low calorie/high protein diets, what do you think?

iamluce

before anyone jumps on my back, this is not something that i'm currently doing or necessarily plan on doing in the future. i just want opinions, since everyone on here seems to think they're qualified nutritionist (no offense but some of you are really passionate about knowing what's best while not being certified doctors)

so my friend is taking a nutrition course, where they teach her what and how to eat to be healthy. the weight loss issue rose in one of the classes and she asked about calorie intake, because me and my other friend have been on a restricted calorie diet for quite a while.
she knew our friend had been eating about 800 calories (i'm positive she's got an eating disorder but she won't listen to me) so she asked the doctors about it, asking how bad it could be, and they told her that the calorie intake is not as important as the macro nutrient intake. they said that as long as you keep your protein intake really high and your carb intake moderate, you can still lose healthily eating around 800 calories (they didn't recommend it but said it wasn't necessarily BAD as long as it wasn't really long term -two or three months and then slowly increasing the number)

i figured they were probably wrong.
then yesterday someone told me i wasn't getting enough protein from my diet, so i decided to be really conscious and make sure i ate a lot of protein. i got about 100 grams (i normally don't eat more than 30-40 because i don't eat much meat) but then i realized it was about 11pm and i had only eaten about 900 calories, and i was SO FULL.

so today i consulted a doctor, a quite famous one here, to see what his recommended diet plan for me was. he calculated my BMI and took into account my activity level (and wrote me down as extremely active when i consider myself moderately active)
he asked me how much i wanted to lose to see if it was a healthy goal and i said between 10 and 15 pounds, preferably by christmas (i love food and have no intention of starving myself so if i don't make it by then i'm not going to freak out)
then he gave me a diet plan, and said we should start off with 900 calories daily, then increasing to 1000 after three weeks, then to 1100 after another three weeks and then going up to 1200 when there are only two or three pounds to lose. all the meals he planned for me are high calorie and relatively low fat (but not extremely low, either) and there's quite a great balance between lean meat, beans, dairy and veggies.
it seems like quite a great plan, if quite low on calories.

i only saw this doctor to see what his opinion was.
i'm not planning on following his plan particularly, but i wanted to see what other people here thought about this, since everyone is always so intense about the whole starvation mode- not going under 1200 calories.

so what do you think?

Tiffikat

I eat high protein, moderate carbs, and lowish calories (around 1300 if I do not exercise, around 1600-1800 with exercise). The high protein and moderate carb balance seems to help me feel satisfied longer AND I have had less blood sugar issues. My blood sugar tends to drop very low. I had previously tried just lowering carbs and sugar to stop the extreme drops, but I am getting better results with higher protein.

Nerdy_Rose

I think it depends on how you qualify "safe and healthy." Eating that little for a couple of months most likely won't cause any long-term damage, but the majority of the weight lost will probably come from lean muscle mass unless you're extremely overweight (which you don't appear to be).

The problems come in when you try to return to maintenance calories and see a "gain", or when you're not happy with your body at goal weight because of the body fat to lean mass composition (that happened to me).

I think protein is important, but I generally disagree with eating so few calories. I eat 1,900-2,400 per day, and I've been maintaining my weight for about a year now, but my body composition has changed, because I've gotten smaller in spite of my weight remaining relatively the same.

XXXMinnieXXX

I do 1300-1400 calories.. 35% protein, 35% carbs and 30% fat. Seems to work for me. I personally wouldn't go so low on calories, especially with being active. I just don't see the need to do that. You'll likely feel awful too. You can always add in some calorie dense foods. I'm not a doctor, bit being on here for 475 days and having lost 83lbs I know what works for me and have seem what works for others. These macros seem to be good for everyone who tries them and I have a lot of successful friends, they haven't eaten so low to get there. With so little to lose slow and steady is the better way in my honest opinion. Your asking quite a lot by Xmas considering how much weight you have to lose.

Zara x

geebusuk

Starvation mode and 1200 calories aren't related to my mind.
I tend to be of the opinion that 'starvation mode' is a myth for 99% of cases at least - all but the most extreme.

I believe the 1200 calories is more about getting the right amount of micro-nutrients - but plenty of people just eat bang on 1200 with fairly nutrient-lacking food and think it's ok because they've hit the magic number.


I've certainly done fine on high deficits for good bits of time.
Have tried to keep protein levels up - especially as the figures were starting to come down.

toddis

Extremely high protein is fatal =P
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation

I doubt you are going that high protein though.

it is my understanding you need a base level of fat intake to regulate hormones and such though.