), to the member angry at her gain because her cookies' points changed so now "that was all she was going to eat and it was WW's fault", and the person with a "perfect" diary that the only entries were coffee, pretzels and ice cream. I also got plenty of TMI from cycle issues, bathroom "status", and people wearing so little clothing for their weigh-in that you didn't know where to look. I gad two separate women lose their engagement rings because they took them off for a lower weight. It was a wild ride for those years. So, yes indeed, who knows what factors we behind the scene, and why the instruction to eat more helped. I did find your point about cortisol particularly interesting.

    As for myself, in my bad state, I am a binger and closet eater and ironically the more you SEE me eat, the less I am actually eating because the closet and hidden binging is under control. Tracking helps me with that.
  • Muscleflex79
    Muscleflex79 Posts: 1,917 Member
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    Peregrymj wrote: »
    There was a British show a few years back where they had private detectives follow around volunteers who claimed they were obese despite "barely eating anything." 100% of the time they were eating way more than they reported. I also got to see this phenomenon firsthand when a friend told me her medication made her gain massive amounts of weight... while she drank about 700 calories in sodas and Starbucks. Over about 30 minutes. My pancreas shuddered just watching her.
    People just aren't that great at tracking their calorie intake. That's all it is. No mystery to it.

    yup - secret eaters! it was a great show!

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