[SPARTAN_girl]

was when i ate one sma11 mea1 a day...i prpbab1y consumed about 700-800 ca1ories a day and dropped 40 pounds in about 6 or 7 months...



my dr. was not p1eased and to1d me to eat at 1east 1200-1400 ca1ories..and i've gained 7 1bs in the 1ast year i've been doing that...


i have about 30-35 pounds i want to 1ose, and im tempted to go back to my one mea1 a day

[hefty1]

sparten would be eating three balanced meals a day. glen

[Jennifer 3FC]

Spartan girl, what ever you do, don't go back to the one meal a day. That will destroy your metabolism and make it even harder for you to lose weight, OR maintain it when you get there. Your body will hold onto all of those calories because it is afraid of starving with so long between meals. Stick with the 1200-1400 calories a day like your doctor suggested.

Are you tracking your calories, every single bite? Try getting an account at www.fitday.com . You might be eating more than you think. I was just reading today that the reason most diets don't work is because people underestimate how much they eat and overestimate how much activity they get.

Have you tried alternate food combinations? Some people do better with low fat, some with low carb and some low glycemic. Look around our message board, there are a lot of options available to you.

How much do you exercise? Have you tried lifting weights? More muscle takes more calories to sustain. You can burn more calories per day by having more muscle weight.

Hope these helped. Above all, if you are gaining weight and you know you are eating the right calories and exercising, please go see your doctor.

PS- If you want to post here what you eat, maybe we can offer suggestions.

[funniegrrl]

As others said, you may be eating more than you think, so journaling or using Fitday would be an important exercise for you to do.

The other thing is that eating so few calories will crash your metabolism. So will eating only once per day. So, you did a double-whammy on yourself. It can take time and some work and strategy to bring your metabolism back up to where it needs to be. But, it can be done, and once that happens you can start to lose weight again.

You might want to have your metabolism measured. Go to the website for the company called Heathetech; there is a locator on that site that can tell you what facilities in your area offer the test. If that's not possible, then go to the website Room42 and use the calculator there to ESTIMATE how many calories your body would need if your metabolism were normal. It will give you a couple of numbers: Your basal metabolic rate, which is how many calories you would need just to live if you slept 24 hours per day, and your active metabolic rate, which is how many calories you need to do all the things you do.

What I would do is use that active metabolic number and GRADUALLY increase your calories over a period of several weeks until you get to that amount. You may gain weight during this period; that's OK, try not to panic. In the meantime, start a moderate strength training program to build back muscle that you lost while you were crash dieting. When your body feels that it's not going to starve, your metabolism will rev back up. When your weight stabilizes, that would be a signal that you can start to reduce calories and/or increase activity to start losing fat. The ideal is to cut 250 calories from your active metabolic number from food, and burn another 250 through exercise, so this would be the time to start adding cardio as well.

Another important trick to sustaing/increasing metabolism is to eat frequently. If your body goes for more than 3 or 4 hours without food, it starts to slow down to preserve energy. So, if you keep a little food coming every few hours, it relaxes and burns at full speed. So be SURE to eat breakfast, even if it's just a glass of milk & a piece of fruit, and eat at least something small like a yogurt or fruit every so often.

If a strategy like this doesn't work, you may want to visit a dietitian who specializes in metabolic problems.

[JayEll]

It is possible to lose weight and eat FIVE times a day! And it's much better for your metabolism than eating just one meal. You can starve your body and make it drop pounds, but you may be losing muscle mass and even bone. Slow and steady is the way to go. Don't worry about the 7 pounds, just follow your plan.