Do you believe a restrictive diet "ruins your metabolism"?

Myth.

You can cause many health problems, though. You're young, hopefully it will all work out.

If 1/2 lb is less than 1% of your body weight, just keep that as your goal and both accurately and honestly log your food to hit that calorie target every day. You'll eventually get those last 3 lb off without risking adaptive thermogenesis.

storyjorie wrote: »

Or have you seen any evidence that it does, other than anecdotal?

I ask because I'm only 3 lbs from goal and have been very good at maintaining a healthy weight--it's just vanity lbs. at this point. I'm tempted to go really low in calories and carbs for a week or two and just get those pounds off already...watching the ounces chip off (and sometimes come back) week by week is getting me antsy.

The only thing holding me back is the concept that you "ruin your metabolism" by going too restrictive. Just wondering if this is a real thing or a myth!

It's proven, (and logical I might add) that as you lose weight, your metabolism does slow, as an adaption to that smaller mass. Clearly, if you are a smaller person, you need less fuel. I do not believe there is any such thing as "ruining your metabolism", it's simply a fact that you will take a hit on your metabolic rate, when you lose weight. I was just reading a study about this the other day. It stated that as weight was gained back, metabolism returned to the previous level - in that study for those people. But who wants to regain the weight? The best method? Never get fat! Don't let yourself get overweight in the first place. Probably should beat everyone over the head with that science, at a young age. Don't know if it would really make a difference though. People will do what they want to do.

I found this as a good quote from someone's blog:

"To put it simply, someone who is naturally 12% bf will ALWAYS find it easier to stay in that condition compared to someone who had to diet down to that level regardless of the amount of time that may have passed since the dieting phase.

The only "natural" way to completely reverse these adaptations is to simply regain the lost weight. Reverse dieting or anything even remotely related to it is useless and will NOT prevent or help you recover from these adaptations.
"


You'll find plenty of people here that do subscribe to the "ruination" thing though. They will beat you over the head with it.

Being too restrictive is a bad thing if you do it for a very long period of time. For the amount of time that it would take you to lose 3 pounds? That's not really a concern. The bigger problem is that you'll likely regain them quickly as soon as you go back to eating normally.

storyjorie wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Metabolism adaptation is real, but it doesn't happen in a week or two.

If I went on a crash diet to lose three pounds, my main concern would be just gaining it back as soon as I stopped the excessive restriction. It seems like a bout of misery for not much reward.

That's a real concern. Is that what would happen? Say I lose slowly/maintain on 1350-1500 calories a day, eating a variety of foods (not doing keto or low carb or anything.) Then I drop to 1100-1200 and avoid carbs for a week, probably losing 3 lbs. Would I gain them back if I went back to 1350-1500/regular foods? Isn't 1350-1500 losing or maintenance mode?

you would gain some of it back based on carbs alone.

I allow for a range...my goal is 145 but allow for 5lbs either way.

I've been on the upper end for a while now but not going to do anything "drastic" to lose the weight.

3lbs won't matter a whole lot I don't think...5lbs maybe...;)

storyjorie wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Metabolism adaptation is real, but it doesn't happen in a week or two.

If I went on a crash diet to lose three pounds, my main concern would be just gaining it back as soon as I stopped the excessive restriction. It seems like a bout of misery for not much reward.

That's a real concern. Is that what would happen? Say I lose slowly/maintain on 1350-1500 calories a day, eating a variety of foods (not doing keto or low carb or anything.) Then I drop to 1100-1200 and avoid carbs for a week, probably losing 3 lbs. Would I gain them back if I went back to 1350-1500/regular foods? Isn't 1350-1500 losing or maintenance mode?

To lose 3 pounds of fat, you'd need to create a deficit of 10,500 calories. One week at 1100 calories doesn't do that, so if you lose more than projected during that one week, it's not real fat loss. It's going to be water weight and will likely come back just as quickly as you lost it.

Golden rule for me is don't do anything you are unwilling to maintain.

fitmom4lifemfp wrote: »

storyjorie wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Metabolism adaptation is real, but it doesn't happen in a week or two.

If I went on a crash diet to lose three pounds, my main concern would be just gaining it back as soon as I stopped the excessive restriction. It seems like a bout of misery for not much reward.

That's a real concern. Is that what would happen? Say I lose slowly/maintain on 1350-1500 calories a day, eating a variety of foods (not doing keto or low carb or anything.) Then I drop to 1100-1200 and avoid carbs for a week, probably losing 3 lbs. Would I gain them back if I went back to 1350-1500/regular foods? Isn't 1350-1500 losing or maintenance mode?

Let's say you maintain at a certain weight, at 1400 calories a day, and then cut to say, 1200 to lose a couple of pounds. After you lose, you WILL have a new, lower, maintenance number. You certainly cannot eat the same as you did before and keep that weight off, unless you permanently increase your calories expended by increasing exercise.

If she's only talking about losing 3 more pounds, that will hardly make a difference for her maintenance intake.

Short term, no. Long term, yes.

3 lbs? Really? WTF, just let it go. That's probably within the accuracy margin of your scale anyway (meaning if you compared to some NIST-certified scale, your home scale might be off by 3 lbs in the absolute sense but still be accurate for measuring the difference between starting and ending weights, which is of most concern to dieters).