I did the math on this amount of food using my food journal at livestrong.com and the calories came out to 863 for the day. No wonder you are losing weight on this. It is not enough calories for you. You should be getting at least 1200 a day, minimum.

i agree it sounds like too few calories. are there any supplements you are taking?

Yes. I take a lot of supplements for the day. It's part of the plan I'm on. I take in total about 23 total for the day. They are to be taken after every meal so it's 3 of one supplement after each meal, 2 of another, etc and they are at different times of the day. For example I take one called a carb blocker 10 minutes before every meal and 3 EFA's after every meal and then there are this other supplement called a release and 3 of those have to be taken one hour after every meal. I take a multi-vitamin in the morning and a drink supplement twice a day in my water to boost metabolism.

The protein snack bar is 170 calories so that might boost in up some. Also, the broccoli I used was the steam kind so it wasn't raw, so that would be a few more calories right?

I'm going to have to go over my meals and try adding a bit more variety. I was thinking of starting to add oatmeal for breakfast sometimes.

Oh and sometimes it's allowed only 3x a week at the most, but there is a really good chocolate meal replacement I've had to replace one starch, one protein and one fruit serving for the day. It has about 250 calories, but it's makes a pretty big shake, so I've had those at the most twice in a seven day time period.

I didn't experience unpleasant side effects either THE FIRST TIME, or even the tenth time.

Especially when your body is young and healthy, you can throw a lot of damage it's way and not feel the results. But the damage IS occurring, and it will sneak up on you. You may not see it this month, or next month, or even next year. You may not see it at all, because the damage generally occurs slowly and silently over time. It can take decades to accumulate life-altering damage - but once you notice it can be difficult or too late to reverse.

I only learned later in graduate school physiology, that the "increased energy" I often felt on these types of diet was actually a potential sign of damage. When you overstress your body, your body releases endorphins - natural pain killers and euphorics. The endorphins can mask the early signs of damage.

The parallel to drug and alcohol abuse is very similar. I never used drugs and rarely ever drank alcohol - but I worked in the field of substance abuse - and the pattern of physical damage is the same. When you're young and healthy, smoking, drinking, sleep deprivation, and even illegal drugs don't have as much impact on your perceived state of health. It's damage that takes it's toll slowly, and severe calorie restriction does the same.

By the time you notice the damage, there's a lot of it to notice.



Yes, it is a crash diet - because "under 1000 calories" is the very definition of crash diet - and the days you've shared haven't even come close to 1000 calories. If you were only a little bit over overweight and under 5' tall, you might be able to get away with a 1000 calorie diet for a couple months (and even then, probably not an 800 calorie diet).

But as tall as you are, with 70 lbs still to lose, and wanting to stay as active as you are, you need more calories- especially from protein. One of the biggest risks to very low calorie, low-protein diets is the amount of muscle that tends to be lost with the fat. If you're not eating enough protein to maintain your muslce mass, even with exercise, you're going to lose muscle. And the worst part about losing muscle is that you don't get to pick which muscles will be damaged. If it's your calf muscle, you can build up more - but if it's heart muscle you risk permanent and life-threatening damage. Heart muscle damage is a well-known risk of very low calorie (especially low-fat, low-protein diets as you've described).



I've been studying weight loss and nutrition, informally for 40 years. I put more effort and time into studying diet, exercise and weight loss than I did my master's degree in developmental psychology.

I learned early what I shouldn't do, but unfortunately I learned bad habits even earlier. I was on my first diet in kindergarten, and on my first crash diet by 9 years old. Crash diets yielded faster results (at first) and our society is so anti-fat, that it's often much easier to ignore the risks because any risk seems preferable to being overweight.



YES. As already mentioned it's not even 900 calories. At your height, if you're under 40, it's very likely that your maintenance calories (the calories needed to maintain a healthy weight at a healthy activity level) probably will end up around 2000 to 2400 calories (somewhere between 10 and 17 calories per pound. 10 being the average for older and inactive folks.). If you do lose muscle or if your metabolism slows due to the crash dieting, your maintenance calories could end up significantly lower. Eating less than half your maintenance calories is about as "crash" a diet as you can get. You're not giving your body even half of what it needs to maintain a healthy weight.


Personally, I'd recommend that any woman over 5' and under 50 years old, start with a diet around 1500 calories. Some experts recommend no less than 7 or 8 calories per pound of current body weight (assuming a person is currenlty overweight - for you that would be between 1650 and 1900 calories). Others recommend multiplying your goal weight in pounds by 10 calories.


But what I recommend more than anything at all is not listening to me, but educating yourself. Talk to a dietitian if at all possible. Read basic nutrition books. Eat the largest variety of food, in as many types and colors as you can.

There is no magic number, so if you were extremely short and tiny 1000 calories might not be a crash diet. But for someone nearly 6' tall, with 70 lbs to lose, there's just no good reason for short-changeing yourself - especially on the protein. Your fruit and veggie intake is good (but don't be afraid ot go even higher, especially with the veggies), but you could increase your protein, fat, and dairy and even grain/starch servings. I'm following a low-carb exchange plan (which fairly drastically cuts grain foods), and I eat 160-240 calories of grain-foods a day.

I'd recommend exchange plan dieting, at least until you get a better understanding of nutrition and a more generous idea of minimal requirements.

I'm not too well versed in taking vitamins/supplements, but 23 supplements per day seems a bit extreme to me. Is there a web site or link out there where you found this diet? I don't want to get all preachy on you but from what I've read of the diet plan you're following thus far, it concerns me

I go to a center. I was given which plan to follow and I go and weigh in 3 days a week. I have to keep a food journal and have every day's intake checked to make sure I'm getting everything in. I've been told, that I'm doing great and following everything right. Why I asked the question about calories here on 3FC is because I noticed there were threads on calories that seemed to be higher and some of my family wanted to make sure I'm eating enough.

I'm actually a little more than concerned now, reading kaplods and everyone else's comments. I'm going to have to really change my diet and make it more healthy. I don't want to be exchanging one type of unhealthy for another type of unhealthy. I'm going to make some positive changes.

Also, I really would like to add some different items into my diet. I really miss cereal (not on plan) and would really like to add a little in, like Special K and a little more milk. 4 oz doesn't go a long way. I do eat dairy though. Low fat cottage cheese and eggs are on plan so I do love those. 6 eggs per week and cottage cheese allowed 3x a week. Legumes too, I would like to add some healthy legumes in for protein.

Probably not. You specified cooked, so canadianwoman would have typed that into the livestrong.com calculator - and steamed broccoli actually doesn't lose quite as much volume as boiled does - so it's even possible that the calculator overestimated the broccoli calories. Also, most protein snack bars are in the 150 to 200 calorie range, so that would also be dead-on.

I estimated using my exchange plan diet calculations and didn't quite get to 850 calories.

Breakfast
(40) 1 piece diet lite bread toasted (sprinkled cinnamon)
(20) 1 tsp lite margarine
(60) 1 fresh peach (1 pack sweetener)
(40) 4 oz skim milk

160 calories for breakfast (probably less, because many lite margarines are no more than 5 calories)


Snack
(170) 1 protein peanut butter bar

170 calories

Lunch
(10) 1 cup raw lettuce
(5) 1 tomato sliced
(150) 6 oz chicken breast in strips (lite morton salt, lemon juice)
(30) 2 tbsp lite Italian Dressing

195 calories (again I'm probably overestimating on the lite dressing)


Snack
(30) 10 green grapes

30 calories

Dinner
(10) ½ cup cooked broccoli (pam, lite morton salt)
(40) ½ cup cooked mushrooms (pam, lite morton salt)
(50) ¼ cup cooked brown rice (2 tsp lite margarine)
(150) 5 oz shrimp cooked (pam)

250 calories (and I did calculate in the cooking methods)


(5) And at night 1 cup crystal light lemonade and a cup of herbal tea.


So my calculations comes to 840 calories, leaning towards overstimation on the lite products as well as probably the fruits and veggies and even the rice (many calculation sites do not subtract fiber calories - but humans can't digest those calories so they leave the body intact)P

I calculated the protein bar in at 180 and when I put in the broccoli I put it in as steamed (I steam my veggies too) which is around 25 calories.

Perhaps you should calculate your daily calories for a little while and you can see for yourself how low you are in your daily totals.

I know it may seem like folks are "ganging up on you," but we're not. Many of us have gone down the crash diet path many times before, and have found it to be far more of an obstacle or even a pitfal than a help.

Unfortunately, these rapid-result diets are so popular that everyone on both side of the contract ignores the risks. I would bet that you had to sign a contract that releases them from any responsibility for any illness or injury you believe to be a result of the diet. It may be worded that you are willing to assume all risks, or it may be worded as a promise not to hold them responsible, or somewhere in the fine print there will be essentially a loophole that absolves them of any legal responsibility (it may even be worded as a promise by you to seek supervision from your own medical doctor).

I've seen it worded a dozen different ways, but it always ends up legal-speak for "whatever happens to you, it's not our fault."

Two quick points:

1. There is no inherent number of calories that "no one" should cross. That said, if you are tall and heavier, you WILL need to intake more calories than someone who is very small. Like kaplods said earlier, a 5'0 130 lb person may need to eat at 1100 to lose, but a 5'10, 230+ individual needs a lot more.

2. Just as important as getting enough calories is getting enough nutrients. The lower your caloric intake, the more critical it is that every bite you put in your mouth is of a higher nutritional density. When I eat at 1200 I have only about 150 calories for "empty" things like dessert. Everything else must be highly nutritionally dense in order for me to get enough vitamins, minerals, fat/protein/carbs to be healthy. If the diet you posted *were* okay calorie wise, you would absolutely need to critically examine it to ensure it was giving you the nutrients you need. Toast, margarine, rice have very little nutritional value. On higher calorie diets that may be fine, as you eat other foods which supply those nutrients. But on so few calories a day, you end up with precious few calories left to "spend" on other foods. At some point it ends up being impossible to get all the nutrients, protein, etc you need in the few calories you have left.

I would reiterate what others have said about upping your calories. I'd also encourage you to consider "power foods"- nutritionally dense foods that deliver a lot of nutritional "punch." Pomegranates, pumpkin, eggs, kale, etc are all really great foods that have a lot of nutritional yield for their calorie content. There's a great thread on these in another 3FC Forum: http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/whol...oks-1-2-a.html

Good luck!

I was thinking of using the exchange plan calculations to total her diet up but I'm a little tired so using livestrong was easier. A half cup of cooked non-starchy veggies is around 25 calories anyway, give or take a couple of calories.
At least that was what I learned when I was using my Richard Simmons deal-a-meal exchange cards.

This is advice I use for the basis of my current diet.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX1cSgKUEGA

Oh god, I was just thinking the same thing as I scrolled down to this post.

No, we are not ganging up on you nor do we want to. We just want to see you get enough nutrition for yourself so you can lose weight in the healthiest way.