Well first of all, not all overweight people eat that badly. I would get plenty of veggies and such along with my "bad" foods before I started changing my life. There were certainly enough calories to fit in the bad and the good.

I also think there is a huge difference between a medically supervised and supplemented diet and when someone "wings" it. My overall goal is to be healthy and my secondary goal is to lose weight. Luckily, trying to be healthy can lead to weight loss. Super low calorie diets, if not done properly, can cause more harm than good especially if it results in muscle loss and thus an even further hindered metabolism.

I think most people do well at 1200 and above calories. There are rare occurrences when someone needs below that and if they do, I'd definitely advise them to talk to their doctor about any medical issues. I would also be concerned about their lack of muscle and would advise them to look into weight training.

Ok, I'm back from my walk.

Here is what I ate today. It's basically what I eat most days, although I usually do have some sort of fruit. I drink lots of water, too. Ok, here goes.

Breakfast: 1/2 cup oatmeal, prepared with milk, 1 tsp. sugar, milk on top of oatmeal, and a splash of milk in my tea. 275 calories total.

Lunch: 1 piece of wheat bread, one oz. lean turkey breast, two tsp. lite mayo and a small bag of "baked Doritos". 300 calories total.

Dinner: 3 oz. lean grilled flank steak, one tablespoon marinade on steak, half cup white rice, big salad with mixed greens, cucumber, tomato and one tablespoon light ranch dressing. Glass of chardonnay (six oz. glass) 580 calories total.

Total calories for the day was 1155, but lets just say 1200 in case I missed something.

I know it's boring, but I usually eat mostly the same type of thing each day...just seems easier to keep on track but if it's not working it's time to mix it up a bit.

I'm 5'6", and weigh 170 ~ just like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before, and the day before, and the day before, and the day before :D
I would like to get down to the 140-145 range.

Ok, so lets hear it! Be kind....and thanks to all of you! I do appreciate the support and help!

Actually I'm in biochemistry at university, and my teacher spent about three lectures telling us about "Low Calorie Diets". The hypothosis is that by restricting your calories (not by as much as you mentioned, they still usually eat over 1200.) for life you will live for longer. Nothing is proven though. There are too many other factors (genetics, environment...) to prove if eating a low calorie diet means you'll live a longer/healthier life. It also takes a lifetime to study these people, so you know the researcher would probably die first.

But what is proven is that a person needs to eat over 1200 calories to get all the nutrients they need to live healthy. That's not just protein and carbs and fats mind you, it's the micronutrients as well; the vitamins and minerals.

You don't want your body to starve, or you'll hold onto the fat.

But anyway RiverWatcher:
I have to ask. How much milk are you using (to cook your cereal ant on the cereal and in your tea)? Also is it 1/2 cup dry oatmeal or once it's cooked?
I know it's an odd question but depending on those factors your meal could easily be closer to 375 than 275.

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but Boobear asked what was so great about nutrition and said

I just wonder if all the benefits of nutrition are so easily manifest. For example, researchers are making lots of connections between consuming antioxidants and phytochemicals found in fruits, veggies and whole grains and lower rates of cancers and other diseases. I know that many of the studies are correlational and they don't know the causal mechanisms, but it seems it's possible that eating certain nutrients may help prevent getting more diseases later on. So, the benefits may not be so obvious.

And for those who take vitamins hoping to get those benefits, one of the interesting set of findings I've been following is that taking these nutrients and antioxidants out of food doesn't necessarily confer the same benefits. In a number of studies, people who take vitamins are more likely to develop diseases than those who don't.

Now, you shouldn't necessarily throw out the vitamins either, as this research seems to be in its early stages.

But I guess my point is that I don't know of any research which suggests that getting nutrients from our food is bad for us. I'd love to see if anyone knows of any research like that, because I am trying to become a better informed consumer.

Riverwatcher -- I don't have any magic pills for you. I'm sure you could make your food more nutritious, but then, I'm not sure that is really the main issue here.

I think if you really ARE eating whatever calorie range you think you are and are not losing, there are 2 options, eat a little less and/or move more (and at higher intensity). If you are interested in trying weight lifting, I know I have found it to be a great stress reducer and an amazing body shaper! I went through a period of a few months where I didn't lose a pound, but went down a size, and weight lifting seems to be the key.

Patience is also really really helpful in these situations.

Good luck!

I have to say...your menu looked *mostly* healthy. Except for a couple of things that jumped out at me. First of all, the Doritos. Even if they're "baked" Doritos, they're still probably not all that healthy. I guess you could say, they don't serve much nutritional purpose for you. I'd replace those with a piece of fruit or something - a baby apple, or a banana, or some grapes. Secondly, the white rice. White rice is...not the healthiest. At least not if you're having it on a regular basis. I suggest switching to brown (whole-grain) rice. Brown Basmati rice is SO GOOD, taste-wise, and it's much better for you (as far as glycemic spike and fiber and such goes). Then there's the wine - I have nothing against wine or any other kind of alcohol (gods know, I enjoy it enough! ;)) but it's basically empty calories. Are you having wine with dinner every night? It might be time to cut back to once or twice a week.

If you decide to add some calories into your diet - which might help to joggle your body into losing, since sometimes the body senses a "famine" coming on when you suddenly eat a lot fewer calories, and it holds onto every ounce of fat it can get its metaphorical hands on - I'd suggest going with fruits and veggies, also a source of some lean protein. One of my favorite snacks is whole-grain pretzels with cottage cheese; another is just a piece of fruit. Protein on one, healthy carbs and fiber on the other. Veggies are pretty much "free pass" to nosh on during the day, as well.

Good luck! Going so long with no loss can be demoralizing, but don't let it derail you!

Hi riverwatcher!
I am no expert, but I would make a few suggestions:
- Have 2 snacks. Have 3 meals and 2 snacks per day; snacks around 80 cals each. Try to space them about every 2-3 hours.

- "they" say that when you eat more than x number of calories at one sitting, it's way easier for your body to store the fat. Your supper looked like a lot higher calories than the rest of your meals. I would reduce the calories in your supper.

- Try eating your "big meal" at lunch. Then you have more time to work it off

- Don't eat starch or sugar at supper. Eat moderate starch for breakfast and lunch, but for supper eat lean protein and low-starch veggies.

I was always skeptical about the snacking, but since I have been doing this, I can feel my metaboilsm go way up. When I wake up in the morning, I am hungry! When I am late for a meal, my tummy starts rumbling! That means it burned off the other stuff! lol whereas before I would just want something deep fried, now the "voice" is gone.
Do a bit of tweaking, and hide the scale for a few weeks.
Good luck. I'm rooting for you!

"Plateau Girl" here!
 

Hi Riverwatcher!

I did EIGHT MONTHS at 210 last year and thought I'd LOSE MY MIND!!! THose who have been here awhile know my story on my scale that would NOT seem to m-o-v-e!!!!

I'm older than you. I'm 55, soon to be 56. I KNOW that aging definitely plays a part in slowing down weight loss.

Here are some other things to consider:

1) Have you been eating out? There are MANY hidden calories in restaurant food!

2) Are your carbs "good carbs?" (whole wheat breads, pastas, cereals) The body processes them slower due to the added fiber which raises your metabolism as it must work harder to digest the food, break it down, eliminate waste etc.

3) Are you getting enough fiber? Fiber really helps to act as a sponge to draw out fats and carry them away!

4) Are you drinking plenty of water? Water really helps EVERYTHING get moving in the body and eliminates toxins and added salt, too.

5) Have you been stressed out? This was MY personal biggie that made my body hold onto the weight! There are MANY studies that support the idea that stress DOES make you fat! My fat belly was the result of many more dalories than needed, BUT all the stress I was under for many years and ADDED stress last year really hurt my weight loss efforts!

6) You may need to change things up a bit with exercise. I'm a walker, BUT I found that after awhile even adding extra miles or walking an extra hour really wasn't burning enough calories for me. (I was also eating more calories than I thought I was!) I needed to add/replace my walking with other things. I now do Turbo Jam, yoga, Pilates, step aerobics, and most recently HipHopABs -LOTS of fun AND burn with that one! I vary my routine constantly and added an additional workout, too.

7) Weight loss for some is steady. Are you a person who may not lose at all for awhile then drop four pounds? That's what MY body does! Very weird!

8) Look for hidden calories. A bite of this, a taste of that CAN add up!


I hope that you will find out your body's agenda and will be able to figure out how to lose those pounds! As several have said, be sure to measure yourself, because you MAY indeed have lost inches without losing pounds. I do it all the time! It may sound impossible, but it's not!

Cheryl

hmm.. ive never heard about how eatting more calories in one sitting can store fat? Do you know the reasoning on that one?

BooBear-

What is so great about nutrition? How about a reduced risk of cancer, diabetes, healthier blood sugar levels, healthier cholesterol levels...a "fitter" body-because your body cannot build muscle on a diet that does not contain enough protein and nutrients for it to work with. Hmm...what else, better hair, better skin, slower aging from the antioxidants in the proper foods...the list goes on and on and on...

For me, getting to goal isn't just about getting "skinny". I want to be healthy and fit. I am a gestational diabetic, and at very high risk for diabetes-so if I eat 800 calories in crap, or 1200-1600 in healthy foods, it makes a GREAT deal of difference not only now in my weight loss efforts, but in how great my body ends up when I am at goal, AND in my future health. Nutrition makes a great deal of difference.

Also, not everyone who is overweight is overweight because they ate a diet of ho-ho's. I gain a lot of weight with every pregnancy due to my medical condition-and I did not eat one ho-ho. ;) I stuck with the diet I had to by my doctor, and exercised reguarly-up until I went into labor. As nelie said, some of us actually eat very healthy-we just either don't exercise enough, or we ate too large of portions. Not everyone is fat because they ate junk.

Also, physical signs of malnutrition such as bruising, and breaking/falling out hair are often effects seen after MONTHS of malnutrition-they don't happen after a week or two. Anorexics often have the warning sign of their menstrual cycles stopping...but this doesn't happen until they are at a dangerously low weight or body fat percentage.

Also-yes, there are some people on 800 calorie a day diets without symptoms of malnutrition-BUT they are monitored by doctors, as you stated. There are some programs such as Optifast that are 800 calorie a day-but the patients are under the supervision of a physician. They should not be done without one-because there are much worse things that can happen suddenly besides losing your hair.

To everyone else:

I don't see what the huge rush is with the comments that she may need to drop her calories. Yes, she may-but as Mel suggested, what about increasing the exercise as well? I don't see the rush to go from 1300-1400 a day to talking numbers like 800 and 1000 calories. That is a big jump-and I don't think at this point that it is warranted at this point. What about dropping the calories by 100 a day instead-and increasing the exercise? I would take the 25 minute walk to 30 minutes first-not much a day, but over the course of a week, if done daily, it would be like adding another whole walk. Then I would suggest a couple days a week adding in something to build some strength-such as weights or Pilates.

JMHO,
Aphil

This may be a somewhat odd question... but are you exactly 170 every time you've weighed yourself (no fluctuations)? Is your scale in good working condition?

Your eating plan sounded alright to me. What were you eating before you went on the plan? In other words, is that similar to how you were eating before? Or did you make big changes? You're not drinking in a whole lot of calories, are you? (soda, alcohol, juice, etc).

I'm just going to look at the calories in/calories out situation. Calories in, it looks like you're close, but when I run it in FitDay, I get a higher number by a couple hundred calories. If you NEVER eat any snacks and you NEVER have an extra glass of wine, I think you're still running about 1400.

Use a tracker of some kind. With FitDay you can enter food information right off the nutrition panel, and it also has tons of foods already loaded in. Same goes for the activity part of FitDay.

Activity--your walk, depending on how fast you go, uses up about 100 calories, maybe less. You also have your general everyday metabolic burn while sleeping, sitting, household activities, etc. How much that takes depends on age and weight. If you are a sedentary person (desk job) then let's say you burn 1800 calories just being alive. So, with walking added, 1900. 1900 minus 1400 should still be a deficit of 500 cals a day, and that should be a loss of 1 pound per week.

So, something is off in the assumptions. Maybe there is food not getting accounted for, or maybe your baseline metabolism is lower than the estimate. Can't really say.

Things I would try:

- Track your foods in FitDay. Ever single one of them every time.

- Use the planning tools in FitDay to figure out your weight goal.

- Increase your activity. I spend about an hour and a half on exercise a day, 6 days a week: 40 minutes walk in the morning, then 30 minutes on a machine in the afternoon (elliptical, stationary bike, treadmill--at the YMCA) plus some light weight training to keep my muscles. Or you could add a class like low-impact step aerobics if that appealed to you.

- Once you are tracking your foods, adjust if needed if you find that there are more calories than you thought. But I wouldn't go below 1200 for a lengthy period, as I said earlier. You may also need more calories, strange to say. Some folks have better results with a little more rather than less.

- Keep your main meals closer to 300 cals and add snacks mid-morning and mid-afternoon.

One thing worth noting is that you have not gained! At least there's that! Also, the body does have weight points at which it seems to be quite comfortable and happy, and it's hard to get off them. I've been at the same weight now for 2 weeks without a drop, and it's getting quite annoying...

Good luck! Don't give up! We are cheering for you!

Jay

Ready2ShedLBS, if we eat more calories than our bodies need to use immediately, then the extra is stored. This goes for individual meals as well as overall. So if I eat a 600 calorie meal, some of that is going to be stored. It may be stored as glycogen (a type of carbohydrate in muscle and in the liver) or it may be stored as fat. If I'm curbing calories overall, then it's temporary storage and will get used up later in the day when I have a calorie deficit.

The trouble with any type of planning is that our bodies are dynamic--they don't follow a straight line, and what's going on varies throughout any given day. It's an ongoing process, and it's better to watch what happens over weeks rather than over a couple of days.

Jay

Even if you're off by a few calories, you're still eating fairly virtuously and a lot less than the average American, so I would think you should be losing something, even 1/2 pound per week. How you were eating before you started eating this way is a good question.

I would think more in the long term and try to build up my muscular stature through weight lifting to increase my metabolism. In fact I have done that over the years and low and behold my resting metabolic rate test showed a "higher than normal" metabolism. Believe me I've always struggled with my weight so my metabolism definitely could not have been this way naturally, of that I'm pretty sure.

A comment about those people on super low-cal diets (I read the article too, plus another one in MacLean's) .... they don't just cut calories, but otherwise eat what they want. These people, the article emphasized, are VERY attentive to nutrition. It becomes a very exact science to them, to choose the most nutrient-dense foods available, because although they aim for a low weight, they recognize the importance of staying properly nourished. They eat mainly nutritional "superfoods", and don't waste a single calorie on foods that aren't nutritionally rich.

Riverwatcher - I would try upping the exercise, adding some more veggies and being patient. I dont believe you should lower your calories, in fact I would push for raising them occasionally.

I am going to add that I used to have a HORRID metabolism and borderline insulin resistance and when I started eating a diabetic/southbeach style diet my metabolism improved. But it didnt happen quickly. After about a year my insulin resistance went away and then my metabolism increased (just in time to get pg again!). So while yes, theoretically weight loss is calories in - calories out you can benefit yourself in the long run by doing things that are beneficial for your metabolism...i.e. exercise, weight training, good carbs, etc.

VLC diets--

The problem with the VLC diets are that your metabolism slows. It has to. Yes there are groups who eat that way and survive and have nutrition(but they are meticulous as janie says) But then you are committing to a LIFE of VLC. Your metabolism goes to pot. And if you do then have a "normal" or overeat day your body is truly confused. This goes beyond just weight gain. After an extended time on VLC the body produces less insulin, if you then EAT your body doesnt have the ability to process the food. Even non-diabetics can induce sugar shock this way. Personally I like the fact that one really bad christmas party is only a tiny weight gain, not a huge metabolic disaster.