This is pretty much exactly what I've been thinking the entire time I've been reading this thread, especially the responses from those who've done crash dieting in the past: "Well, obviously it didn't work in the long term, or you wouldn't be here, would you?" Mean? Yep, probably. But true. I mean, backsliding (or whatever you want to call it) can happen with any diet plan, but you can't exactly claim a plan is "successful" if you can't maintain it. (Although I guess that has to do with the willpower of the particular person involved and their motivation to keep up the behaviour once the weight loss phase is over.)
As for promoting/supporting crash dieting/VLCDs on this forum...gotta say, I'm disappointed that that's even going on. I suppose everyone has their choice to make, but...like, would bulimia be encouraged here, too? There has to be a line drawn somewhere, doesn't there? And so many ED cases start with people thinking, "Well, I'll just cut down to 500-800 calories a day till I lose X pounds!" and then they just....keep on going. 500-800 calories a day is not enough to keep a person going over the long term, and the idea that there are people here who are going, "Oh, well, that depends on the PERSON!" makes me sort of ill.
I don't see anyone encouraging crash dieting here. Just people saying their own personal experiences with it.
I once went on a crash diet under a Doctor's supervision, stopped at his office every day on the way to work and got a shot and ate no more than 500 calories a day. OH, I lost, big time but I looked like death warmed over and gained all of it plus more when I went back to "normal" eating.
This is pretty much exactly what I've been thinking the entire time I've been reading this thread, especially the responses from those who've done crash dieting in the past: "Well, obviously it didn't work in the long term, or you wouldn't be here, would you?"
Let's put it this way. I really don't mean to be rude but if anyone of us here who went on a crash diet (including me) successfully kept their weight off after the diet, then we won't be here.
It's easy peasy EASY to lose fast if you're motivated enough on a VLCD. However, for some, perhaps most people, we simply do not have the willpower to sustain the after-effects of a crash diet. In other words, we binge.
Those who CAN sustain and maintain the weight after crash dieting have the willpower to continue their strict regime despite metabolic adaptation due to the low calorie intake.
As for the Rapid Fat Loss, that's the book I read, I believe. That book is aimed at athletes and professional weightlifters who go on a crash diet mainly for competition purposes. They are the ones with the willpower to do what the book tells them to do.
Again, the bottom line is that it's still a mental game. Nothing will work, whether dieting at 500-800 calories, then increasing cals or starting off at 1500-1700 calories if you are mentally not prepared or disciplined enough to do this long term!
And lastly, I agree, we should not be promoting crash diets on this forum anyway (desipte having a very active IP section, lol!).
This is a huge overstatement, honestly. The entire term 'crash diet' is a bit imprecise, but as isaid in my previous post I have lost some weight in this journey in slow fashion and some in VLCD/maintain/VLCD style and kept BOTH off. In fact, thanks to the treatment of the latter I had actually had an easier time keeping weight off post-diet than after my maintenance periods calorie counting. You just can't paint medical protocols with the same brush as snarfing cabbage until it makes you so food averse you refuse to eat. They are not the same.
Similarly, when people misuse and alter protocols (I see this SO much with the one I am currently on, or people believing the induction phase of Atkins is the sum of the diet for life ) that doesn't equate to a failure of the diet, but a failure of adherence, and quite frankly the two aren't equal. There are plenty of reasons to do ketogenic, VLCD, GAPS-style elimination, or other 'extreme' diets, to deal with underlying health issues related to the symptom of obesity. Used properly and transitioned off of correctly, with lifestyle changes afterward, the weight loss is often reasonably maintainable.
But with these diets or the methods we generally recommend on 3FC, of modest energy imbalances, if someone isn't willing to alter some of the obesity-inducing habits or refuse the obesigenic foods (in my case, anyway) they will have recidivism. That doesn't mean the diet is flawed, though their difficulties at relate to the diet they are not caused *by* the diet, in many cases.
That isn't always true and some people do diet themselves fat (Kaplods has had amazing posrs relating to this) by crashing, bouncing back, crashing again, etc, but I am much more hesitant to paint these programs with a broad brush compared to how I once felt, since I have personally benefitted from them and find it health-promoting and very sustainable. Experience has given me pause, you might say
ETA: I do realize I am an unusual case, having become obese after medication (I was just overweight before that!), and not done anything to fix it until I was good and ready. Then I have been working at it ever since, with slow times during pregnancy and a mental break to maintain, but really no significant regains or bouncing throughout. I have never adopted a diet plan, failed at it, quit, and regained weight. And so my only experience with diets of varying stripes is finding if they did or didn't suit my needs and adjusting accordingly. The only cycle I underwent was a maintenance/loss cycle, not the crazy-inducing regain merry-go-round. That may make me a bit unusual, but it was why I took umbrage to your comment. Not everyone on here is a serial dieter and implying such is an unnecessary overstatement.
Last edited by Arctic Mama; 05-05-2012 at 11:42 AM.
Back in 2005/06 I went from 193 to 143 in under a 12 month period.
I don't see this as "fast" weight loss. In fact, I lost about 40-45 lbs. in about 6 months calorie cycling 9800 calories per week (average of 1400 per day). I definitely wouldn't qualify what I did as a crash diet or even VLCD. I was uber moderate, moreso than I had ever been in the past. When I think of "crash dieting," I'm thinking of more like 500 - 800 calories a day with losses of 3-4 lbs. a week.
. . . and the idea that there are people here who are going, "Oh, well, that depends on the PERSON!" makes me sort of ill.
Interesting reaction.
It does depend on the person. There is no one-size-fits-all. I agree that in most cases crash diets do not work for the longterm, but then again, have you seen the longterm success stats for moderate weight loss programs? They're just as dismal. In fact, I remember reading about some study that was done that suggested that whether one lost weight the "healthy" way or the "crash diet" way, neither was a good predictor of longterm success (I cannot find that article right now, but if I do, I'll edit my post to include it). Some people need the motivation of seeing the numbers drop initially; it gives them the motivation to continue losing, even with a more sensible eating plan. In fact, that's the entire reasoning behind the 17-day diet that you so eschew. That diet is cyclical, with initial weight losses being somewhat fast, but each new cycle, foods are added, so that after about a month, you're eating a healthy diet. I'm not advocating that diet, but I am saying that no one way works for everyone. Someone else mentioned that none of us would be here if crash diets worked, but that assumes that most of us have never lost the healthy way, and from posts I've read, many people here have been on moderate weight loss diets in the past and still regained. I know I have. I've done the standard 1500-calories-per-day & exercise route, and I still gained it back. I think the key to longterm weight loss success is not solely how one initially lost the weight but more about whether one is mentally ready to make the lifelong sacrifices that it will take to keep the weight off.
To the OP, I don't advocate crash dieting because it takes too much suffering, and it could have an adverse affect on one's hair, nails, etc. (essentially, putting even more stress on the body than losing weight in a more moderate way would).
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Quote:
Originally Posted by snaggly
...Well, if that person had the willpower to not eat for comfort, then they would not have regained despite stressful times and if it was a medical condition which caused the regain, why did that person not self monitor and seek help before the regain? Again, I'm inclined to believe that ultimately, many people think that the effort it takes to keeping off the loss is too much and thus, they give up whether consciously or otherwise.
This paragraph makes me very uncomfortable. In my opinion, it comes dangerously close to fat-shaming (and, yes, people who struggle with their own weight issues are still capable of fat-shaming.)
Newsflash: Not everyone who has a medical condition that causes weight gain has the means to consult a doctor for said medical condition. Even if they did...okay, so let's say a person is taking a certain essential medication for a life-threatening condition. Now let's say that this medication causes weight gain. What exactly is a doctor going to do -- tell them to go off of the medication? I mean, be serious. Really.
In addition, not everyone has the means to procure healthy foods, or the access to those foods, either. I don't know what it's like where you live, but where I live, a 2-litre carton of milk is approximately $4. A 2-litre bottle of pop, on the other hand? $1.25. It's not a problem for me to spend $400 in a single grocery trip. If I spend that money on healthy foods (which I do), the amount of food I end up with will do me approximately a week. If I chose quick, easy, less healthy food, I'd probably get two or three weeks out of the amount of food I could buy. These are things that people sometimes cannot control.
I don't want to go on and end up saying something I won't be able to take back, but honestly, not everyone is in the position where they can afford the healthiest food possible. And for those people who have medical conditions, not everyone can get to a doctor at the drop of a hat (and some can't afford to go to a doctor at all.) It's all too easy to say "oh, you should just have willpower!" or "well, if you have a medical condition, you should go to a doctor before you get fat!", but in the real world that **** doesn't always fly.
Honestly, I read the above quoted paragraph and it reads to me like, "Well, it's your own fault you're fat, and if you weren't so lazy, you wouldn't be." I'm sure that's not how you meant it (or at least I certainly hope it isn't) but that's how it felt to me.
I have been doing it the "healthy" way for the past few months: around 1500 calories a day, plus cardio and/or weight training 3-5 days a week. (With this past week being the exception, due to finals). However, when I lose weight this way I'm VERY lucky if I lose even a pound per week. Some weeks, I won't lose at all. It's extremely tempting to go back to my old high-school ways of only eating around 800-1,000 calories per day, because I honestly lose weight twice as quickly.
Would it be terrible to lose weight that way until I hit my goal or a plateau, and then graduate to eating more calories while exercising more? I know that the "quick" way is frowned upon, but I've already proven to myself that I can do the healthy eating and regular exercise thing on a regular basis.... I just want to speed things along a bit!
Though it oddly seems to now be off-topic in this thread... Does it need to be either/or for you? What about a middle ground? If you're only losing ~1 lb per week now, why not drop your calories a few hundred to 1200 or 1250 and lose ~1.5 lbs per week, instead of risking nutrient deficiency at a very low calorie intake?
I ate at an average of 1250 cals/day for most of my weight loss and didn't suffer any ill effects. I certainly have some substantial metabolic adaptation at this point, but I think it's much more due to the length of time I've been calorie restricting than my calorie intake level (that is, I don't think I'd have a lot less metabolic adaptation if I'd been eating at, say, 1400 rather than 1250).
) that doesn't equate to a failure of the diet, but a failure of adherence, and quite frankly the two aren't equal. There are plenty of reasons to do ketogenic, VLCD, GAPS-style elimination, or other 'extreme' diets, to deal with underlying health issues related to the symptom of obesity. Used properly and transitioned off of correctly, with lifestyle changes afterward, the weight loss is often reasonably maintainable. 
