How legitimate is this article?

missylectro

Is this article true? What parts are true and which are not? I am not sure how to check but it sure looks like fear mongering to me...

http://www.livestrong.com/article/518807-negative-side-effects-of-eating-less-than-1-200-calories-a-day/

Carley

1200 calories is very little for an adult, even an adult who does nothing! Let alone for people who exercise. It leaves no room in your diet for any freedom at all. Which will lead to binges sadly.

I went from a 1200 calorie to roughly around 1800 calories and I have found I am bingeing so much less, it's a lovely freedom!!!

missylectro

1200 calories is very little for an adult, even an adult who does nothing! Let alone for people who exercise. It leaves no room in your diet for any freedom at all. Which will lead to binges sadly.

I went from a 1200 calorie to roughly around 1800 calories and I have found I am bingeing so much less, it's a lovely freedom!!!

Are you still losing?

vismal

The author says if you eat to little the body will "start to break down its own tissues for energy". Not so much tissues, but fat. When a deficit is present the body utilizes fat. In certain circumstances the body can use muscle tissue for fuel as well but there are ways to prevent or minimize this such as eating adequate protein and lifting weights.

The author then goes on to state "Eating less then 1,200 calories per day will send your body into starvation mode." They however do not explain at all what they mean by "Starvation mode". Starvation mode by and large does not exist. I'll play ball and assume they are saying metabolic slowdown, which can occur after periods of prolonged dieting. This can happen but it takes some serious time eating a very low level of calories. Also they never mention that the height and weight of the individual will determine how much if any metabolic adaptation will occur. If you are 4'11, female, 100 lbs you may very well maintain on 1200 calories or less simply due to your body frame.

The author now employs scare tactics. They make it seem like if you go on a sub 1200 calorie diet you will ultimately lose your gallbladder. The following statement is quite presumptuous, "Since you are not taking in the proper amounts of vitamins, proteins and electrolytes, you are at risk for malnutrition disorders and electrolyte imbalances." One could easily get in adequate vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes on a very low calorie diet if they planned a little bit.

"low-calorie diets force your body to take energy from other sources. You are more likely to burn muscle than fat because your body needs protein". Again this isn't true. You will not burn more muscle then fat. Fat will still be burned in far greater quantities then muscle especially if you get in adequate protein and lift weights. If you have plenty of excess fat stores, this statement is even more false. Only if you are already at a low body fat percentage would this statement even begin to be accurate.

For all the garbage and pseudoscience this article spewed out it does have 1 redeeming sentence. This single sentence could replace the entire article and is why I am firmly against very low calorie dieting. It's really all you need to read to not go on a VLCD.
"You are also not likely to stay on this type of eating plan for long, and you will eventually go back to your normal eating patterns. All the weight will come back". For this reason more so then any other reason at all, calories need to be kept at a reasonable level.

JaneLane33

Gallstones are a frequent complication of losing weight too fast.

vismal

Gallstones are a frequent complication of losing weight too fast.

They can be, I agree. But the way the author presents it makes it sound like it will almost certainly happen and you will most likely need to have your gallbladder removed if you go on a VLCD. They are vastly overstating the risk IMO.

SLLRunner

I stopped reading when it said:

"Eating less than 1,200 calories per day will send your body into starvation mode."

That is one of the famous myths regarding weight loss.

Carley

1200 calories is very little for an adult, even an adult who does nothing! Let alone for people who exercise. It leaves no room in your diet for any freedom at all. Which will lead to binges sadly.

I went from a 1200 calorie to roughly around 1800 calories and I have found I am bingeing so much less, it's a lovely freedom!!!

Are you still losing?

Not as fast as everyone else but yes I am. I look at weight loss not as a sprint but a long marathon. Not all calories are equal. I would rather 200 calories in nuts then 100 calories of processed foods.

Carley

This single sentence could replace the entire article and is why I am firmly against very low calorie dieting. It's really all you need to read to not go on a VLCD.
"You are also not likely to stay on this type of eating plan for long, and you will eventually go back to your normal eating patterns. All the weight will come back". For this reason more so then any other reason at all, calories need to be kept at a reasonable level.

I completely agree with this!!! I find being on 1800 calories (I exercise too) I have more freedom, I enjoy food more, and I can doth is for life. I feel awesome!!!!

vismal

Not as fast as everyone else but yes I am. I look at weight loss not as a sprint but a long marathon. Not all calories are equal. I would rather 200 calories in nuts then 100 calories of processed foods.

This is incorrect. All calories are equal. A calorie is not a subjective thing. A calorie is a unit of measurement. By definition a calorie is the energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water through 1 °C. To say not all calories are equal is like saying not all inches are equal.

Carley

It turns out, some calories count more than others. Sure, there are 100 calories in two tablespoons of chocolate chips, and the very same 100 calories in broccoli. But there’s a huge difference in the way that they affect your appetite, your energy level, and your long-term health.

Researchers have found that not all calories are created equal and that the types of calories you eat, particularly after losing weight, can have a profound effect on how efficiently your body burns calories and keeps off unwanted pounds.

StraubreyR

1200 calories is very little for an adult, even an adult who does nothing! Let alone for people who exercise. It leaves no room in your diet for any freedom at all. Which will lead to binges sadly.

I went from a 1200 calorie to roughly around 1800 calories and I have found I am bingeing so much less, it's a lovely freedom!!!

Same here, and I am losing just fine, and feeling great! I do use the TDEE - 20 method, because I like to be able to eat the same amount of calories each day. I find that works better for me.

vismal

It turns out, some calories count more than others. Sure, there are 100 calories in two tablespoons of chocolate chips, and the very same 100 calories in broccoli. But there’s a huge difference in the way that they affect your appetite, your energy level, and your long-term health.

Researchers have found that not all calories are created equal and that the types of calories you eat, particularly after losing weight, can have a profound effect on how efficiently your body burns calories and keeps off unwanted pounds.

No, I'm sorry but research has not found that calories are different. Foods can affect you differently, sure. Chocolate is different then broccoli, of course. A calorie however is a unit of measurement. It simply isn't subjective. By definition it cannot change. Again a calorie is simply the amount of energy needed to raise a gram of water 1 degree C. Absolutely nothing can change that. There is no calorie that has more or less energy then that.

Saying calories can be different is like saying inches can be different. If a man is 6'5 and grows an inch it might be perceived different than if a 4'11 woman also grows an inch. The inch however is not different. It's never different. It's always still an inch.

If you do have a research article that shows a case where a calorie in fact do not raise 1 gram of water by 1 degree C please share them.

ValGogo

Gallstones are a frequent complication of losing weight too fast.

Is that Daria's freind? I love Daria.

SLLRunner

It turns out, some calories count more than others. Sure, there are 100 calories in two tablespoons of chocolate chips, and the very same 100 calories in broccoli. But there’s a huge difference in the way that they affect your appetite, your energy level, and your long-term health.

I have found this be true for me as well, but I would not say that it's a given for everyone. All it takes to lose weight is to eat at a calorie deficit and it doesn't matter what you eat.

Researchers have found that not all calories are created equal and that the types of calories you eat, particularly after losing weight, can have a profound effect on how efficiently your body burns calories and keeps off unwanted pounds.

Please provide peer reviewed citations to these studies.

Carley

It turns out, some calories count more than others. Sure, there are 100 calories in two tablespoons of chocolate chips, and the very same 100 calories in broccoli. But there’s a huge difference in the way that they affect your appetite, your energy level, and your long-term health.

Researchers have found that not all calories are created equal and that the types of calories you eat, particularly after losing weight, can have a profound effect on how efficiently your body burns calories and keeps off unwanted pounds.

No, I'm sorry but research has not found that calories are different. Foods can affect you differently, sure. Chocolate is different then broccoli, of course. A calorie however is a unit of measurement. It simply isn't subjective. By definition it cannot change. Again a calorie is simply the amount of energy needed to raise a gram of water 1 degree C. Absolutely nothing can change that. There is no calorie that has more or less energy then that.

Saying calories can be different is like saying inches can be different. If a man is 6'5 and grows an inch it might be perceived different than if a 4'11 woman also grows an inch. The inch however is not different. It's never different. It's always still an inch.

If you do have a research article that shows a case where a calorie in fact do not raise 1 gram of water by 1 degree C please share them.

I'm a RD dietician

I do not find my facts online.

JaneLane33

Is that Daria's freind? I love Daria.

It is her friend Jane. Years ago I used to get people telling me I looked like her. which is odd to look like a cartoon character. I figured I'd borrow her for my MFP identity.

vismal

It turns out, some calories count more than others. Sure, there are 100 calories in two tablespoons of chocolate chips, and the very same 100 calories in broccoli. But there’s a huge difference in the way that they affect your appetite, your energy level, and your long-term health.

Researchers have found that not all calories are created equal and that the types of calories you eat, particularly after losing weight, can have a profound effect on how efficiently your body burns calories and keeps off unwanted pounds.

No, I'm sorry but research has not found that calories are different. Foods can affect you differently, sure. Chocolate is different then broccoli, of course. A calorie however is a unit of measurement. It simply isn't subjective. By definition it cannot change. Again a calorie is simply the amount of energy needed to raise a gram of water 1 degree C. Absolutely nothing can change that. There is no calorie that has more or less energy then that.

Saying calories can be different is like saying inches can be different. If a man is 6'5 and grows an inch it might be perceived different than if a 4'11 woman also grows an inch. The inch however is not different. It's never different. It's always still an inch.

If you do have a research article that shows a case where a calorie in fact do not raise 1 gram of water by 1 degree C please share them.

I'm a RD dietician

I do not find my facts online.

Facts are facts no matter where you find them. People asked you for the research you mentioned that proves not all calories are the same. You dodged the question entirely and mentioned your credentials instead. Please point us to the research you mentioned that proves a calorie can ever be something other than the amount of energy required to raise 1 gram of water 1 degrees C.

SFyffe

I stopped reading when it said:

"Eating less than 1,200 calories per day will send your body into starvation mode."

That is one of the famous myths regarding weight loss.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

dbmata

I'm a RD dietician

I do not find my facts online.

So you're a registered dietitian dietitian? Oh man, double the D power. (Just the tip please)

So you're saying you don't review anything in pubmed? You should find a new career path then, something in homeopathics.

WalkingAlong

Livestrong.com is about as authoritative as someone's blog.

Carley

Livestrong.com is about as authoritative as someone's blog.

Thank you. I could sit here all day and post research from different papers but I have a life. If you base your lifestyle around facts found online you will never find peace. Your body responds to different calories differently. The body is much more complicated then what some people think.

Instead of focusing on calories, focus on the quality of food. It makes weight loss a lot more enjoyable. :-)

Kitteneyes01

How I lose weight -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2537130/Portion-sizes.html

^^ This

www.choosemyplate.gov/myplate/results.html?name=undefined&age=21&gender=female&weight=125&heightfeet=5&heightinch=1&activity=sed&weightN=126&heightfeetN=5&heightinchN=1&validweight=1&validheight=1&

and this ^^

It's custom made for me though. But I do agree that a calorie is a calorie. Calories are not different from each other, food's nutritional value is what's different.

GreenIceFloes

Livestrong.com is about as authoritative as someone's blog.

Thank you. I could sit here all day and post research from different papers but I have a life. If you base your lifestyle around facts found online you will never find peace. Your body responds to different calories differently. The body is much more complicated then what some people think.

Instead of focusing on calories, focus on the quality of food. It makes weight loss a lot more enjoyable. :-)

I find weight loss more enjoyable when there are chocolate chips involved. But then that's just me.

davert123

It is not a good article at all but there are plenty of reasons not to eat below 1200 (or any other very low number). It seems that the author may be just someone who has read a load of woman's mags and decided to write a blog (I hope it isn't a professional :-))

From what I have read starvation mode is somewhat a fallacy - your body becomes more economic but there is a lot of evidence showing starvation mode isn't partially real

BUT

From all the studies I have read you will definitely (not "more likely to" lose lean body mass. Most diets will do this and the harder the diet the more you will lose. You can end up fat skinny.

Your body needs a certain amount of nutrients to function properly. Without them you will feel sluggish and could feel moody, angry, depressed.

Also 1200 is not a magic number where everything changes for everyone one. It is a sliding scale but will depend upon obvious factors like how big you are. I'm 6"1 and I am sure going on a 1200 diet would do me a lot more harm than a scaled down me that was 5"1 (Although it would still do me damage then I guess)

Best way to lose is a mix of eating the right amount of the right food and doing plenty of exercise including weights.

vismal

Thank you. I could sit here all day and post research from different papers but I have a life. If you base your lifestyle around facts found online you will never find peace. Your body responds to different calories differently. The body is much more complicated then what some people think.

Instead of focusing on calories, focus on the quality of food. It makes weight loss a lot more enjoyable. :-)

no one is asking you to spend all day posting research. We want one single research paper that demonstrates that a calorie is anything other then the amount of energy needed to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree C. You say the body responds to different calories differently. What are the different calories? The only calorie I am aware of is the one that is a unit of measurement. Please explain what other calories exist? Also are there different types of inches or different types of kilograms?

neandermagnon

not read the article, but most articles about "starvation mode" are a little OTT and "starvation mode" is a misleading concept anyway.

I prefer to view the whole thing like this: humans evolved to survive food shortages in the palaeolithic era, when getting food required catching/finding it (which required exercise, sometimes very strenuous exercise) and going through phases when food was not so plentiful......... we did not evolve in an environment that enabled us to have 6 pack abs when surrounded by a surplus of food that takes no physical effort to acquire......... this explains the obesity epidemic......... but you also have to consider how the human body responds to a lack of food, i.e. to enable you to survive as long as possible during a food shortage.

The first changes that happen when you deprive yourself as food are behavioural ones, i.e. what biologists term "an increase in food seeking behaviour" - if Homo erectus wasn't eating enough, then they'd feel very hungry, obsess about finding food, and spend a lot more time hunting and gathering. When they finally got some food, they'd keep on eating it until it's all gone because they don't know where their next meal is coming from. This exact behaviour in a modern day Homo sapiens who's eating too few calories results in obsessing about food, craving McDonalds, then when their resolve breaks, stuffing their face with whatever high calorie foods they have around them at the time. Same exact response.... different environment and situation. When you understand this survival response in humans, then it becomes clear just how counterproductive eating too little is when dieting... it explains why so many people are stuck in a cycle of yo-yo dieting and of excessive restriction followed by consuming excessive amounts of food or even binge eating.... unfortunately most people blame this on a lack of willpower or self discipline, and punish themselves by being even more restrictive... when the reality is that they are hard-wired survival responses and the way to stop them happening is to *not* be so strict, and to have a small deficit,

if the lack of food continues, other responses kick in after a while, such as loss of lean body mass (i.e. the body makes up the energy shortfall by metabolising muscle tissue along with the fat) and adaptive thermogenesis (the body directs energy resources away from non-essential processes in the body to ensure that the important organs have enough energy to function right)....... these enabled Homo erectus to stay alive in prolonged food shortages for longer, and have a better chance of still being alive when food is more plentiful... in this situation, the longer your fat stores last the longer you (or Homo erectus) will survive. While it's often erroneously believed that the body stores fat or fat burning halts completely in this situation.... fat burning does slow down as the body burns less energy (adaptive thermogenesis) and draws on muscle cells as well as fat to get energy that's not coming from food. This results in the metabolism slowing, so that when rebound overeating occurs, more of that food you eat gets stored as fat than it would have done if you'd eaten that quantity of food before you started eating too little....... again, from an evolutionary point of view, the times when you do get hold of food, it increases your chances of survival if as much as possible of it is stored as fat, so you can last longer and have a better chance of being alive when food becomes plentiful again.

For dieting, what you need to emulate is a *mild* food shortage... Homo erectus were hunter-gatherers... they needed muscle to find food, so in a mild food shortage, the muscle that's being used to obtain what food they can obtain, is protected and not metabolised, and fat is metabolised to make the energy shortfall instead. Unused muscle can be and often is metabolised by the bod in a mild food shortage, or even when there's no food shortage at all.... when it comes to muscle "use it or lose it" is the mantra - and it applies all the more so when you're trying to lose fat........ so by doing exercise that stimulates the muscles while eating at a *small* calorie deficit, you're emulating a mild food shortage where muscles used for hunting/gathering are protected to ensure that Homo erectus can keep on getting food. In a severe or very prolonged food shortage, there's more threat of death from starvation so it's more likely that muscle gets metabolised along with the fat. If you already have low levels of body fat, then the body can't afford to lose much more fat, so that also increases the risk of muscle being metabolised. Remember, we didn't evolve to have six pack abs in a society where the food supply is reliable and not eating is a personal choice... we evolved in a world where food supply wasn't reliable and a food shortage was a serious threat to survival and fat stores were your key to surviving it.

Put these things together - the behavioural responses to eating too little (which kick in early on) and the physiological responses to help you to survive until food becomes plentiful again, it should be clear why eating too little is extremely counterproductive if you want to have less fat in your body and look fit and lean. Instead, have a small deficit, which is relative to how much fat you need to lose, and do exercise that requires sufficient muscular effort... that is what gives you the best chance of burning fat while keeping your lean tissue. Also, even more importantly, a small deficit is far less likely to result in the kinds of behavioural responses to eating too little - excessive hunger, obsessing about food, binge eating - which screw up so many people's diets.

Bagheera8181

1200 IS THE AMOUNT OF CALORIES AN AVERAGE FEAMLE BURNS BREATHING AND PUSHING BLOOD THREW HER SYSTEM.
if you eat less then that for a long period of time it isnt good for your body

camtosh

1200 calories is very little for an adult, even an adult who does nothing! Let alone for people who exercise. It leaves no room in your diet for any freedom at all. Which will lead to binges sadly.

I went from a 1200 calorie to roughly around 1800 calories and I have found I am bingeing so much less, it's a lovely freedom!!!

Are you still losing?

Not as fast as everyone else but yes I am. I look at weight loss not as a sprint but a long marathon. Not all calories are equal. I would rather 200 calories in nuts then 100 calories of processed foods.

I agree, especially since going on low carb, high fat -- I will be eating this way for the rest of my life and I sure don't want to live on 1200 cals a day or less! I do fine on about 1500, and have lost about a kilo every 2 months or so. Slow, but it will likely stay off as long as I don't go back to the SAD way of eating. (My fitbit measures my TDEE at about 1800 cals/day burned.)