My doctor told me to eat 1000 calories a day but MFP says to eat 1600
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WintersJourney1994
Posts: 1 Member
I'm not sure what to do. I'm currently 290, and have pcos. But I'm not sure eating 1000 calories a day is healthy. Do I listen to my doctor?
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Replies
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Doctors unfortunately don't actually get that much training in nutrition. We want to trust them, because they're our doctors, but sometimes they can be wrong. At 290, 1000 calories is an extremely low number of calories. With PCOS you may benefit from a lower carb diet, but there's no reason for you to be eating crazy low calories. I'd definitely be going with a higher goal, ensuring that you're very accurate with your count, and assessing your progress as you go.10
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Many doctors have little nutritional training in school. With your weight you can easily eat 1600 calories and lose weight. I would not eat at the level your doctor suggested because that is nearly impossible to sustain and will likely result in frustration for you.
There are some PCOS support threads on here if you use the search button.4 -
1000 seems low. I'm 5'4 and eating 1400 and lightly working out and still losing over a pound a week0
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Switch to sedentary? It gave me 1,360 which I can handle. Otherwise I would starve. Lightly active gave me too many daily calories (I think 1,600).1
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In this case follow MFP, not your doctor. He's given you random, generic advice and the calorie amount adequate for a toddler :huh:8
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Did your doctor put you on a plan? Will you be closely monitored? VLCD diets can come with unpleasant side effects such as dizziness. If you don't eat enough protein daily you can get brittle nails and hair loss.
That being said you can lose a fair amount of weight quickly.
Sometimes doctors figure a short miserable diet with quick results is more sure than a slow deliberate weight loss.
If you stick with the doctor's plan make sure to take a daily multivitamin.3 -
If the doctor has a nutrition background and you will be followed you could do it for 1 or 2 months to get quick results and then up your calories to whatever mfp tells you at whatever weight you will be then. Because 1000 calories for more than a month or 2 will be boring, unhealthy and you will could easily stop dieting from frustration or binging.0
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Unless the doctor is going to closely monitor your health markers while eating 1000 calories, I would go with MFP's numbers6
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Eat no less than 1200.0
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I started in the 280s and use https://tdeecalculator.net/ to figure my TDEE based on my current weight. I subtract 500 to get my daily allowance. I'm 66 y.o., 5'4", and the lowest weight I've achieved recently is 266 so my daily allotment is currently set at 1580. When I hit 265, I'll recalculate and lower accordingly at each new pound down. In this way, I'm sneaking up on eating less. So far it's working. I'm down 16 lbs. in a bit over a month and I haven't really noticed my calorie allotment is a lot less than when I started. I don't expect to keep up that speed but am hoping to continue to lose at least a pound a week for the foreseeable future.
Physicians tend not to know much about nutrition or weight loss. If you have an illness and a special reason the doctor recommended this, then you might be better following his instructions but if he just said or handed you a flyer saying to eat 1000 calories, fuggedaboutit.2 -
We don't know your full medical history, so to contradict what your doctor told you to do would be dangerous and irresponsible.
If you have doubts about what he has prescribed, in this case the 1000 calorie diet, you should take your questions back to him.21 -
A recommendation to a dietician might also be helpful, I'm not sure how much experience/education they would have with things like PCOS but it would make more sense to get proper nutrition advice from a dietician than a GP.1
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We don't know your full medical history, so to contradict what your doctor told you to do would be dangerous and irresponsible.
If you have doubts about what he has prescribed, in this case the 1000 calorie diet, you should take your questions back to him.
^^THIS! Absolutely this!
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OP what kind of doctor was this? That recommendation seems a bit 'off,' but we don't know anything about your weight or medical histories, besides what you've mentioned in your first post, so there very well could be more going on here than we know about. We don't even know your stats like how old you are, height etc etc.
Can you get a referral to a dietician?2 -
While it is low, his rationale may include: rapid loss to reduce health risks, or, since people are notoriously bad at counting accurately, maybe he figures if he tells you 1000, and you miscount and get 1500, you are still going to lose. Talk to him about his rationale. He should be following your bloodwork though, and monitoring you for any complications. Gall stones are not uncommon with rapid weight loss, along with a host of other risks.8
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WintersJourney1994 wrote: »I'm not sure what to do. I'm currently 290, and have pcos. But I'm not sure eating 1000 calories a day is healthy. Do I listen to my doctor?
1000 calories is likely what your doctor's patients have success with when they don't use a food scale or keep a food diary. You have found MFP and will be tracking everything accurately, so 1000 is probably too low for such a well logged and calculated diet. If you don't have a food scale yet you will want to get one.3 -
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We don't know your full medical history, so to contradict what your doctor told you to do would be dangerous and irresponsible.
If you have doubts about what he has prescribed, in this case the 1000 calorie diet, you should take your questions back to him.
You can also ask for a referal to a diatician. Try to avoid the Dr.s that use your visit almost entirely to sell you in an expensive protein drink that your insurance won't actually cover though. Seriously left a Dr.s office in fury over that. He made me lose 5 pounds and join a gym, for a plan tbat was "completly covered" with my insurance. Got there and sure, the visit is covered as usual, but sat through (part of) a sales pitch where I was expected to spend hundreds of dollars a month on some protein shake powder. Asked if any of this visit was going to cover anything actually covered by insurance and not a "get skinny quick" potion. Nope. Walked out and never looked back.0 -
nutmegoreo wrote: »While it is low, his rationale may include: rapid loss to reduce health risks, or, since people are notoriously bad at counting accurately, maybe he figures if he tells you 1000, and you miscount and get 1500, you are still going to lose. Talk to him about his rationale. He should be following your bloodwork though, and monitoring you for any complications. Gall stones are not uncommon with rapid weight loss, along with a host of other risks.
Yes gallstones!! I got them from losing 20lbs in 1.5months.... I didn't know about it.
But it's also not the end of the world.0
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