Why do doctors encourage such low cal diets/rapid loss?

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  • brendak76
    brendak76 Posts: 241 Member
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    My endocrinologist told me to be on a 1500 calorie diet AFTER exercise for maintenance! She knows workout 5-7 hours a week plus I walk to work (30 minute commute total) and am very active with 2 kids. MFP puts me at over that number before any exercise is added in for maintenance. I felt like she just pulled a number out of thin air. If I went by what she told me and did not exercise at all it would be the same as eating 1100-1200 just to maintain. I would starve!!
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    jgnatca wrote: »
    I read an article where hospitalized morbidly obese patients are often put on a VLCD diet, and I witnessed that first hand visiting a friend. Her diabetes was out of control and she had open sores on her legs as a result. Her afternoon snack was a single Peek Freans biscuit. She set it aside without enthusiasm.

    Good job, on what planet does someone with excess blood glucose need a **** biscuit ?
  • MondayJune22nd2015
    MondayJune22nd2015 Posts: 876 Member
    edited November 2015
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    jgnatca wrote: »
    How many people are ready to engage in a program that literally takes years to complete, and many hours of training, classes, and monitoring?

    @jgnatca your description, is like going to college for a career & hence this was my response, to a post about quitting; within my support group:

    "My issue concerning quitting, is that I never have indefinitely. So if you (like me) desire to quit something, quit with having to lose the same weight; that you've (I've) lost before & additional weight, that you (I) didn't have to lose the previous time that you (I) quit. If necessary take a break from eating at a deficit & eat at maintenance, for a couple of weeks.

    I tend to think of this commitment as a career, it's okay to take a vacation from it but it isn't okay to quit it, until retirement (completion)."
  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
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    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Perhaps some doctors expect non-compliance as statistically people are terrible at estimating how much they eat, so tell patients to eat 800 calories per day when they'd be happy with 1600.

    This is what I always imagine that it was. The physician knows that the patient is almost certainly eating more than they report.

    "You're not losing on 1200 kcal per day? (Rolls eyes). OK, why don't you cut to 800 kcal per day and see if that works?"

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