What's wrong with nutrient-dense VLCD?
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mickweidner
Posts: 2 Member
I'm doing a VLCD, which I know is discouraged on these forums. What I don't understand is why VLCDs are considered bad. For breakfast, I had an 3white/1yolk omelet with spinach with two cups of coffee with half-and-half. For lunch I had 3.5 oz of ground chicken stir fried in coconut oil with beer greens, kimchi, and mushrooms, along with lots of water. For an afternoon snack I had berries sprinkled with cocoa, along with coffee with half-and-half. For dinner, I had a 3.5 oz round steak with French beans, along with water. For an evening snack, I had two small beef jerky sticks with sparkling water. That's a lot of food- but it's well under 1000 calories. I also took a high quality multi-vitamin. I can't imagine eating more than that and losing weight. It's actually healthier than I usually eat. It's pretty much protein and low-carb produce. Is that so bad? That's a sincere question.
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Replies
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Your body can metabolize something like 24 calories worth of fat per pound of body fat (the number used to be quoted as around 32, but many scientists pointed out mathematical errors that lowered it). When you exceed this, no matter how nutrient dense your diet is, your body metabolizes muscle. There's absolutely nothing you can do to mitigate the damage or prevent the muscle loss when you exceed the maximum deficit allowed by your fat stores.28
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Well said, @usmcmp
Your body doesn't get energy from vitamins per se. Calories are an energy unit.
OP, unless your diet is prescribed by a doctor and supervised by a dietitian (not a just nutritionist), and you are grossly obese with imminent death possible from obesity, you should not even consider eating less than 1500 calories if you are a man, or 1200 calories a day if you are a woman.
You should only consider being close to (but stay above) those limits if you have 15 lbs or less to lose. If you have that much to lose, and ate less calories than that, you would not intake enough energy to keep your organs functioning, so imagine how bad it is if you have much more to lose.
Medically supervised VLCDs are only meant to be for a very short term. They also are prescribed along with diet breaks.
See a doctor if you aren't already.9 -
mickweidner wrote: »I'm doing a VLCD, which I know is discouraged on these forums. What I don't understand is why VLCDs are considered bad. For breakfast, I had an 3white/1yolk omelet with spinach with two cups of coffee with half-and-half. For lunch I had 3.5 oz of ground chicken stir fried in coconut oil with beer greens, kimchi, and mushrooms, along with lots of water. For an afternoon snack I had berries sprinkled with cocoa, along with coffee with half-and-half. For dinner, I had a 3.5 oz round steak with French beans, along with water. For an evening snack, I had two small beef jerky sticks with sparkling water. That's a lot of food- but it's well under 1000 calories. I also took a high quality multi-vitamin. I can't imagine eating more than that and losing weight. It's actually healthier than I usually eat. It's pretty much protein and low-carb produce. Is that so bad? That's a sincere question.
It sounds tempting and even a little logical at first glance. However, don't confuse nutrients with energy. Your body needs energy and that's a function of the caloric content of food. Your food intake looks nutritious, in that it has plenty of protein (I have a similar breakfast many times, but without the coffee). I see it's very low carb too. Even if you want to go with less carbs, your body still needs the energy - so you are still in a situation where although you have your micronutrients and plenty of protein, there is not enough energy in it to prevent your body from burning lean tissue.
@usmcmp explained it well in her response. You haven't mentioned if you exercise in addition to all that.2 -
Think of your body as a vehicle, you can put in the best oils and fliuds(nutrients) but if you don't put on enough fuel (calories) you wont get far.
Nutrition is great but if you don't have the energy that you get from calories so your body can properly function you are harming your body and it will start to degrade. Hair, nails, skin, and muscle will be affected first.
My question to you is do you want to be thin or healthy? I ask this because underfueling your body is not healthy no matter what nutrients you consume.6 -
Because the goal should be to lose fat, not muscle.14
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Energy first, then worry about nutrients. Doesn't matter how many vitamins you're popping if you're eating below your BMR your body will start consuming itself to meet those energy needs. Which is not good. At all.
How about eating more healthy stuff like you already are, but enough so you're meeting your daily energy needs (with a moderate deficit if you're trying to lose weight)? More nutrients=better right?
Some easy changes:
use whole eggs instead of egg whites, whole eggs are very nutrient-dense
add more vegetables, especially some starchy ones (sweet potato + steak + green beans sounds delicious)
more fruit
switch out some meat for lentils, beans, etc or just add them to meat dishes
These are all things that would keep you eating healthy, nutritionally dense foods but would also allow you to keep at or above the recommended 1200 calories a day.0 -
Because there isn't such a thing.
Doctors prescribe them short-term and carefully monitor them for severely obese patients with co-morbidity factors (heart disease, risk of stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.) where the cost of the temporary lack of nutrients and metabolism of muscle is outweighed by the need to quickly drop the weight to help save the life of the person.3 -
Because nutrients aren't energy and energy is as important to your health as nutrients...you can only metabolize so much fat in a given 24 hour period...when you exceed that, you're going to start torching more lean mass.2
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are you weighing every single thing you eat?? because what you listed there could be a lot more calories than you think if every item is not being weighed.2
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Yes I'm weighing the food and yes I'm exercising, too. Thank you for all the input and advice. I'll switch it up. Thanks again.2
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