i guess weight food/height ratio most change for everyone because i have to eat under 1400 cals to loose and im 5'10 to 5'11 so its an odd one that.

My dr put me on 1400 calories a day.I tend to eat near 1500 most days. I was at 300lbs when he told me 1400.He was careful to explain to eat healthy. He said dont blow your calories on empty foods.I have been dieting for 14 weeks and have lost an average if 2.85lbs per week. Some weeks will be 4lbs while the next week maybe nothing.

I have an old book on charm (from the 1950's.) The chapter on reducing recommends you eat 1500 calories of healthy food (which I think included white bread) and do these ridiculous exercises for spot reducing (like rolling on the floor.) It also had an extensive chapter on girdles.

I think that real nutritionists never recommended that people go that low, I think it was just the popular fad diets that did. Everything I've ever read (and I've read some old books) have never talked about a calorie number below 1200.

I can definitely remember the 70's and the diets my mom was on (and off! lol!). One thing she still gets a charge out of is (boasting?) that when yours truly was 3 months old (back in 1961), I was considered obese and the doctor put me on a skim milk diet. Now they say that if an infant doesn't get enough fat in its diet, the brain doesn't develop properly (which goes a looooong way to explain me and my idiosyncrasies!). I can't help but wonder if that lead to my lifelong weight issues - or at least exacerbated it? Who knows!

When I was bringing up my children, a fat baby was considered healthy--and in my opinion still should be fat--not roly poly obese, but fat. Both of my sons were fat babies and neither were overweight until they got in their 30s, married, got lazy, and had too many cook outs.. Now one has last his, and I think his brother found it all. lol

I had one of those little diet books back in the 70s that said that you should eat between 800 and 1200 calories a day, depending on your height (and they had a little chart). Then they had a list of "tips" and one of those was that if you didn't smoke, you should learn because smoking will give your hands and mouth something to do, decrease your appetite and won't hurt you!...

I remember one of the diets my mom was on had her eating a 1/2 an avocado with a dollop of mayo in the center.

I'm just cringing thinking about the fat and calories in that one.

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Thanks so much everyone for your posts, they're fascinating. I'm glad I wasn't imagining the 1000 calorie thing, though I take the point about the difference between fad diets and real nutritionists. The idea that it didn't matter what the 1000 calories actually consisted of also rings bells. I'm so glad I'm doing this now when we know so much more about eating differently for life and how to maintain weight loss, and I'm so glad I've found this site to help me I'd love to read more about people's memories and experiences of diets in the past, please keep posting them!

I had a dr. tell me I'd probably need to eat only 1000 calories to lose since I'm on prednisone AND short! That's just not much food....

Ann

yeah, some of us are from the era when you could "never be too rich or too thin". In some circles, you were considered less than ladylike (more horselike) if you actually ate food instead of smiling sweetly and moving it around your plate a little. This was also before eating disorders were identified - and when ephedra was still available OTC (by the 1000 if you ordered from an ad in the back of Cosmo). The people I hung out with thought a "real diet" was no more than 500 calories and you didn't go over 1000 to maintain. I'm amazed that more of us didn't keel over from malnutrition!

Hi, I just started a weight loss program here in Chile, Itīs really really good cause it involves a dr, nutricionists (which at least here are not drs), psichologist and gym. The dr ran all the tests and ordered the nutricionist to put me on a 1000 calorie diet. I mean, itīs all really serious and profesional and he prescribed me a 1000 calorie diet, what iīm trying to say is that maybe for some 1000 cals is a bit low, but for others (specially after a "calorimetria") is ok, the problem i think is when you start a diet with no medical support cause everyone needs a personalized diet, and what may be good for one person may be too low or too high for another.

I think the rationale has, until recently been that a person needed to eat as few calories as they could tolerate, in order to lose weight the fastest. If you were "really good" you could eat 500 - 800 calories. If you had to eat
more than 1200 calories, you were weak and lazy and worthless.

If someone were just starting out at running, we wouldn't start them with a marathon. Or start a first time hiker out on Mt Everest.

Whenever dealing with almost anything except weight loss, we expect people to start small and simple and work their way up to the more difficult, complicated components of the task. But with weight loss, we're supposed to start out at 1000 calories and a mile on the treadmill every day? And then we wonder why the failure rate for weight loss is so high.

Who would ever learn to play piano, if they had to start with Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano concerto, instead of Mary Had a Little Lamb?

I refuse to go that low ever again (at least for more then a random day)

I lost 50 doing 1000 a day low-fat about 8 years ago. Hello Gallstones. Hello every single pound returned to me +30.

I think 1000 calories is fine if you do it for the really short term...after that up it 100 at a time and see if you are still able to lose.

I started going to a weight loss clinic and I am on a 1000 calorie a day diet. I just finished my first month and have lost 16 lbs. Until this last week, I was fine, wasn't hungry. Now the cravings for my desserts are back. But this is a life change, and nothing comes without sacrifice. I don't have the willpower yet to have just a little to satisfy the sweet tooth so for now I will have none. I am taking an appetite suppressant to give me a fighting chance, have to shrink the stomach. So for now, I am a calorie counting loon. It is affecting the social life with my friends, but at least both me and my boyfriend are losing weight. He's benefitting from the fact that I actually cook dinner now, and I let him in on the actual calories of all the crap he likes to eat! Puts things in perspective!
I have a really slow metabolism so the 1000 calories is what I have to stick to until I become consistent with the gym to get it going, then I can have a little more. Have to find what works for the individual.


Dieting is hard. Maintenance is hard. Being fat is hard. Pick your hard.

This was a very interesting discussion...I remember back in the 80's, there were weight loss clinics that put you on a 600-700 calories a day diet, with nutritional supplements...this was a commercial venture...you paid them to starve you!

I am SO glad that more research is being done into this issue, and the medical community is beginning to understand that weight management is not a 'one size fits all' issue.

I personally don't recall the 1,000 calories a day issue. I was a military brat, and what I remember is the 5BX and XBX exercise booklets for men and women...any time she felt I had a few pounds too much on my frame, mom would drag 'em out and tell me to follow it. You know, jumping jacks and the like. Never mind that as a kid, I was as active as they come. You couldn't keep me pinned down!