Short term / Low calorie

longtimeterp

Just going through a few threads about people trying to lose weight with low cal diets...nothing excessive, but like 1200-1500...and while there is a lot of support, the continued negativity amazes me. the most common comments i see are along the lines of "you are setting yourself up for failure" "you can't eat like that the rest of your life" "pick a realistic goal" These comments have always seemed so defeating. Ive posted threads about short-term low-cal and gotten many of the same responses. even had friends drop me because i am being ridiculous and unrealistic.

Goals are meant to get you to the finish line, yes not all goals will be met 100%, that's life. And it could be hard to eat 1200 cal for the rest of someone's life, but i dont think anyone here wants to spend the rest of thier life losing weight, they have a goal to get to and then the deficit can be reduced back to maintenance. Hopefully over the course of dieting, a healthy lifestyle will develop allowing a person to eat what they want when balanced with equal amounts of exercise and monitoring.

As an example, ive managed to lose close to 15lbs in the last 10 days, since i started paying attention to what it eat, logging it, and exercising again (yes i know water weight, glycogen, etc etc, bring on the naysayers). i know this rate is not sustainable long term, but im gonna keep it up through the end of july, just to kickstart myself back along the right path after having regained over 50lbs this year due to some unforeseeable life events, and eating slabs of ribs like pigs are endangered.

Anyways, i suppose the point of this is, let people set their goals, and instead of saying its unrealistic and impossible, offer support and advice for achieving it. This community is supposed to be about support, we almost all came here for the same reasons, lets help each other out.

Negativity is not constructive, its destructive!

segovm

I mostly just ignore them. I tend to ride my bike for a few hours a day and often burn more than I eat which according to the crowd is a no no. I suspect most the people are just trying to be helpful but hardly any of them are in any legitimate position to offer advice to anyone but themselves.

It's the internet. You could post a topic about the sky being blue and get back a ton of replies from folks who know you are wrong.

nomeejerome

Just going through a few threads about people trying to lose weight with low cal diets...nothing excessive, but like 1200-1500...and while there is a lot of support, the continued negativity amazes me. the most common comments i see are along the lines of "you are setting yourself up for failure" "you can't eat like that the rest of your life" "pick a realistic goal" These comments have always seemed so defeating. Ive posted threads about short-term low-cal and gotten many of the same responses. even had friends drop me because i am being ridiculous and unrealistic.

Goals are meant to get you to the finish line, yes not all goals will be met 100%, that's life. And it could be hard to eat 1200 cal for the rest of someone's life, but i dont think anyone here wants to spend the rest of thier life losing weight, they have a goal to get to and then the deficit can be reduced back to maintenance. Hopefully over the course of dieting, a healthy lifestyle will develop allowing a person to eat what they want when balanced with equal amounts of exercise and monitoring.

As an example, ive managed to lose close to 15lbs in the last 10 days, since i started paying attention to what it eat, logging it, and exercising again (yes i know water weight, glycogen, etc etc, bring on the naysayers). i know this rate is not sustainable long term, but im gonna keep it up through the end of july, just to kickstart myself back along the right path after having regained over 50lbs this year due to some unforeseeable life events, and eating slabs of ribs like pigs are endangered.

Anyways, i suppose the point of this is, let people set their goals, and instead of saying its unrealistic and impossible, offer support and advice for achieving it. This community is supposed to be about support, we almost all came here for the same reasons, lets help each other out.

Negativity is not constructive, its destructive!

The 1200-1500 calorie goal may be appropriate for some people, but not for all. I am not going to support and give advice to someone who is setting unrealistic expectations for themselves. We are not all here for the same reasons, nor is this community all about support.

It seems you have missed the point on some of the responses you are calling negative, and wrote this thread.

KseRz

Pointing out that 5lbs of your 15lbs of short term weight loss is most likely due to water and not fat is called honesty, not negativity.

Rhaynestorm

15 lbs in 10 days sounds very high.... :huh:

weavernv

I'm on lower calories because that's what MFP and my TDEE set for me. I'm only 5'3" tall. My BMR is low and my weight loss goals are not that much (about 25lbs - 35lbs left) My numbers just came out low. I'd like more calories, but 1367 calories keep coming up even when I set the goals at .5lbs per week. I went to other sites to see what they set, and voila, pretty much the same thing, so I do it. I exercise and can eat more if I choose. I found that I honestly don't eat that much any way and I'm not that hungry anymore, so I'm doing fine. I found out that if I exercise I don't get as hungry. I sounds weird but it works for me.

WBB55

Negativity is not constructive, its destructive!

So let me try to not be negative.

For many, many, many (but not all) people, eating inappropriately low amounts of calories is the path to being "skinny-fat" when they reach their goals. If their goal is skinny fat, then they're doing the right thing.

brower47

How can someone, in good conscience, give advice and support to something they honestly think is unrealistic or impossible? That would seem to me to be a rather cowardly thing to do. Just because reality and honesty can sometimes be a hard recieve, does not mean people should avoid providing them. Without useful information, a person's efforts just might prove useless.

Don't be afraid to give advice. Just be prepared to back it up.

akkimberly

I totally agree. I've posted questions on here numerous times & instead of getting real answers or advice I get people judging me because my calories are set at 1200. The crazy part is these "helpful persons" don't even bother to check my height or weight.

alexuh

I understand how it can be taken negatively, but really when people say you're eating too little and therefore doomed to fail, all they want to do is to prevent you from experiencing the horrible 'binge-starve-binge-starve' cycle that is extremely hard to get out of. When your deficit is too high and you are eating not nearly enough it is a fact that your survival instincts kick in, so ultimately it ends in you eating lots of food at once as your body desperately tries to prevent the starvation. It's not just you 'having no willpower', it's your survivial instincts. A reasonable deficit will prevent binges, and if a direct and straight-forward telling makes people listen then so be it.

Rhaynestorm

I understand how it can be taken negatively, but really when people say you're eating too little and therefore doomed to fail, all they want to do is to prevent you from experiencing the horrible 'binge-starve-binge-starve' cycle that is extremely hard to get out of. When your deficit is too high and you are eating not nearly enough it is a fact that your survival instincts kick in, so ultimately it ends in you eating lots of food at once as your body desperately tries to prevent the starvation. It's not just you 'having no willpower', it's your survivial instincts. A reasonable deficit will prevent binges, and if a direct and straight-forward telling makes people listen then so be it.

Maybe if they were only eating 500 a day or less that would happen after awhile. I doubt it would with a 1000-1200 a day diet though.

DavPul

Wait, there are full grown men eating 1200-1500 calorie diets?




And then whining about not getting enough support?

littlefoot612

My target is 1400 cal/day and I'm usually pretty close to it. I eat 3 meals and at least 2-3 snacks a day and I'm comfortable with it and not feeling deprived at all. I prepare all my meals from scratch and use very little in the way of packaged foods because of a serious food sensitivity so I eat mostly nutrient dense foods which I find very filling.
That being said, I'm a 5'1, 56 yr old women with 100+lbs still to lose and just moving out of the sedentary category. I can understand 1200-1400 not working for a younger, more active woman or for a man, but it works well for somebody older and less active.

jofjltncb6

OP, have you tried this approach before? And if so, how did it work for you in previous attempts?

Do you see any correlations between the relative long-term successes of those who believe VLCDs are good ideas (even for a relatively short period of time) and those who advise against them?


IMHO, the illusion of progress is often counterproductive to actual progress.

SonicDeathMonkey80

Wait, there are full grown men eating 1200-1500 calorie diets?




And then whining about not getting enough support?

But how does one tone their tummy and thighs? That's what *I* am dying to know :blushing:

dopeysmelly

I just ignore the negativity, but it really all depends on if someone is blindly following 1200 "just coz" or because they've really thought it through. These forums are as much about educating as supporting IMO.

I did both. Started out blindly, then figured out how to figure it out, and my numbers came out really low anyway (short, over 40, lots of weight to lose, and basically on my *kitten* all day). I've only just upped to 1400 calories. And you know what? It's worked for me. I eat healthily, hit my protein, fat and fiber pretty much every day, eat an astonishing volume of food and could easily eat like this for the rest of my life if I had to. I lost a load of weight quickly and that was very motivating for me, but I never planned on 1200 being sustainable beyond the first couple of months.

I think it's all a matter of making decisions that you can live with and understanding what you are doing more-or-less.

longtimeterp

OP, have you tried this approach before? And if so, how did it work for you in previous attempts?

Do you see any correlations between the relative long-term successes of those who believe VLCDs are good ideas (even for a relatively short period of time) and those who advise against them?

Hey Jof. Actually the first time i lost a lot of weight it was before i knew anything about skinny-fat or muscle loss or maximum daily deficit for fat loss or starvation mode, etc etc...i just knew cals out - cals in = weight loss so i went crazy exercising like 4 hrs a day and eating 1400-1600 cals for 6 months, lost about 70lbs. repeated this for another 40lbs in like 4 months (after i stopped counting and exercising for the holidays and put on 15). I got to the point where as long as i was exercising i could eat 3500-4000 cal a day and not gain. And several times over the last few years i've used a low cal approach for a 3-4 weeks if i felt myself creeping back up. its not anything permanent and it didnt lead to massive weight gains when i upped my calories, only eating crazy amounts of food and not keeping track and not getting any physical activity (which is what happened the last 6 months)

ultimately im sure it will work for some and not for others. but it does work. and all the fear over skinny-fat is WAYYYY OVERRATED...as long as you lift weights a few times a week, even in a deficit, your body isn't gonna just give up its muscles, especially if you are overweight. Thats a reason body stores fat, to use as energy when it isnt getting enough. Honestly i feel like the biggest hindrance to my weight loss was worrying about not getting enough calories and losing all my muscle; it kept me from dieting down to my goal weight. My LBM has stayed around 160 no matter my weight/deficit/etc. thats why this time around, im going to keep the deficit til i get to where i want, while strength training and doing a lot of cardio. I have given up on trying to build muscle on a deficit, thats just not feasible.

yourfitnessenemy

My TDEE is only 1350. It's pretty comfortable for me as long as I cook at home.

longtimeterp

Pointing out that 5lbs of your 15lbs of short term weight loss is most likely due to water and not fat is called honesty, not negativity.

oh i don't doubt for a second that it isn't all fat. i'm sure some of it is water and glycogen, i am going lower carb so my body is storing less water. Today is a high carb day, im fairly certain if i weighed myself tomorrow i would go up a lb or two.(which is why i finally stopped weighing every day, thats a yoyo and not very productive). Nonetheless the scale has gone down and i assume it will continue to. i plan to up to 2000k a day in august, and +200 cal/day each month after that til the end of the year, getting to 2800/cal a day. but it does work in the short term, as long as one doesn't expect to sustain the deficit or the rate of loss indefinitely.

jofjltncb6

OP, have you tried this approach before? And if so, how did it work for you in previous attempts?

Do you see any correlations between the relative long-term successes of those who believe VLCDs are good ideas (even for a relatively short period of time) and those who advise against them?

Hey Jof. Actually the first time i lost a lot of weight it was before i knew anything about skinny-fat or muscle loss or maximum daily deficit for fat loss or starvation mode, etc etc...i just knew cals out - cals in = weight loss so i went crazy exercising like 4 hrs a day and eating 1400-1600 cals for 6 months, lost about 70lbs. repeated this for another 40lbs in like 4 months (after i stopped counting and exercising for the holidays and put on 15). I got to the point where as long as i was exercising i could eat 3500-4000 cal a day and not gain. And several times over the last few years i've used a low cal approach for a 3-4 weeks if i felt myself creeping back up. its not anything permanent and it didnt lead to massive weight gains when i upped my calories, only eating crazy amounts of food and not keeping track and not getting any physical activity (which is what happened the last 6 months)

ultimately im sure it will work for some and not for others. but it does work. and all the fear over skinny-fat is WAYYYY OVERRATED...as long as you lift weights a few times a week, even in a deficit, your body isn't gonna just give up its muscles, especially if you are overweight. Thats a reason body stores fat, to use as energy when it isnt getting enough. Honestly i feel like the biggest hindrance to my weight loss was worrying about not getting enough calories and losing all my muscle; it kept me from dieting down to my goal weight. My LBM has stayed around 160 no matter my weight/deficit/etc. thats why this time around, im going to keep the deficit til i get to where i want, while strength training and doing a lot of cardio. I have given up on trying to build muscle on a deficit, thats just not feasible.

Good luck with that. I dropped to what I would consider a little too low (1900) for a recent two-month cut and was fairly miserable. I struggled to maintain in the gym and was just overall not in a good place. I welcomed the end of that cut and have since gained a little more quickly than I had planned to...and there is my biggest problem with this approach. I'm not an obese guy. I'm not even overweight. But by staying at a heavy deficit for two months, I created an environment where my body composition is heading to a place that is actually worse than it was before this cut. I believe this is a natural thing to happen as a result of too aggressive of a cut. I believe it happens to nearly everyone except those who successfully struggle through the transition. I'm a little more aware of it now that I've experienced it personally, but am not confident that I will do any better on the other side of my next cut.

And yeah, trying to build muscle on a deficit is crazy-talk.