Few calories = WEIGH GAIN

What people MEAN to say is that once you eat below your BMR long enough, you'll lose most of your lean muscle mass, lowering your metabolism.

Once you try to eat "normal" again, you cannot maintain your weight on the same amount of calories that a person of the same weight and height could. Thus gaining fat due to a damaged metabolism.

Your brain cannot use your fat stores as energy, so if you don't eat enough calories (your BMR), it will take your skeletal muscles to run itself, and it uses more energy than most people realize.

Extremely obese people's bodies handle VLC diets differently than someone who has less than 50lbs to lose.

What people MEAN to say is that once you eat below your BMR long enough, you'll lose most of your lean muscle mass, lowering your metabolism.

Once you try to eat "normal" again, you cannot maintain your weight on the same amount of calories that a person of the same weight and height could. Thus gaining fat due to a damaged metabolism.

Your brain cannot use your fat stores as energy, so if you don't eat enough calories (your BMR), it will take your skeletal muscles to run itself, and it uses more energy than most people realize.

Extremely obese people's bodies handle VLC diets differently than someone who has less than 50lbs to lose.

When your body starts consuming muscle for energy your body odor will change. You will smell like straight ammonia. When your body consumes muscle it will change your breath. Your breath will smell like some type of chemical. It is a really horrible smell that alerts you that something is really wrong. Your sweat will be so strong of ammonia that you won't be able to tolerate the chemical smell.
Also please explain how obese people's bodies handle VLC diets differently.

Never heard of that.

What Is Ammonia?

The chemical make-up of ammonia is NH3. This means that there is one Nitrogen atom bound to three Hydrogen atoms. Ammonia can be a weak acid or a weak base, depending on what type of chemical it is suspended in. Ammonia has a strong, pungent odor that is easily recognizable in cleaning products, cat urine, and, for some people, sweat!

The key to ammonia in urine and sweat is the nitrogen. The only macronutrient in your body that contains nitrogen is amino acids, the building blocks of protein. In fact, many bodybuilders are always seeking a "positive nitrogen balance" meaning that less nitrogen leaves their body than enters their body. Since nitrogen is in every amino acid, and amino acids are the building blocks of muscle, someone in positive nitrogen balance is more than likely gaining muscle mass.

Your body uses amino acids for energy every day. There is no way to avoid this. Your body constantly goes into catabolic (tissue breakdown) and anabolic (tissue building) phases. When you accumulate mass (lean or fat), your anabolic phases exceed your catabolic phases, but you still experience both phases. When your body uses an amino acid for energy, it must convert the amino acid to a useable form of energy.

It does this by stripping the nitrogen atom off of the molecule. The skeleton molecule that is left behind is then further converted into glucose and used as fuel. In order to get rid of the excess nitrogen, your body typically processes the nitrogen in your kidneys and forms urea, CO(NH2)2 - basically, a carbon dioxide molecule bound to nitrogen and hydrogen. Urea is then excreted in the urine. If your kidneys cannot handle the load of nitrogen, then the nitrogen will be excreted as ammonia in your sweat.

One other factor to consider is water intake. The methods used for getting rid of excess ammonia, such as urine and sweat, all require water as a transport mechanism. If you are not getting adequate fluid, then the solution (ammonia + water) will not be diluted. Therefore, water plays a definite role. If you are not drinking enough fluids to have at least one or two clear urinations every day, you should drink more.

Based on this explanation, it is clear that your sweat will smell like ammonia only if an excessive amount of amino acids are being used for energy, or you are not receiving adequate water. This helps us find a solution to the problem.

Doesn't That Mean My Protein Intake Is Inadequate?

Many people mistakenly believe that ammonia sweat means that their protein intake is not high enough. The body will only utilize protein for energy when it does not have a sufficient supply of fats and carbohydrates. Muscles can use glucose and fat for energy, but your brain requires glucose. Since there is no direct metabolic pathway from fat to glucose, your body will use amino acids instead. If your protein intake is high, there is a chance that the amino acids that supply energy will come from ingested food and not your hard-earned muscle tissue - but why take that chance?

Let's look at an oil lamp. If you fill that lamp with Citronella oil, it will have a distinct odor when you light it. To eliminate that odor, do you add more Citronella? No! That's just fanning the flames. You'd use a different type of oil instead. The same goes for the ammonia smell - this is just the smell of amino acids being "burned" in your body. You don't solve that by adding more amino acids. Instead, you need to supply the fuel that your body prefers - the fuel that can be easily broken down to glucose in order to supply energy to your muscles and your brain - carbohydrates!

The key to avoiding that ammonia smell is to ingest sufficient carbohydrates. If you eat an ample amount of carbohydrate with every meal, then you should have plenty to fuel your exercise activity. Even people who work out on an empty stomach should have some glucose in their bloodstream upon rising - unless they subscribe to the myth that cutting out carbohydrates before bed helps you lose fat. If you find that the ammonia smell persists (even when you consume carbohydrate with every meal), try having a low glycemic carbohydrate before you workout.

and...


You are in all likelihood smelling acetone on your breath which can have a metallic quality or smell just like ammonia like you are describing. Acetone is one of three ketone bodies, and ketones are the byproduct of fat metabolism. They occur in the body when people go on low carbohydrate diets, when people lose weight, when people do lots of aerobic exercise, or any combination of the three. Ketones are common and generally not dangerous unless you have type 1 diabetes, as they generally do not rise to dangerous levels before the body metabolizes them. They are a source of fuel for skeletal muscle as well as the brain and will not interfere with your performance. Make sure you stay well hydrated.

All I could find on how obese people handle VLCDs differently are that the risks out weigh their health problems. In either case, it isn't sustainable for either the obese or the non-obese:

Health benefits

A 1997 study concludes that the short-term use of a VLCD is very effective in rapidly improving glycaemic control and promoting substantial weight loss in obese patients with Type 2 diabetes.[3] Moreover, a VLCD increases insulin sensitivity and reduces the substrate for gluconeogenesis. Thus VLCD treatment may improve glycaemic control more than calorie restriction alone. A VLCD is typically undertaken by an obese patient who wishes to lose a lot of weight quickly, as the risk to health that obesity presents is considered much greater than any risks of the diet itself, so long as it is undertaken with medical supervision

Very low calorie diet (VLCD) is a diet with very or extremely low daily food energy consumption. It is defined as a diet of 800 kilocalories (3,300 kJ) per day or less. VLCDs are formulated, nutritionally complete, liquid meals containing 800 kilocalories or less per day. VLCDs also contain the recommended daily requirements for vitamins, minerals, trace elements, fatty acids and protein. Carbohydrate may be entirely absent, or substituted for a portion of the protein; this choice has important metabolic effects.[1] The VLCD products are usually a powder which is mixed with water or another low-food-energy liquid. The VLCD is prescribed on a case to case basis for rapid weight loss (about 1.5 to 2.5 kilograms or 3 to 5 pounds per week) in patients with Body Mass Index of 30 and above.

I'll keep looking.