Eating too FEW calories makes you fat!

[JacqJolie]

Zarathu, hopefully this works for your wife long term, but 4 weeks on a particular diet and not losing weight on it isn't reflective of long term efficacy either. Whether that's 1400 calories or 800. Guaranteed the first 2 weeks are water weight loss, they always are - more if the person was quite overweight to begin with.

I can't fathom anyone doing 800 calories a day for 3 months, not losing a pound and actually sticking to it. You must have phenomenal self discipline to keep doing the same thing and expect different results.

A pretty good sample of people who do get to those levels are those who've had bariatric surgery. I've seen and read about too many people who have had bypasses etc. that have lost week after week on those low calorie intakes not to wonder if you had carb or calorie creep.

I've gone low carb in the past and not lost much (after the initial glycogen store flush) for a few weeks in a row, but my clothes were getting looser. After awhile, the fat loss gets reflected on the scale.

 

[Bestwifeever]

My wife says that its called "LIVING HEALTHY, LIVING WELL". The author is Phyllis Bullins. She has a book out:

Living Healthy, Living Well, Phyllis Bullins, Book - Barnes & Noble

Apparently she just happens to live around Philadelphia and is running the course at my wife's school.

Z

That's a new one for me--she must be local to your area. Did she do research on "starvation mode"?

 

[HsiaoChu]

That's a new one for me--she must be local to your area. Did she do research on "starvation mode"?

ITS NOT in her book. But she talked about it in her class with the students.

 

[ERD50]

Not a clue what you are talking about. I've been enjoying the varied responses to my post, all 43 of them so far. Don't understand your goal oriented approach to everything. I'm sorry but I cannot help it if some of you feel that things I think are unbelievable, are actually believable. Nothin' I can do about that, unless I contact you first to ask if my post is OK. And guess what? I'm not going to get your permissions about whether I'm posting right.

I certainly don't want you to seek my permission, and it isn't mine to give. All I said (and I guess you really don't understand it) is that if you post such things to a discussion forum, it should be expected for discussion to follow.

You should probably avoid responding to my posts, since you have over and again completely misconstrued them here and other places on ER.

Zarathu

Perhaps, but I find some of them interesting and informative. I like to be exposed to different viewpoints, if all I want to do is agree with myself, I have several mirrors in the house.

-ERD50

 

[HsiaoChu]

Take a look at the stats - on a daily basis you post 2x+ more than I do.

Yeah..... I have the highest number of posts in the shortest amount of time in the history of the board. Other people may have beaten my record but their records have been obliterated by time. Its the key: I just like to talk! You don't talk for a living without that happening.

 

[rgarling]

You are wrong. I know exactly how many calories are involved.

Sorry, your results are not physically possible. You are miscounting, and not by a little bit.

 

[DeborahB]

My own experience has been similar to the OP's wife: I stopped losing doing weight watchers after I was 50 or so - very frustrating. I ALWAYS was hungry on WW. I am not hugely overweight nor have ever been - but I have just lost 20 pounds in a year (did not diet the whole time) and have another 15 or 20 to go. I had reached my all-time high thanks to prednisone...

Anyhow, in 2002 I read Atkins carefully and decided - in desperation - to try it. It works for me. I do induction most of the time. Generally my cholesterol levels improve after a few weeks, over all. I don't remember the numbers off hand.

I do remember trying to eat less and yet gaining weight or not losing and being hungry all the time.

The thing about a really low-carb diet is it burns fat, not muscle. I look much more toned when I'm on it than when I lose a similar amount of weight on low calorie diets. If I ever get down to a level where I am thin-ish... Don't know what I'll look like. I also don't get as hungry and don't get low blood sugar exhaustion on Atkins. I didn't give up caffeine or rx meds (the book likes you to do all that - can't, in my case).

If you do Atkins - you need to read the book seriously. It isn't as simple as low carb. People have gotten very ill ignoring how they feel on this diet.

There's a good book out in addition to Atkins' diet book: "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes. The original article in the NY Times magazine is a quicker read: "What if it's all been a big fat lie"?

What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie? - NYTimes.com