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WAY under calorie goals and already full
qwerty123sc
Posts: 5 Member
Hello! I'm currently doing something called the 20/20 lifestyles metabolic cure, because my doctor told me she wouldn't let me have a medically necessary but not urgent surgery until I lost weight.
It's a diet in stages, the idea is that you start out eating only healthy fats, berries, and lean protein, then gradually add each food group back in. I only did four days of this instead of the recommended week, because I just really like vegetables and couldn't stand it any longer. So I've got berries, healthy fats, lean protein, and non starchy vegetables.
My problem is that I am far, FAR under the calorie count recommended by the diet (1100-1400), and not hungry.
I logged less than 400 calories today, and almost couldn't force myself to finish my dinner, and all my calorie counts this week are in the mid triple digits, which I know is NOT good, for weight loss or anything else. I bumped it up to 850 one day by eating more than a quarter of a cup of Jif peanut butter, but that's not really "allowed", nor a good habit to have.
What should I do?
Can I MAKE myself be hungrier, or do I just have to force myself to eat?
Is this a dieting phase everyone goes through, and I'll be back to okay levels soon?
Should I just drink a cup of canola oil??? (Please don't ask me to do that, that sounds singularly unpleasant)
Sorry if I'm too rambly, I'm new.
It's a diet in stages, the idea is that you start out eating only healthy fats, berries, and lean protein, then gradually add each food group back in. I only did four days of this instead of the recommended week, because I just really like vegetables and couldn't stand it any longer. So I've got berries, healthy fats, lean protein, and non starchy vegetables.
My problem is that I am far, FAR under the calorie count recommended by the diet (1100-1400), and not hungry.
I logged less than 400 calories today, and almost couldn't force myself to finish my dinner, and all my calorie counts this week are in the mid triple digits, which I know is NOT good, for weight loss or anything else. I bumped it up to 850 one day by eating more than a quarter of a cup of Jif peanut butter, but that's not really "allowed", nor a good habit to have.
What should I do?
Can I MAKE myself be hungrier, or do I just have to force myself to eat?
Is this a dieting phase everyone goes through, and I'll be back to okay levels soon?
Should I just drink a cup of canola oil??? (Please don't ask me to do that, that sounds singularly unpleasant)
Sorry if I'm too rambly, I'm new.
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Replies
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Is it the 20/20 diet lobbied by Dr Phil? There's no benefit to going on a crazy restrictive diet based in pseudoscience.
Usually it's best to eat regular food at lower calorie levels. Like 200-500 calories less than what you use up in a day.1 -
melonaulait wrote: »Is it the 20/20 diet lobbied by Dr Phil? There's no benefit to going on a crazy restrictive diet based in pseudoscience.
Usually it's best to eat regular food at lower calorie levels. Like 200-500 calories less than what you use up in a day.
It is not, the book is by two doctors from the Pacific Northwest (where I am) so it's possible it's very regional?
And I would certainly not have chosen to do this, but it's what my doctor told me to do, so...
Yeah, I've heard that. It sounds better than this, but I don't know.0 -
I'm curious why your doctor has suggested you do this exact (and sort of strange-sounding) diet. Is there some medical condition that eliminating foods for a, seemingly short, amount of time is supposed to help? Because otherwise it just sounds like bad advice. Some doctors just seem to know very little about giving good nutritional advice.
The general consensus you'll find around here (and there are tons of success stories to back it up) is that losing weight comes down to calories in versus calories out. Unless your doctor has a very good reason for putting you on this specific diet, I'd say you'll get a lot farther by eating whatever you want in proper moderation. As long as you lose the weight before the surgery, that's all that matters, right? (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)0 -
I'm curious why your doctor has suggested you do this exact (and sort of strange-sounding) diet. Is there some medical condition that eliminating foods for a, seemingly short, amount of time is supposed to help? Because otherwise it just sounds like bad advice. Some doctors just seem to know very little about giving good nutritional advice.
The general consensus you'll find around here (and there are tons of success stories to back it up) is that losing weight comes down to calories in versus calories out. Unless your doctor has a very good reason for putting you on this specific diet, I'd say you'll get a lot farther by eating whatever you want in proper moderation. As long as you lose the weight before the surgery, that's all that matters, right? (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
I didn't want to admit it, because I really do like my doctor most of the time, but I suspect she recommended this particular diet because the authors gave her a ton of free copies of the book to hand out to patients... maybe I'm just being uncharitable. She's my DOCTOR.0 -
qwerty123sc wrote: »
I didn't want to admit it, because I really do like my doctor most of the time, but I suspect she recommended this particular diet because the authors gave her a ton of free copies of the book to hand out to patients... maybe I'm just being uncharitable. She's my DOCTOR.
I get that. But if I'm understanding correctly and you know for a fact that the authors have given her this book to hand out...well, yeah. That makes her recommendation of it rather suspect.
You don't have to dislike her for it, or generally mistrust her, but on this particular topic you might want to take her advice with a grain of salt. Particularly if you're trying to follow the diet and struggling to even get in a thousand calories a day on it. It's clearly not working to help you lose weight in a healthy manner (which is what doctors are supposed to care about.)
The way I see it, you can go back to her and tell her this diet isn't working for you and work together to come up with an alternative, or you can just go the CICO route to get to your goal. Whichever you feel more comfortable with.0 -
qwerty123sc wrote: »
I didn't want to admit it, because I really do like my doctor most of the time, but I suspect she recommended this particular diet because the authors gave her a ton of free copies of the book to hand out to patients... maybe I'm just being uncharitable. She's my DOCTOR.
I get that. But if I'm understanding correctly and you know for a fact that the authors have given her this book to hand out...well, yeah. That makes her recommendation of it rather suspect.
You don't have to dislike her for it, or generally mistrust her, but on this particular topic you might want to take her advice with a grain of salt. Particularly if you're trying to follow the diet and struggling to even get in a thousand calories a day on it. It's clearly not working to help you lose weight in a healthy manner (which is what doctors are supposed to care about.)
The way I see it, you can go back to her and tell her this diet isn't working for you and work together to come up with an alternative, or you can just go the CICO route to get to your goal. Whichever you feel more comfortable with.
Thanks for the advice!
Honestly, even if this book is pretty suspect, starting this gave me the motivation to cut out snackfoods, count calories, and actually have good food in the house? However, all those things will still be true if I burn the book and let myself have the occasional potato earlier than several months from now.
I'll keep going for a little bit, but I will definitely diverge massively from this meal plan if I can't get my calories up.1 -
Doctors can be biased and wrong, I know a lot of friends who go to doctors but are given wrong diagnoses, and they need to go to another doctor to see what's actually going on. I suggest going to another doctor for a second opinion to see if you really need to go on this specific diet or not.
Either way though, losing weight is not dependent on a diet/method UNLESS you have a medical condition to do so (gluten-free, diabetic, etc.) I just looked up the 20/20 lifestyle and all it says is that it's a weight loss program, not anything specific for a medical condition. You don't need to do anything like cutting out food to lose weight, all you need to do is make sure that you're in deficit (which you've accomplished already).
You will be completely fine just using MFP for your weight loss.1 -
You feeling full and your body being fully fed are 2 entirely different things.
Just as you could in theory get total nutrition from very few calories, or opposite get very little nutrition from a ton of calories - neither is good for the body.
Besides vitamins and minerals - your body needs protein (amino acids) to do something with them, and fat, and carbs is beneficial too.
Not enough vitamins and minerals - you got problems.
Not enough calories - you got problems.
Figure out how to eat more - pretty sure your Dr wasn't advocating 400 calorie diet.
You've likely got screwed up hunger signals already - people that fast for 3 days can accomplish that too - doesn't mean it's healthy to continue.
So unless you've got a great knowledge and understanding of the body and how hunger signals should be understood - and vast majority don't - don't trust them.
Trust your brain - not your hormones.
Don't need to drink oil. Like peanut butter?5 -
You feeling full and your body being fully fed are 2 entirely different things.
Just as you could in theory get total nutrition from very few calories, or opposite get very little nutrition from a ton of calories - neither is good for the body.
Besides vitamins and minerals - your body needs protein (amino acids) to do something with them, and fat, and carbs is beneficial too.
Not enough vitamins and minerals - you got problems.
Not enough calories - you got problems.
Figure out how to eat more - pretty sure your Dr wasn't advocating 400 calorie diet.
You've likely got screwed up hunger signals already - people that fast for 3 days can accomplish that too - doesn't mean it's healthy to continue.
So unless you've got a great knowledge and understanding of the body and how hunger signals should be understood - and vast majority don't - don't trust them.
Trust your brain - not your hormones.
Thanks! I feel dumb, because I definitely know all that stuff, I'm currently taking nutrition for culinary school and I'm a huge nerd who reads her textbook, but sometimes you need an outside reminder.0 -
What are you eating for 500 calories that's leaving you so full you can't stand to eat another thing?!4
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1) This "diet" sounds awful
2) To lose weight you need a calorie deficit
3)500cals is absurdly low2 -
VintageFeline wrote: »What are you eating for 500 calories that's leaving you so full you can't stand to eat another thing?!
500 calories of broccoli?
Time to go back to the doctor to change doctors... I am sorry, but you have unnecessary surgical procedure and the doctor put you on this particular diet to lose weight extremely unhealthy?
But you have bought into the concept of this diet and not really challenging it, this is a bit concerning.0 -
VintageFeline wrote: »What are you eating for 500 calories that's leaving you so full you can't stand to eat another thing?!
500 calories of broccoli?
About 1.5kg of brocoli assuming it's steamed. Sounds awful0 -
Let your belt out a few notches.0
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I'm wondering if you are logging accurately.
I doubt very seriously you were able to eat 3 meals and only get less than 500 calories.
Can you open or share your diary?1 -
trigden1991 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »What are you eating for 500 calories that's leaving you so full you can't stand to eat another thing?!
500 calories of broccoli?
About 1.5kg of brocoli assuming it's steamed. Sounds awful
Might be able to stomach it better if I could smother it in cheese sauce. Of course I wouldn't need to eat 1.5kg to hit 500 calories then!0 -
VintageFeline wrote: »trigden1991 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »What are you eating for 500 calories that's leaving you so full you can't stand to eat another thing?!
500 calories of broccoli?
About 1.5kg of brocoli assuming it's steamed. Sounds awful
Might be able to stomach it better if I could smother it in cheese sauce. Of course I wouldn't need to eat 1.5kg to hit 500 calories then!
Yes to the cheese sauce..
I like to have a little brocolli with my cheese sauce. 1 -
The other reason highly restrictive diets work in the short term is because you get bored before you are full. Sure, your body needs more nutrition but if you have to chew through a barrow load of veg to get it you probably won't bother. So if you want to up your intake, just add a bit of variety. I think the peanut butter was a good choice for an emergency snack - but your better option would be to eat a properly balanced diet, just using sensible portion sizes.
I recommend myfitnesspal.0 -
I'd be interested in seeing what you are eating in a day as well....you don't get to the point of needing to lose weight (and not be able to have a surgery until you do) by not being able to eat more than 500 calories in a day!2
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She's not able to eat more than about 500cal of her current diet plan, which consists of little more than fruit and veg. I can believe that. She didn't say she struggled to eat more when she was eating normally.0
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CattOfTheGarage wrote: »She's not able to eat more than about 500cal of her current diet plan, which consists of little more than fruit and veg. I can believe that. She didn't say she struggled to eat more when she was eating normally.
I still doubt this.0 -
Muscleflex79 wrote: »I'd be interested in seeing what you are eating in a day as well....you don't get to the point of needing to lose weight (and not be able to have a surgery until you do) by not being able to eat more than 500 calories in a day!
I agree with this wholeheartedly.1
This discussion has been closed.
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