[ImpalaHoarder]

I know that you're not supposed to do them if you're not under supervision of a doctor and eating the right things. But on the other hand, what I've read suggests that the biggest issues with these diets are magnesium deficiency, potassium deficiency, and lack of protein.

I just don't think I can mentally HANDLE losing only one or two pounds per week. Less than one pound per week and I know I wouldn't be able to keep trying. I am a very all or nothing kind of person.

Is there ANY scenario where eating under 800 calories a day and taking vitamins + magnesium and potassium supplements and making sure most of those calories are protein and vegetables would work, as far as you guys know?

Or alternatively, how do you get under the supervision of a doctor for something like this? I don't have the money for it right now, but someday maybe . . .

[freelancemomma]

In my experience, very low calorie diets ALWAYS backfire in the long run. They create a physiological and psychological imbalance that eventually resolves itself through overeating and weight regain. The body and mind can take only so much misery before they rebel.

I know it's not what you want to hear, but I suggest you put your efforts in reframing your situation so you'll be happy with a modest weight loss every week, rather than in diets that will make you miserable and are virtually guaranteed to fail.

I know all about extreme thinking and behaviour. I can binge-eat up to 5,000 calories in one sitting. But I've learned to embrace moderation (in moderation), because it's the only approach that gives me a shot at my long-term goal.

F.

[Song of Surly]

I'm not really sure medically about the safety of very low calorie diets not under doctor supervision. I'm not a doctor, so, I couldn't say. I would say that I would be very careful, however, and that this forum may not be the place to go looking for medical advice.

However, I would consider the issue of longevity when it comes to extremely low calorie diets. I think very low calorie diets work for people with serious medical issues that need to be addressed very quickly with rapid weight loss. My one concern with wanting to lose the weight very quickly with such a diet for any other reason is the issue of maintenance. Even losing at an incredibly slow rate with what I thought were gradual but permanent lifestyle changes, I've struggled during times of practiced maintenance to keep my weight at a certain level. I imagine this would be harder if I had learned to lose weight through such severe measures and then had to, yet again, relearn another way of eating at maintenance.

I'm not trying to discourage you, because you know yourself better than anyone here does. What I am saying is that perhaps you should look at why you can't mentally handle losing the weight at this rate, and perhaps see if that is going to be a detriment to your over-all goal of staying at a weight you are happy with down the road. It is hard to continue to be "all or nothing" about weight on a daily basis for years. In fact, when I have ever become too "gung ho" or "passionate" about my weight loss or fitness, I have burned out rather quickly. Learning patience and self-acceptance has been the only thing that has kept me holding on for such a long time this go around.

I know that probably wasn't the kind of advice you were asking for, but I just wanted to share some food for thought. I hope everything works out okay, whichever route you choose.

[ReNew Me]

This is probably going to run a little long, but I think it's a question that needs to be addressed clearly because it comes up a LOT, particularly among younger people.

There's a couple of reasons why extremely low calorie diets don't work over the long haul, and are virtually never advised for people who are not morbidly obese.

The human body requires energy to function. Function goes beyond getting yourself from point A to point B in your daily life, function also includes the beating of your heart, the electrical charges that power the neurons in your brain or that fire the fibers of your muscles that move your eyes across a page as you read, that hold you vertical in the chair as you sit, that raise and lower your fingers as you type, that processes the beverage that you drink through your kidneys or moves the food from your stomach into your intestines and eventually out your body. Every single solitary thing that happens in your body uses energy. If you were to do NOTHING but lay in bed, all day, not a darned thing, you would STILL require a basic caloric intake to maintain life functions, this is called your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). There are many, many BMR calculators freely available on the internet. They consider your height, age, weight and gender when calculating the value of your BMR.

Now, since most people aren't living a completely bed-bound life, they go to work or school, do chores, exercise and so on, there are modifiers that can be calculated into the BMR that provides a good benchmark for how many calories your body needs to do THAT stuff, as well.

Now, let's say you go on a sustained starvation diet (any diet below 1200 calories for a woman is starvation). After a very, very short amount of time you're going to be focusing 100% on obtaining and eating food. There's a whole lot of medical reasons for this, mainly that your brain functions 100% on glucose, no brain, you're dead. Now being constantly obsessed with food, when you are constantly surrounded by food, is a guarantee that you're going to lose it completely and eat your way through the fridge. Think locking an alcoholic in the liquor store when they've only been dry a week or so. Nobody has that kind of self control.

There's a reason why hunger pangs HURT. Remember, our body needs fuel to function. Seeking and acquiring food is hard wired into us.

Tangent here -- I'm sure a few people wonder about anorexics. I can't emphasize enough that there is a reason why ANOREXIA is listed in the DSM manual. It is a mental illness, a brain out of balance (chemically, psychologically, whatever). People with mental health problems see, hear, think and do things the rest of us cannot or would not.

So, let's say that you manage to go several weeks, white knuckling it through the constant hunger pangs and the continual obsession with eating. Then your brain is going to start getting the signal that "We are in a famine situation, fuel conservation needs to be implemented." Fat is our body's famine bank, but it also has a few other survival tricks, and one of them is energy conservation via reduction of metabolic processes.

Reducing the metabolism is NOT something that happens by turning down a thermostat. What happens is our body starts looking for the biggest energy vampires we have that can be safely reduced without impacting vital processes. The biggest calorie burner in our body is our skeletal muscle. Our body can reduce our skeletal muscle, which in turn reduces our metabolism. Next it starts dropping our hormone levels, which in turn causes constant exhaustion, because we use the least energy when we sleep.

So now you're chronically tired and you've got a reduced metabolism, and you're constantly hungry, and the scale has virtually stopped moving. And sooner or later you're going to give into hunger pangs, and once you start eating your brain is going to send signals to eat everything you can, because you just came out of a famine. And you're going to pile on fat, because remember, that's the long term survival bank and you've lost skeletal muscle (which is metabolically wasteful) and your hormones have been down regulated, so your metabolism is lower than it was before you starved yourself. This is why so many people get caught in a trap of cycles of diets followed by gaining more weight than before the diet and then ending up not just ten or twenty but sixty or more pounds overweight, despite having been on diets for something like twenty years.

Does this make sense?

The way to lose weight is to create a caloric deficit, without sending famine signals. You eat below the amount of calories your body needs, but you eat enough that you send the signals "Hey, we have a regular food source, it's safe to eliminate some of the long term storage units." For most people, assuming no medical conditions that would prevent weight loss (medications that interfere with weight loss, thyroid or other hormone imbalances), that means their BMR plus about 500 calories. Additionally, you get exercise, ideally exercise that adds skeletal muscle. Remember, muscle is metabolically wasteful. A person who is a bodybuilder with very low bodyfat and very high muscle mass compared to a sedentary person of the same weight has a higher metabolism, just by the simple fact that a pound of muscle burns more calories than a pound of fat.

Diets simply are not a sustainable way to achieve life at a healthful weight. To LIVE at a healthful weight you need to find a way you can eat for the rest of your life, whether that means avoiding carbs, or eating a large breakfast and progressively lighter meals, giving up certain foods/drinks forever (McDonalds, alcohol, donuts), never eating after certain hours, whatever.

You can starve yourself and lose 50 lbs., people do it all the time. The day you hit goal and reward yourself by eating to satiation is the first day on the road to gaining those 50 and 20 of their friends back, seriously.

[Calicofox]

Make it a lifestyle change, Not something that your going to quickly lose the weight then eat "bad" again. You'll gain it all back. Eat healthy and treat yourself once in a while. Once it becomes ingrained its very easy to be able to eat a cheeseburger and the next day go back to salads.

[tricon7]

First, I don't think you could get enough protein on an 800 calorie a day diet to keep from losing muscle mass, even if all you ate was protein.

Second, you're going to be ravenously hungry on only 800 calories. Filling your stomach will be your main thoughts for the day. Green veges are great for that, because you get a lot of bang for your buck calorie-wise, but they'll eat into your calorie budget, leaving you with fewer calories to use toward protein. Get the picture? Because of the (probably) constant hunger, you'd be much more likely to "fall" and binge, wiping away all you would have worked for. Only you know how much willpower you have. But if the more forgiving diets haven't worked well for you to now, it's doubtful that such a restricted diet like this one will, either.

However, my wife went on a doctor-supervised diet such as this some years back and lost 60 lbs. She didn't seem the worse for wear on account of it. I personally hate it when people say "you'll gain it all back" as if they were soothsayers or something. All one can say is that the tendency after a diet like this is to eat all of it back if one doesn't adopt a restricted diet afterward.

[luckymommy]

I don't know enough about this to answer your questions. All I can do is share my experience. I've done many diets and none of them have ever worked because I've always gained all the weight back eventually. I also have a friend who has done a diet that is 800 calories (I think it's called Optifast). Anyway, she also gained all the weight back and has given up on dieting, as far as I know.

I can see the temptation to lose weight fast. We all want instant gratification and waiting can be so frustrating. I really believe in finding a way of eating (WOE) that you can live with for the rest of your life.

Btw, my friend who did that low calorie diet believes that it somehow damaged her metabolism. I'm not sure if that's scientifically accurate, but I don't think it's worth taking a chance that you'll be worse off than when you started. It all might work out for you, but what if it doesn't? From what I've heard, most people gain all the weight back, and then some...as ReNew Me has already mentioned.

I wish you well in whatever you decide. We are all writing this out of concern so I hope you don't see it as criticism of you in any way. I think many of us here have tried starvation diets so we know where you're coming from.

[JohnP]

Originally Posted by freelancemomma

In my experience, very low calorie diets ALWAYS backfire in the long run. They create a physiological and psychological imbalance that eventually resolves itself through overeating and weight regain. The body and mind can take only so much misery before they rebel.

I'm not sure if we have ever disagreed on a topic but I suppose there is always a first time.

I haven't seen the stats or know if they exist or not but I question whether a well designed PSMF diet has a lower success rate by a significant margin to any diet.

There is a section of the board for the IP diet which is a PSMF and plenty of people regain after but also there are plenty that do maintain because like any well designed diet there is a plan for maintinence. I'm actually not a fan of the IP diet but I bring it up because it's a VLC diet and some people maintain their loss and have done so for years.

I myself followed "Rapid Fat Loss" on and off for a while and it is how I lost the bulk of my fat. It is a PSMF diet with breaks built in and a maintinence plan after.

[sunarie]

My personal experience with low calorie diets is that I gain everything back plus some. I actually tried a variety of them over the past 10 years and it's definitely contributed to how I got to a high weight of 260lbs.

I also agree with everything else that's been said in the thread already, so I won't really touch on that too much. I would probably add that I don't think low calorie diets fail 100% of the time. There are some people they work well for. As tricon pointed out though, there is the tendency to gain the weight back with those types of diets.

As far as being able to do a 1lb a week loss... I did have to get to a place mentally where I was okay with loving myself regardless of my size. I use to hate myself, I'd say mean things to myself. put myself down. I hated very much so that I was fat and honestly believed it meant I wasn't worth dating, that I should feel ashamed, and a slew of other bad things. So of course I wanted to drop weight as fast as possible, and I went to some drastic measures to do it.

Now though, I am loving myself more and more each day, at whatever size. As a result, I want to take care of myself, and I want to be able to do things that make me happy because I deserve to be happy. I've realized this is a lifestyle change, not just a diet, and not just to get down to a certain number on the scale/jean size. That's an awesome side effect for sure, but that isn't what the journey is about for me anymore. It's about things like being able to walk around Disney with my son when we go in a few years, being able to practice sports with him, not getting winded walking around my own house, and being comfortable in my own skin.

Whatever you decide, I wish you luck. I will say if you decide to go the super low calorie route, please make sure it's doctor supervised.

[ReNew Me]

I do believe that very low calorie diets work for certain people, and are necessary for others (particularly older folks like myself). From observation, however, for the majority of healthy people VLC diets carry the risk of causing far, far more harm than good. I know too many women in their 20s who have some sort of subclinical hormonal or metabolic problems that have absolutely nothing in common with each other except a history of disordered eating, starvation and fad diets.

Due to the thyroid's close relationship to estrogen levels women are at a higher risk of metabolic damage from hormonal imbalances (women have more than five times the risk of thyroid disease than men). Even with medication a slow thyroid can leave your metabolism dragging and it is possible to have subclinically low thyroid that may go unacknowledged by a doctor but might be enough to sabotage any weight loss efforts.

[ImpalaHoarder]

I absolutely agree that this is a psychological issue I'm dealing with, but medicaid doesn't pay for anything to do with weight loss, so anything I can't do to fix it on my own isn't getting done. I realize that I am completely insane, but here is my reasoning in case anyone has any ideas about how to combat any part of it:

I feel like people treat me worse because of my weight/drunk people keep yelling insults at me out of car windows and that makes me very upset. I just keep hearing people saying unkind things about fat people and how they just eat pizzas 24/7 and are super dumb because losing weight is easy. That makes me angry. Being angry makes me NOT want to do what these people are telling me to do, i.e. not eat entire pizzas, which has, in the past couple of months, resulted in a lot of pizza eating.

SO, if I want to say "F you" to all these people, I have to be rebellious SOMEHOW, and gaining weight was making me sick, so that's not a good option. So I guess I just want to not eat stuff at ALL because that is what people tell you not to do, and I am feeling rebellious. I haven't been wanting to eat the past week or so even. My calorie consumption has actually been more in the 500-700 range, and while I know that's bad, I also feel so uncomfortable in my skin that I'm kind of happy about it.

PLUS, the more rational side of me remembers that the only time I ever lost weight it was by eating 800-1200 calories per day while exercising five hours a day. I feel like maybe that is what I need to do to lose weight? Because what happens if I overeat on the weekends? Suddenly my weight loss becomes maybe one pound per month or something, at which rate I will start to get wrinkles by the time my BMI is not overweight, if that ever happens at all.

Also, no need to respond to my insane ranting. This is probably not even the right forum. But if you do have suggestions in how to change thinking, I am all ears!

[faiora]

The most important reason to lose weight, for everyone, should ultimately be for health. I know a lot of people say they have their health in mind when actually they want to look better or fit into a smaller size. This is problematic to me, because it means you have only one way to measure your success.

When you start eating less (but not too much less) and switch to healthier foods and a more balanced diet overall, you're doing much more than making yourself thin. You're improving your energy levels, building muscle, reducing fat, and giving yourself the vitamins and minerals and nourishment you need to function better. So the number on the scale isn't the only thing that matters!

With that said, I find it difficult to rate things like my energy levels, feelings of satiation, and so on. Those are qualitative values, rather than quantitative, so of course it's much easier to look at the scale. And don't get me wrong - I do look at the scale, sometimes daily. But I no longer use the scale as a way to measure my success. Instead, the scale has become a fascinating thing to keep track of. My weight shifts up and down from day to day, even hour to hour. I love charting it and seeing how it fluctuates, and comparing that to my food diary to see how my sodium intake, calorie intake, and exercise might have affected my weight. But again, it's not my measure of success.

Since I count calories, the way I measure my success is by evaluating my calorie logging. I give myself rewards when I have logged calories consistently. I still have goals for my weight loss - I go for DXA scans every 4 months and I expect to lose at least 10 lbs of fat between scans - but if I don't meet my goals, I don't beat myself up about it. I just alter my plan a bit, then give myself a reward because hey, I logged my calories every day and that's pretty awesome.

I think if you go by the scale alone, you will always eventually be disappointed, even on a super low cal diet. All it takes is a week with some extra salt intake and you won't lose. Normally that would drop off fine the next week, but if you get discouraged you won't get to see it.

Maybe you could find a way to feel successful while losing weight more slowly. Good luck!

[ANTICAKECHICK]

I am not a doctor. I am not a scientist. I am a femal human being who has been over 300 pounds for 10 years.

I was doing AWESOME losing weight since Aug 18 of this year. Like, 35# in 2 months kind of awesome- I was EATING and exercising, I just kept to around 1500 calories a day and exercised. Last week I hit a low of 307.2.. awesome, right?
This week (TOM).. nothing. I haven't WANTED to eat. Haven't been hungry. Been MAKING myself eat dinner. Hello plateau. Stuck at 308 this week while I'm not really eating.

Take my advice. Eat. At LEAST 1000-1200 calories a day. Make good choices and you'll be fine. Seriously, you'll be surprised at how fast 1200 calories adds up. Yikes!!!

[faiora]

Originally Posted by ImpalaHoarder

SO, if I want to say "F you" to all these people, I have to be rebellious SOMEHOW, and gaining weight was making me sick, so that's not a good option. So I guess I just want to not eat stuff at ALL because that is what people tell you not to do, and I am feeling rebellious. I haven't been wanting to eat the past week or so even. My calorie consumption has actually been more in the 500-700 range, and while I know that's bad, I also feel so uncomfortable in my skin that I'm kind of happy about it.

PLUS, the more rational side of me remembers that the only time I ever lost weight it was by eating 800-1200 calories per day while exercising five hours a day. I feel like maybe that is what I need to do to lose weight? Because what happens if I overeat on the weekends? Suddenly my weight loss becomes maybe one pound per month or something, at which rate I will start to get wrinkles by the time my BMI is not overweight, if that ever happens at all.

Well, I already responded with how I go about keeping my motivation up and judging my progress, but it sounds like your issues extend beyond that.

People absolutely treat you worse when you're fat. Even if they're not yelling at you directly, people are less likely to offer assistance, less likely to say nice things or take you seriously. It's 100% true and it's not right, but it's the way things are. I think something to keep in mind though, is that those people might be nicer to you if you lose weight, but they're not going to be people you like any more once you lose weight. They're still jerks and they still won't deserve your time. So why do they deserve your time now? Why do they deserve to make you feel bad? Why do they deserve to change your lifestyle and make you more unhealthy than you already are?

It's tough to deal with other people's comments and reactions. I've rebelled against comments from people as well, but the problem is I often also rebel against myself. And I find that it's very easy for me to set myself up for failure by trying to implement something rigid and unyielding.

The only way to lose a lot of weight is to find something you can do long-term. Even on a very low cal diet, it's going to take a while. Say it takes half the time. Is that worth it if it's 10x or 20x as difficult? It might sound like it is, but what about when you fall off the bandwagon and have to flag down the next one?

Eventually you'll end up on a bandwagon that doesn't take the corners too fast. That one will make it home.

[sunarie]

ImpalaHoader - I do know where you're coming from.. I've felt that way, and I use to hate myself for all the things people yelled, or how they acted towards me, or even what I read on the internet. Even now I've had a breakdown in the past month and a half where I just cried to my boyfriend about how I just didn't want to be fat anymore. So I still have to fight that stuff every step of the way, I have to remind myself that it's not just about weight, and it shouldn't just be about weight.

There are some therapists and all out there that will help you for free if you're wanting someone to talk to.. a professional, about how to deal with the mental feelings. I personally had to get help from anti-depressant medications in addition to therapy, but I've had chronic depression since I was around 14 years old (I'm nearing 30) so that may not be the same for you.

Some mental things that help me out.. I celebrate a lot of stuff. The scale went down? Amazing. The scale stayed the same? Good for me, it didn't go up. The scale went up, but I stayed on plan for the day? Yay for me again for sticking to my plan, screw the scale. I was off plan but still managed to exercise? Woot for getting in some exercise. Didn't eat on plan and didn't exercise? That's alright, I still felt good for the day, back on plan tomorrow. It's all about making the lifestyle change a good experience, because I'm getting healthy and I want to feel good about it.

I post here daily with meal plans because then I feel more accountable to actually stick to them. I also set a ton of mini-goals, so that I can celebrate all the little things. When I look in the mirror, if I catch myself thinking bad thoughts... I make the conscious effort to seek out good things to interrupt the negative thought flow. It doesn't always work, but a bad day here and there is fine and fairly normal for me.

The last thing is I found a change that worked for me. I can't do the low calorie stuff. I know that about myself. When I tell myself I can't eat something then I find myself craving it until I do actually give in and eat way more than I would have if I'd just allowed myself to have a little to begin with. I also fall into the "well this is the last day I'm allowed to eat chocolate..." mindset, which tends to lead me to procrastination.. and suddenly I've binged on chocolate for a whole week because I don't want to give it up. So for me finding the right change was about finding something where I could still eat snacks ever so often, and where I didn't feel like anything I liked was previously off limits. I don't actually eat those foods now for the most part, but it's my choice not to, and mentally that makes all the difference in the world for me.

Ultimately you do have to do some fighting with yourself, and really dive into what works for you in a healthy way. It sounds like you have a ton of mental roadblocks, so perhaps it'd be best to start with those instead of focusing on weight. Maybe celebrate every time you interrupt negative thought loops.