Dear Diary: 370 to 228 (and hopefully to 186)

Originally Posted by Frosteh



It's not a myth, it's a well documented natural body process - see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starvation_response



It's just that most people don't understand it very well. It's not some response like an allergic response where your body all of a sudden switches gears, it's a slow change over time, you're slowly training your metabolism to survive off less calories on average and it makes up the difference by burning off lean body tissue like muscle for energy.



It takes a while to recover from, the most common approach i've read is to eat your daily maintenance for about a week (about 2500 for a man), during this time you're going to put on some weight because your body doesn't switch back immediately, it's the price you pay for having a bad diet I'm afraid, suck it up. Then you can return to a calorie deficit of something like 1600 calories and you'll go back to losing weight.



I know it seems counter intuitive but you have to understand that simply going less and less calories isn't sustainable. Remember it's the calorie DEFICIT that matters that means both your input of food AND the outgoing matters, it actually matters how your body is burning calories, if your body slows down in response to starvation then you're basically making your goal harder and harder to hit until eventually it's impossible.





I know it's routine and routine is hard to break, that's what made us fat in the first place we had bad routines which caused us to eat more than we need and we couldn't break from it, you have to understand that while you can eat too much you can also eat to little and that doing either routinely is bad, you have to learn moderation.



Honestly you shouldn't have any excuses, you can get meat and other source of protein cheaply, it doesn't have to be an expensive rib eye steak, you can get chicken and mince incredibly cheaply. Your body needs a decent amount of protein to build muscle, weight lifting without a decent amount of protein is pointless, you also suppress muscle gain with a very low calorie diet, your body is burning off muscle to make up the additional calories it needs so you're essentially treading water there.



Raise your calories up back to maintenance for about a week or 10 days, you want to be eating a good 2500 per day, it doesn't matter if you don't feel like eating, don't make any excuses just trust me and do it. You'll gain weight during this period but tough luck it's necessary to correct your diet. Once that's done, drop back down to a more reasonable daily calorie limit I suggest 1600 calories which should give you the better part of a 2lb a week loss if maintained.



You need to learn moderation, not just to correct your diet now but also so you can safely come off your diet when you reach your target weight, remember you're eating for a loss right now but you'll need to learn how to eat your daily maintenance when you reach your goal weight, so you have to be able to change your diet and not be a slave to routine.
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Not the nicest post I've ever read, but sure. By the way, I'm not on a diet. I haven't been on a diet.


I have never 'eaten less' to be on a diet. I just started to eat less and less. It was never to be a temporary thing. I know I'm far below where I should be, but that doesn't mean I plan to go start splurging on everything once I'm 'done' losing weight :p.


I will try to pick up my calorie intake, but you really don't understand my financial position currently. Try an 800 dollar house payment with a 10k/year income ;). As I said, I do eat meat at my parents (which I usually eat every night), but other than that I don't really have another source of protein besides peanut butter and protein shakes.


To eat 1600 calories a day seems like so much to me. I'm instantly down to around 1400 right away after breakfast. To me, eating 1400 other calories throughout the day seems nearly impossible without fast food (Which obviously I don't want to eat lmao- - i don't want empty calories, either). I can eat God knows how many fruits and stuff during the day, unless I eat a chicken dinner 3 more times a day, I don't know how to hit those calories. My only choice is really to drink protein shakes, I think, to fill in calorie gaps?
 
Originally Posted by Daybehavior

Let me clarify....Yes, the starvation mechanism does exist. However, the impact and effect of this process is greatly exaggerated, as I mentioned above. Many people are under the impression that your body will shut down or drastically reduce its metabolic function after a day or week of eating a restricted calorie diet. This is simply not true. The fact is that the greatest recorded reduction in BMR is 40%, which occurred during the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. And this was after around six months of eating below baseline calories.

It would take a very extensive time period before your BMR suffers to a great degree due to under cutting your calories. Granted, I'm not suggesting anyone starve themselves but I think there is a lot of fear mongering and alarmism in the weight loss circles.
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Sure it's a long term effect, but we're talking about someone who has been dieting for over a year now.


We're not talking about anything drastic like your body shutting down or you keeling over dead or anything like that, we're talking about small differences in the metabolism that are enough to hinder weight loss and cause a plateau. Weight loss plateaus are also fairly well documented and they tend to occur in people who eat drastically less than the recommended daily calories, which is why the recommended values exist in the first place.


I realise other people cause fear mongering about it, but I think it's unfair to classify what I've said as fear mongering, it's a fairly level headed scientific approach to controlling your diet and the effects it has on your body.
 
Originally Posted by kiramon

Not the nicest post I've ever read, but sure. By the way, I'm not on a diet. I haven't been on a diet.
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It wasn't my intention to come across in a negative light, please understand that I'm not trying to be nasty, I just don't think tip toeing around the issues really helps anyone.


Look, you're here because you have a problem and you want to fix it right? I mean you're saying you've plateaued in your weight loss and I'm trying to explain why that might be, and you're saying well X, Y and Z, and all I'm saying is that it doesn't matter why, it doesn't matter why you're at 1000 calories per day, if it's diet or unintentional doesn't matter (I wrongly assumed diet, sorry if that offended you, it seemed like a safe assumption for someone who has lost over 100lbs).


All that matters is that you understand it's problem and that you need to correct it, first you need to understand why it's a problem then you need to work on a solution, all the drama in between is irrelevant, all the excuses in between are irrelevant, at the end of the day none of that changes anything. You can either except what you need to do and find a resolution or stay stuck in a rut with your diet.


Eating 1600 should not be a problem, there is plenty of high calorie foods that you can eat, I grab healthy sandwiches and salads from our sandwich lady at work for breakfast, if I go a few days with a very low calorie intake, say I average 1300 cals for 2-3 days I know that I'm starting to dip a bit low, so instead of a healthy salad I'll get a large flapjack or something like that, they're great, we call them "stodge bars", pretend to carry them around like they weigh a tonne, kind of an in-joke, but it gets the point across, these things have serious mass and they're high calorie, great for a boost when you've been skimping a bit too much. Don't be afraid to eat "empty calories" as you put it, there's nothing wrong with endulging in something fatty or sugar laden once in a while, it's not bad food that makes you fat, it's all about the calories, I still eat loads of bad food but just in moderation or to get my daily cals up if I need to.


I know based on my last post you weren't pleased so I've probably pissed you off with this one, but if you manage to get over that, just re-read again just take it for what it's factually worth, I'm trying to convey some information here that might help you, I hope you can read it and not take it personally. Also I'm sorry to hear about the money situation, don't be afraid to ask for help from family and friends if that's what you need, it's good that you can get a good solid meal in at your parents that's going to help a lot, maybe see if they're willing to help more.
 
Frosteh I'm not upset or anything lol, it just didn't read as the nicest post :p


I understand what you're saying, and I know most of it -- it's just not as easily done as said, sometimes.
 
I had KFC last night, I found their website and it details calories for all their meals so I worked out what I'd had that day for breakfast and lunch and found a meal that I could have for dinner that would take me up to my calorie goal of 1600, got stuck in.


Anyone that finds eating 1600 calories a day hard, just go to KFC :)
 
Originally Posted by Frosteh


I had KFC last night, I found their website and it details calories for all their meals so I worked out what I'd had that day for breakfast and lunch and found a meal that I could have for dinner that would take me up to my calorie goal of 1600, got stuck in.



Anyone that finds eating 1600 calories a day hard, just go to KFC :)
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Mmm sounds yummay, what did you order from KFC? might go there sometime:)
 
Originally Posted by Irishprincess


Mmm sounds yummay, what did you order from KFC? might go there sometime:)
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I ordered the 3 piece variety meal which is 3 pieces of chicken, 2 hot wings and a chiken strip, chips and a drink, I grabbed a pepsi max which is low cal, so the total cals was 1270.


I skipped breakfast as usual, had prawn noodle salad for lunch which was about 300 calories, so total daily was in fact 1570ish, which is dead on my daily limit for losing weight, I actually lost 4.2lbs last week as I was under my daily limit most of the week and also helped someone move house which was a good work out :)


You don't need to sacrifice tasty food to diet, you just need to keep an eye on the total calories throughout the day, not having breakfast and eating light lunches really helps save up a lot of calories for a nice dinner at the end of the day.
 
Originally Posted by Frosteh





I ordered the 3 piece variety meal which is 3 pieces of chicken, 2 hot wings and a chiken strip, chips and a drink, I grabbed a pepsi max which is low cal, so the total cals was 1270.



I skipped breakfast as usual, had prawn noodle salad for lunch which was about 300 calories, so total daily was in fact 1570ish, which is dead on my daily limit for losing weight, I actually lost 4.2lbs last week as I was under my daily limit most of the week and also helped someone move house which was a good work out :)



You don't need to sacrifice tasty food to diet, you just need to keep an eye on the total calories throughout the day, not having breakfast and eating light lunches really helps save up a lot of calories for a nice dinner at the end of the day.
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Thats great:) Thanks for sharing that info:) Must try that dish some day!!:)
 
Been doing pushups every night still.

Been running.

Been eating more food (X_x)



Down to 220-222 depending on how the scale feels about me (aka time of day).
 
AKeep up the good work! You can do it!

As for your..um..moobs? I'm a girl so I already..er..come prepackaged with..yknow..so I wouldn't exactly know how to "lose" em per say, but they do seem to shrink the more weight I lose. Perhaps you just need to keep losing weight before you see results. And don't focus on the negatives anyway. Look at all the good you've done so far and feel proud!
 
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