It makes me sad...

I'm saying is that insulting everyone as though it is some kind of rule that everyone who follows some low calorie diet (again I'm talking nutritious, reasonable, low calorie diet) is a lunch away from full blown, skinny fat, no muscle having anorexia is rude and kind of ridiculous and it happens a lot on here.

It would be insulting if anyone ever said it. The only people who say that are the low-calorie people, who then attribute it to someone else so they can act all offended.

Dude, 90% of the time I agree with everything that you say. And I know you are a Monty Python fan so I like you automatically, but if you really want me to find all the posts where the OP says pretty much exactly this, I have nothing but time on my hands. My job right now is pretty much just full time student so researching is what I do. Aside from the actual posts that say almost exactly this, people reiterate it constantly. Fully unsupported by research but people express this as nearly biblical fact. If you want me to find these posts, let me know, I'll have them for you within an hour.

What I've also rarely if ever seen, apart from your post above, is anyone saying "I'm on 1200 and it's fine for me but probably isn't for you, unless you meet all of these specific conditions." You know how on TV shows when they do something inherently dangerous they say, "don't try this at home" or on car ads they'll say "professional driver on closed course, do not attempt." It would be nice if people promoting a low calorie diet would include those types of qualifications in their statements too. Instead what happens is these threads are polarized and the real point is lost to extremism.

See, I agree with you again. I have personally spent a lot of time doing research. For me, it is an issue of balancing my ADHD which makes me want to get everything right the f' now with health. I have spent the last 14 years doing heavy lifting/strength training and I don't want to lose that muscle just because I want to lose the fat. However, I have trouble prioritizing logging and counting calories without weight loss. So what is the healthy balance? For me, it is maintaining my strength training routine, eating a high protein diet and cutting calories to a point where I see results. Research indicates this yields the best results (for what I want).

I fully understand all of the reasons (or at least a good number of them) that this is not ideal for the average person. I don't think it's an all or nothing experiment. I think getting to our healthiest selves is a very personal journey filled with very personal decisions. Again, I mentioned a bunch of them before.

I think that people often abbreviate their responses based on past encounters and may not fully express their entire motivation and then, some people are genuinely under-educated. Nothing most people can do to fix that. I think that starting things with an insult (whether it's a back handed insult or a straight on insult) is not the most productive way to help most people although it may get the most attention so I could be wrong.

First thing (and this is really my only disagreement with this) the Minnesota Starvation Experiment included copious amounts of exercise including extended marches and other exercise. The entire point was to determine the best way of "re-feeding" following the holocaust for those in labor camps.

My experience isn't really that people express themselves succinctly on the internet. I have been accused of that several times. Again, I'm not disagreeing with the general sentiment. My point is that people post these types of posts often and all make blanket insults without moderation.

Would your post be as effective with more caveats? Maybe, maybe not. I know it wouldn't really irk me as much if posts like this were a bit more specific to your desired audience but maybe my personality type is more unique than I thought originally.

Regardless, I like to play a bit of devil's advocate from a moderately educated point of view and give a bit of perspective from my side. I'm not disagreeing that it may not be the "best" way but I'm saying that your statements don't apply to all.

stop zinging me or i'm gonna have to start making some absolutely asinine claims... all this ice cream clouds my memory (yes, the ice cream defense... its impervious to your intelligence)

You hit the nail on the head when you used the word "biblical".... I know what you mean when you say that all these unfounded "commandments" get people nowhere... I think people need to self advocate and do the research we've done... I like to post links a lot... Problem is a lot of sources are garbage... Everyone wants to do something trendy, and trendy doesnt really= effective.. So this is all in vain... But, its fun to let it out for a bit... If I can help a few people a year thats better than none.... Logic and reasoning will never be popular... Reading rather than asking questions is "lame".

Haha. Your "ice cream" logic yields to my 9 year aged small batch bourbon logic... I feel like that's a solid win for me

Erm... surely everyone is different and what works for one person might not necessarily work for another...

Stopped reading after this. No, you are not different, my gentle snowflake

My 4 year old eats upwards of 1000 for his 39 pounds and 3ft 5 inches. My 8 year old eats upwards of 1300 for her 58 pounds and 4 feet 4 inches. Yes, they are active, but still, I don't understand how adults can live off of less than that.

Suffer you say?

I burn off heaps each day, I can't eat as much as I'm allowed to eat...therefore my 'diet' is low calorie. I can't eat that much & refuse to eat if I am not hungry. I've kept my weight down past goal weight for 7 months now, don't ever feel hungry & always full. I'm not dying, I'm not starving myself (in fact I will eat 4 servings of dinner at once & that's still under my calorie goal) and I have so much energy it's crazy.

I am in fact very different from most who are on a 'diet' .....cause that is something I am NOT on.


Why would it make YOU sad? Is it going to effect your life somehow? Are you going to force people to eat when not hungry...I'm sure that's how most fat people got fat. Why would it make you sad? I'm quite happy to stay the way I am built both on the inside & out. What you do with your life is no concern to me, so why should it concern you what others do?

Haha. Your "ice cream" logic yields to my 9 year aged small batch bourbon logic... I feel like that's a solid win for me

you had me at hello

Well then, I'm going to need some mostly naked pics... J/K (you can private message them to me if you want) I'll take any pictures with a bottle of knob creek or a bottle of a microbrewed stout (specifically a stout or porter)...

You had me at "you know what happens to guys like me in jail, it sounds like grape."

Erm... surely everyone is different and what works for one person might not necessarily work for another...

Stopped reading after this. No, you are not different, my gentle snowflake

Oh, you have come to play I see...

So what you are saying is that EVERYONE likes all the same food, likes all the same exercise, has the same amount of time to workout, has the same amount of money to buy food, has the exact same health issues, has the exact same height and build, has the same overall goals...

Wow what a boring world you live in...

Theres a difference between saying "Everyone has different preferences" versus saying "Everyone is different".

Erm... surely everyone is different and what works for one person might not necessarily work for another...

Stopped reading after this. No, you are not different, my gentle snowflake

Oh, you have come to play I see...

So what you are saying is that EVERYONE likes all the same food, likes all the same exercise, has the same amount of time to workout, has the same amount of money to buy food, has the exact same health issues, has the exact same height and build, has the same overall goals...

Wow what a boring world you live in...

Theres a difference between saying "Everyone has different preferences" versus saying "Everyone is different".

Height, build, time issues, money issues and health problems are not a "preference"

I'm saying is that insulting everyone as though it is some kind of rule that everyone who follows some low calorie diet (again I'm talking nutritious, reasonable, low calorie diet) is a lunch away from full blown, skinny fat, no muscle having anorexia is rude and kind of ridiculous and it happens a lot on here.

It would be insulting if anyone ever said it. The only people who say that are the low-calorie people, who then attribute it to someone else so they can act all offended.

Dude, 90% of the time I agree with everything that you say. And I know you are a Monty Python fan so I like you automatically, but if you really want me to find all the posts where the OP says pretty much exactly this, I have nothing but time on my hands. My job right now is pretty much just full time student so researching is what I do. Aside from the actual posts that say almost exactly this, people reiterate it constantly. Fully unsupported by research but people express this as nearly biblical fact. If you want me to find these posts, let me know, I'll have them for you within an hour.

What I've also rarely if ever seen, apart from your post above, is anyone saying "I'm on 1200 and it's fine for me but probably isn't for you, unless you meet all of these specific conditions." You know how on TV shows when they do something inherently dangerous they say, "don't try this at home" or on car ads they'll say "professional driver on closed course, do not attempt." It would be nice if people promoting a low calorie diet would include those types of qualifications in their statements too. Instead what happens is these threads are polarized and the real point is lost to extremism.

See, I agree with you again. I have personally spent a lot of time doing research. For me, it is an issue of balancing my ADHD which makes me want to get everything right the f' now with health. I have spent the last 14 years doing heavy lifting/strength training and I don't want to lose that muscle just because I want to lose the fat. However, I have trouble prioritizing logging and counting calories without weight loss. So what is the healthy balance? For me, it is maintaining my strength training routine, eating a high protein diet and cutting calories to a point where I see results. Research indicates this yields the best results (for what I want).

I fully understand all of the reasons (or at least a good number of them) that this is not ideal for the average person. I don't think it's an all or nothing experiment. I think getting to our healthiest selves is a very personal journey filled with very personal decisions. Again, I mentioned a bunch of them before.

I think that people often abbreviate their responses based on past encounters and may not fully express their entire motivation and then, some people are genuinely under-educated. Nothing most people can do to fix that. I think that starting things with an insult (whether it's a back handed insult or a straight on insult) is not the most productive way to help most people although it may get the most attention so I could be wrong.

I've been keeping a lot of corn snakes for a long time. Bear with me this is going somewhere. There are many myths about husbandry practices, like there are for weight loss. Whether or not to cohabitate them, when/where/how to feed them, how much and how often, how long to wait before handling, how big/old they should be before breeding, etc. The advice given to newbies is based on the idea that if they follow those "rules" they will have the best results a newbie can have. But once one becomes experienced enough they can see why those rules exist and when and where it is appropriate to violate or abandon the rules.

There are plenty of people who have been around long enough to learn the rules, but not long enough to know why those rules exist. (Sometimes they repeat these 'rules' to experts who are having spectacular long-term results. And then the drama ensues.)

Having as much experience as I do, I regularly 'violate' lots of those rules. But even when people state one of those rules on an open forum, I don't take it personally or as an insult. I know that for general consumption those rules are better as is, and that they don't apply specifically to me, so I support the idea in principle and explain exceptions where it is relevant. I also don't respond by stating simply that I do the opposite and it works for me, because I know that people will come away with something other than an improved understanding, and encouraging newbies to not follow those rules will result in more harm than good.

I've been on both sides of this equation. But I don't approach those conversations as if they are about me trying to justify my practices, rather they are about helping newbies get the best results. I think that is what the conversations about low-cal diets on MFP should be about. I think those people who do understand why and when they may be appropriate should do more than just say "it works for me" or "it can work" because what newbies get out of that is not exactly a better understanding of how to proceed.

Erm... surely everyone is different and what works for one person might not necessarily work for another...

Stopped reading after this. No, you are not different, my gentle snowflake

Oh, you have come to play I see...

So what you are saying is that EVERYONE likes all the same food, likes all the same exercise, has the same amount of time to workout, has the same amount of money to buy food, has the exact same health issues, has the exact same height and build, has the same overall goals...

Wow what a boring world you live in...

Theres a difference between saying "Everyone has different preferences" versus saying "Everyone is different".

Height, build, time issues, money issues and health problems are not a "preference"

*facepalm*

I'm saying is that insulting everyone as though it is some kind of rule that everyone who follows some low calorie diet (again I'm talking nutritious, reasonable, low calorie diet) is a lunch away from full blown, skinny fat, no muscle having anorexia is rude and kind of ridiculous and it happens a lot on here.

It would be insulting if anyone ever said it. The only people who say that are the low-calorie people, who then attribute it to someone else so they can act all offended.

Dude, 90% of the time I agree with everything that you say. And I know you are a Monty Python fan so I like you automatically, but if you really want me to find all the posts where the OP says pretty much exactly this, I have nothing but time on my hands. My job right now is pretty much just full time student so researching is what I do. Aside from the actual posts that say almost exactly this, people reiterate it constantly. Fully unsupported by research but people express this as nearly biblical fact. If you want me to find these posts, let me know, I'll have them for you within an hour.

What I've also rarely if ever seen, apart from your post above, is anyone saying "I'm on 1200 and it's fine for me but probably isn't for you, unless you meet all of these specific conditions." You know how on TV shows when they do something inherently dangerous they say, "don't try this at home" or on car ads they'll say "professional driver on closed course, do not attempt." It would be nice if people promoting a low calorie diet would include those types of qualifications in their statements too. Instead what happens is these threads are polarized and the real point is lost to extremism.

See, I agree with you again. I have personally spent a lot of time doing research. For me, it is an issue of balancing my ADHD which makes me want to get everything right the f' now with health. I have spent the last 14 years doing heavy lifting/strength training and I don't want to lose that muscle just because I want to lose the fat. However, I have trouble prioritizing logging and counting calories without weight loss. So what is the healthy balance? For me, it is maintaining my strength training routine, eating a high protein diet and cutting calories to a point where I see results. Research indicates this yields the best results (for what I want).

I fully understand all of the reasons (or at least a good number of them) that this is not ideal for the average person. I don't think it's an all or nothing experiment. I think getting to our healthiest selves is a very personal journey filled with very personal decisions. Again, I mentioned a bunch of them before.

I think that people often abbreviate their responses based on past encounters and may not fully express their entire motivation and then, some people are genuinely under-educated. Nothing most people can do to fix that. I think that starting things with an insult (whether it's a back handed insult or a straight on insult) is not the most productive way to help most people although it may get the most attention so I could be wrong.

I've been keeping a lot of corn snakes for a long time. Bear with me this is going somewhere. There are many myths about husbandry practices, like there are for weight loss. Whether or not to cohabitate them, when/where/how to feed them, how much and how often, how long to wait before handling, how big/old they should be before breeding, etc. The advice given to newbies is based on the idea that if they follow those "rules" they will have the best results a newbie can have. But once one becomes experienced enough they can see why those rules exist and when and where it is appropriate to violate or abandon the rules.

There are plenty of people who have been around long enough to learn the rules, but not long enough to know why those rules exist. (Sometimes they repeat these 'rules' to experts who are having spectacular long-term results. And then the drama ensues.)

Having as much experience as I do, I regularly 'violate' lots of those rules. But even when people state one of those rules on an open forum, I don't take it personally or as an insult. I know that for general consumption those rules are better as is, and that they don't apply specifically to me, so I support the idea in principle and explain exceptions where it is relevant. I also don't respond by stating simply that I do the opposite and it works for me, because I know that people will come away with something other than an improved understanding, and encouraging newbies to not follow those rules will result in more harm than good.

I've been on both sides of this equation. But I don't approach those conversations as if they are about me trying to justify my practices, rather they are about helping newbies get the best results. I think that is what the conversations about low-cal diets on MFP should be about. I think those people who do understand why and when they may be appropriate should do more than just say "it works for me" or "it can work" because what newbies get out of that is not exactly a better understanding of how to proceed.

I get what you're saying. I used to keep snakes and collect in the hopes of breeding the "ghost" constrictor. [Then I got divorced and gave my snakes to a good friend.]

To me it's a bit of a difference for saying you are a moron for keeping your snakes apart or together for a certain period of time vs. saying that you are a moron for eating at different calorie levels.

I really get that the idea of saying that healthy calorie levels can help a lot of people. At the same time, insisting on a certain minimum can hurt just as many. Many who never post in the forums. Sometimes (mostly for purely psychological reasons) low calories can help people. Losing 8 pounds the first week or two motivates people to continue to reach their goal weight.

My point is, it isn't all black and white. There is more gray than either side, really...

edited for stupid spelling

Does it keep you awake at night thinking about all those people 'suffering' with a low calorie 'diet' even though they are not suffering & not on a diet? Does it make you not able to function as a normal judgmental person just because someone refuses to eat when NOT hungry?

This.

Why would it make YOU sad? Is it going to effect your life somehow? What you do with your life is no concern to me, so why should it concern you what others do?

You're not a very compassionate person are you.

Actually I am. But hey don't let that stop you from judging me about my comment.

What others do with THEIR life is no concern to ME ...not until it impacts on MY life. Someone eating, or not eating does not do that. My eating or not eating does not impact on YOUR life. Or does it? Does it keep you awake at night thinking about all those people 'suffering' with a low calorie 'diet' even though they are not suffering & not on a diet? Does it make you not able to function as a normal judgmental person just because someone refuses to eat when NOT hungry?


I doubt that very much. I know it means not a thing to me what others do with their life.

If people better understood that "hunger" is affected in low calories diets they would probably see that even though they are not "hungry" their body might not have enough fuel to function properly. When people bring up the " I am not hungry so I am not starving myself crap" and are showing 1000 cals for the day I call bs.

What this all comes down to is....are you a dieter or are you a lifer?

A dieter loses a tremendous amount of weight, fighting through plateaus to eventually reach their goals. They are so hell bent on reaching the finish line, they have no concept of what long term is all about. Nearly all of them find out that this is unsustainable, and then immediately gain it all right back. Dieters know how to diet. What they don't learn, is how to live. I did this for years, only to be more depressed and beaten down each time I failed.

And then there are the lifers. You see many of them here around you. They eat a normal deficit to reach their goals, bump up to maintenance level calories, and continue on. For life.

^ I agree with the above.