Eating less confusion

It can show weight loss, but over time if you were to eat at an extremely low amount of calories, your metabolism would slow down.

You'll lose weight but you'll lack nutrition and eventually your body won't be happy with it at all and your weight loss will slow as your body tries to preserve what energy it can. It works for a while but it isn't a healthy way to lose weight.

Another angle to look at is that even though you were nauseous and ate less your body was still burning calories to get better. So it took whatever it had to to survive. Now you are well you are not burning calories that particular way now so do not be surprised if your body stores more than you think it should. I wish you well and glad your on your way back to healthy.

Okay I hear everyone saying that eating below your calorie allowance isn't beneficial for weight loss. I had major surgery seven months ago and was off work for over four months. My painkillers had a bad effect, i.e. nausea and complete loss of appetite. At first I thought good, will help me to lose a bit of weight.

However, I was hardly eating at all and in the end had to get my GP to prescribe anti-nausea medication. But since I was doing no activity at all, I did think that my weight loss would not be great.

When I started to recover and eat a bit better, I decided to weigh myself. In all I lost 19lbs. Gone from a top size 14/16 to a 12 and bottom size 14 to a 10. Fantastic! I am completely happy with my weight loss and have maintained, just trying to lose another 7lbs now.

So can you understand how I find it difficult to understand that by eating less calories than suggested on here, won't show a weight loss?

Because the calorie goal on MFP is NOT a maintenance level of calories...it already has a calorie deficit built in. Ergo, when you meet your calorie goal you are eating less than you maintenance level of calories. Depending on how much per week you told MFP you wanted to lose, it will have anywhere from 250 (1/2 Lb per wk) to 1,000 (2 Lb per week) calorie deficit from maintenance built in.

Eating at too large a deficit ultimately results in slowing your metabolism and can be medically dangerous if the deficit is substantial enough and sustained for a long period of time.

Of course you will lose more weight if you eat less.

One of the biggest problems people try to avoid is loss of lean body mass (muscles mostly). If you don't consume enough protein, your body will get protein from your muscles. If you reduce your muscle mass your basal metabolic rate will drop (as a result of less metabolically expensive muscle) and your fat percentage will grow. If you start with 100 lbs of lean body mass and weigh 160 lbs, drop 30 lbs of which 33% is lean body mass your new weight is 130lbs but lean body mass is now only 90 lbs. In this scenario, starting body fat percent was 37 and ending body fat percent is 31. This is still not desirable for most people and if effort had been made to conserve muscle mass, body fat percent would be 23%.

If, what the person had wanted to do was get down to a body fat percent around 23%, they would still have a lot of weight to lose assuming that 1/3 of all the weight they lose would be lean body mass. Assuming the person again lost 15 lbs and 5 lbs of that was lean muscle mass, they are now at 115 lbs and 26% body fat. The person has to lose more and more weight to attain their actual goal of a lean look and lower body fat percent.

In all fairness, this can happen at any calorie or deficit level. At lower calorie levels, it is much easier to neglect proper nutrition especially appropriate protein levels. However, doing so will only hurt someone not help them. If you keep your protein levels at appropriate levels (.8-1g/ lb lbm) and practice strength training, you will be better able to maintain lean body mass at any calorie level.