800 calories a day(BMR unchanged), eating 6x a day

registers

I keep on saying, there is a lot of BS in the fitness community. The deal with eating 6 times a day or more. The starvation mode theory and many others which i explained how it really works. It's based on your macro nutrient ratios, not so much on the calories consumed. You can do a search for it on the forums I believe it's called, "why starvation mode effects some and not others"

Imagine 15yrs ago if you said "i am going to eat 6xs a day to lose weight" to someone. They will think you're crazy. You then try to explain to them it speeds up your metabolism if you do that. They usually have a "whatever" look on their face. You know where the 6 meal a day came in to play? It started when I was in to bodybuilding about 11yrs ago. The people who started the myth where those meal replacement companies. "you need to eat 6 times a day, best if you eat 3 meals and drink 3 shakes." It was just a marketing gimmick. I feel for it, I remember eating 7 meals a day, you know what sucked about my life when i was doing that? All the food preparation, it took away from my life.

Most of what we have learned about health and fitness is through the media. Mostly marketing. A woman posted on my thread, she said "breakfast companies started the entire "breakfast is the most important meal of the day"" I do believe her, these companies will do what they can to make money, and it seems to be working. I have been computer programming for about 6yrs, I am a very logical person. A lot of the stuff that is out there, doesn't make sense from a logical perspective. People say, "you should only eat before 6/7pm" If you burn 2000 calories a day, if you eat one meal, or 10 meals that total 1500 calories "you still burn 2000 calories per day" Eat it at night, or in the morning, makes no difference. I understand that some people can have difficulty when sleeping if they eat late. That's fine and understandable.

This one is a real kicker to me, "eat multiple times a day to maintain even blood sugar levels." Some people know when you eat, blood sugar raises, then it starts to go down, so if you eat 6 times a day... you have 6 insulin spikes... does this look like "even" blood sugar? no way. They also say, "you need to eat for energy." where does the energy come from if you don't eat? fat. So if you're constantly eating you're constantly holding on to fat. This can be offset by intense exercise. I am not saying it's impossible to drop body fat eating 6 times a day. It's perfectly possible. Even if it eating does speed up your metabolism it might only speed up by burning 10 calories to digest the food. You'd be better off not eating those 100 calories in the first place. Here are the figures.

absorbtion from a caloric perspective
97% of fat
87% of carbs
80% of proteins

A woman on one of my topics said, "How do you think people get fat? by eating. How do you think they get skinny?" the answer is obvious.

There was a study done, where people where fed 800 calories a day, part of the group did aerobic train, the other part did resistance training. The people who did resistance training suffered from no loss of muscle mass. Also insulin went down, lower insulin means higher glucagon, glucagon releases fat from the fat stores. Here are the studies.
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/conten

Here are the studies for the eating multiple times a day, it showed no change in BMR, funny thing when people skipped meals, their thermogenesis went up. Meaning they had a higher body temperature and burned more calories.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8399092

I am not making any recommendations to people's life style, no one has the authority to do that except the person themselves.
Am I advising a 800 calorie diet per day? No i am not, this is not what this post is about, I am actually against it.

What am I for? Anything that works for you in a healthy safe manner. The reason I posted this is to let people be aware of the bs in the community. IF anyone says something including an authority, doesn't mean it's true. I am not even saying believe what I have said thus far. I am saying use your own best judgment.

carina_75

...interesting you've given something for me to think about this morning. :-)

helenr32

Hurrah!!!!! I so agree - there's just so much advice out there and I don't understand half of it!! However, I DO understand that if I eat smaller portions/less calories and even get off my butt to exercise slightly then I will lose weight. :ohwell:

almonds1

a million theories and they all work for some and not others....
800 cal is not healty at all!!! I need about 1800 cals a day just to sit around and do nothing...

jennywrens

I try and listen to my body - if I'm hungry then I need to eat something!

My body is good at telling me when to eat but my mind is terrible about telling me when to stop so its not 'how often' I have the problem with, it's 'how much' ..... I'm combatting that!

almonds1

if you are hungry, eat!!! simple as that....

emsibun

I read the whole post and agree with the vast majority of what you have said.

However, my concern is that, as it is a long post, what some people will read is 'it's ok to eat only 800 kcals a day', and in this you are giving them permission to continue a diet which is unhealthy for them.

You say that marketing people invented the 6 meals a day diet. And suggest this is the same for the eating breakfast because it is the most important meal of the day. This I can believe - I'm cynical like that.

You are employing the same marketing principals in your thread title - it's an attention grabbing headline and for this reason it's as dangerous for some people as of the misinformation you are trying to point out.

Sorry, that's how I feel.

registers

I read the whole post and agree with the vast majority of what you have said.

However, my concern is that, as it is a long post, what some people will read is 'it's ok to eat only 800 kcals a day', and in this you are giving them permission to continue a diet which is unhealthy for them.

You say that marketing people invented the 6 meals a day diet. And suggest this is the same for the eating breakfast because it is the most important meal of the day. This I can believe - I'm cynical like that.

You are employing the same marketing principals in your thread title - it's an attention grabbing headline and for this reason it's as dangerous for some people as of the misinformation you are trying to point out.

Sorry, that's how I feel.

I understand with what you're saying, and I agree with you. That's why I posted in the thread I don't recommend 800 calories a day. I also said, "do whatever works for you as long as you're safe and healthy." Eating 800 calories can be unhealthy and dangerous. If anyone else reads this post, keep in mind. These studies where done under medical supervision.

TourThePast

Yes, as a "non-standard" person, the constant parrot fashion repetition of "facts" by members who have little or no understanding of the complexities or issues behind these standard figures is becoming utterly tiresome.

As an example, I very rarely eat less than 1200 calories a day and often far more, but as my BMR is around 1100 (and will be only 975 if I reach my ultimate goal) so eating less than 1200 a day would be absolutely fine for me. Suggest that on the boards, even pointing out your height and you still get a flood of people telling you how dangerous it is.

The bottom line is, if you're cynical enough to pick out fact from pseudo-science, have an analytical mind that can understand the implications of the various studies and are prepared to do a lot of research, you're in a position to make intelligent informed decisions of your own.

If you're not prepared to do the research, don't experiment on yourself - do what this site tells you and you won't go far wrong.