Consuming 600-900 calories/day-is this wrong?

[charlygirl08 0]

Hi all!

I have been consuming between 600-900 calories per day. I had plataued after surgery for about 3 weeks, but last week I started consuming between 600-900 calories per day, and I'm still stuck. I've been exercising 5 times a week for 25-30 minutes since a week after surgery, so it's not like I'm not getting in exercise. I have a desk job, and I don't move around a lot, so that's why I exercise 5 times a week.

Anyone else consuming around this many calories? I've heard from many people that I'm putting my body into starvation mode, but how can this be, when an average lap-bandster can only eat so much before getting full, thus lowering the calorie intake. SOME ADVISE PLEASE!

[Daisalana 33]

My advise, throw in 1-2 days a week where you eat 1500 calories.

Your body will adjust to eating so few calories, so if you're having a plateau, in my experience, mixing it up with the calories keeps me from stalling.

I eat about 900 calories a day, and a couple days a week I go up to 1,600.

If you can't eat that much, I have it in an indulgence (600 calorie shake! ho hum)

[kaninag 35]

The body goes into starvation mode typically around 900 calories. Even if thats all youre eating your body will hold onto every single calorie the best it can- even at the expense of organs!! My advice see a nutritionist and find a healthy balance. You need exercise, adequate caloric intake and lots of fluids!

[butterball 0]

Truly, I think "starvation mode" is a myth. Google it and read what nutritionists have to say about it. My normal intake is betwee 700-800 calories per day; however, I do throw at least one high calorie (1200-1500) day in per week.

[kaninag 35]

Ok, so I googled it and this is what I found.....

"starvation mode" is a not-completely understood mechanism that evolved for humans over the 3 million years we've been (pretty much) humans. There were many, many long periods of time that there was almost no food available. During those times, it was crucial that our bodies be able to retain sufficient fat for survival--especially for the women, who needed to be able to hang on to well over 100,000 calories' worth of fat to make it through a pregnancy. Without pregnancy, the species dies off...so the fat-saving mechanisms evolved, and evolved better in women than in men, though they exist in both sexes. (Scientists refer to "the thrifty gene" in explaining this, but I've never come across an actual site for a particular gene that does this--analysis of the human genome project is far from complete)

There are, in addition to sexual differences, some racial/ethnic differences too--some of us have inherited a better "fat saving" mechanism than others. Realize that historically, body fat only got unpopular in the last century, and it still isn't considered ugly in most places on the planet. Our bodies do not know about Kate Moss--they know about survival, and they'll do anything to survive, including dramatically shifting the way we process energy.

In researches I did on Medline and elsewhere this winter, what I saw was that if you slip under about 1300 calories per day intake, you trigger the starvation effect. The most crucial change that results is that your basal metabolic rate (BMR--how many calories you'd burn if you didn't do anything in a given day) slows. If you stay under 1300 for a longer time, the likelihood of BMR recovery lessens. So a person with the flu, eating little for three days, will rebound and have a normal metabolism. If you eat a 800-calorie-per-day diet for a year, though, your BMR is permanently lowered. (again, degree of recovery may depend on genetic factors and gender--not enough clear data on this)

So what, you might ask. Well, if you eat 800 calories a day, and your BMR keeps falling to equal that, you can never go off your diet! Or, rather, you can, but you'll put on weight eating 1200 calories a day. (this has happened to me, and I promise you, it's darned frustrating.)

Further, when you drop your calories, you start burning off lean body mass, as your body cannibalizes itself to survive. This means burning off not only muscle, but heart tissue, liver tissue--not good news. (Heart disease rates among lifelong dieters, or even those rare folks who lost a lot once and kept it off, are much higher than for those who just stayed fat and never dieted--and this LBM cannibalizing may be the explanation)

Lowered caloric intake also carries a number of interesting behavioral/psychological changes, in both the overweight and normal weight. Depression, fighting, suicide, murder, all sorts of bizarre behaviors result from chronic underfeeding.

The desire to eat more after a long period of eating lowered calories is normal. It's not weak will; it's a survival strategy. Called "refeeding," it occurs for both the slender who have been starved and the overweight. Will power can resist the urge for awhile...but not forever. Like holding your breath, no one but the rare true anorectic can do this until death. Our bodies are smarter than us in this--they'll keep us alive.

On this board, we say "eat 10X your own body weight," but I don't know where that figure came from. I have no figure to offer instead, other than a minimum caloric intake of 1350 to avoid lowering of BMR. Alternatively, go to fitday.com, enter your occupation, and see what caloric figure it comes up with for your basal metabolic rate (look under activities, and it'll give you a pie chart of basal/lifestyle/activities). To avoid lowering your BMR, eat at least that much. To optimize your loss rate, don't eat a whole lot over it.

*most articles that I found were similar to this one. Hope this helps.

From experience I can say that lowering calories works but you need to balance it. Good luck!

[Jachut 487]

Oh boy, we've had so many heated debates on this.

I think its wrong. But I realise that that's just my opinion and I cant argue with what your body wants to do. If you dont lose on more than that, then that's what you have to do. If it were me I'd worry about becoming malnourished and suffering osteoporosis because unless you're a perfect eater you're going to suffer nutritionally on that few calories, and there's very little credible scientific evidence proving irrefutably that high Protein = perfect nutrition.

Easy for me to say though, I lost well on nearly double that.

[wombat712 2]

I eat between 600 - 800 calories on the average day. Every now and then it will be 800-1000.

I track my nutrients on fitday software. I take a good Vitamin that gives me most of the Vitamins and minerals that I need every day. On top of that I also take a Calcium chewable supplement.

When I'm on the low end (600-700) then I am generally weak or lightheaded if I move to fast. I'm usually closer to the 800 except right after a fill.

wombat

[stinaNYC 0]

I brought the issue of caloric intake up with my doctor and explained to him that I was concerned that I was plateauing for so long (like 8 months) with the substantial restriction I had (I was at 2.0 in a 4.0 cc band, which is a lot for me). I told him I thought that maybe I needed to eat more so that my body would get out of starvation mode.

His answer suprised me completely. Those studies and guidelines on the Basal Metabolic Rate really don't apply to people like us...the extremely overweight and morbidly obese. Our bodies' physiology when it comes to fuel consumption, storage and usage are different than those of "normal" people...the ones on whom these studies are conducted.

He put it bluntly...the obese use fuel differently, and all those guidelines are bunk for us. Occasionally bumping up caloric intake a little bit may help, but at the end of the day, if you're gaining weight, you need more restriction to eat fewer calories.

Which actually makes sense, if you think about it. Haven't we all heard how much easier it is to lose weight quickly when we're larger/heavier...how the last 20-30 lbs are always the toughest? That's because our bodies simply don't need all the calories we put into them...that's why we're fat! When we restrict calories as larger people, it's forced to use the stored fuel as energy, making us weigh less.

If our bodies, which don't need that much fuel, are stalling out on weight loss, it's probably because we've reached some sort of equilibrium bewteen the calories we put in and the stored fuel remaining in our bodies. Bumping up the calories over the long haul will make us store that excess again. Restricting calories will set us on that downward path we want...just as it did in the beginning of our band journey.

And if you think about some more...that sorta makes us more efficient "machines", right? We're like a car that burns less fuel to run!

Sorry for the rant. This stuff just facinates me.

(BTW, I agreed to more restriction after an 8 month stall and subsequent 10 lbs gain. .8 ccs and one week later, I'm down 11 lbs. Guess my doc was right!)

[Jachut 487]

It does make a lot of sense, I agree. I mean, why do some people gain weight so easily? There's got to be loads of obese people out there (like my DH) that seriously dont eat THAT much food. I mean yes, he overeats for him, but he would literally eat half what any other 6ft 1, 260lb man would. He eats 3 meals a day, never Snacks, moderate alcohol intake (like a beer or two twice a week and a couple of glasses of wine a week) and he exercises too and yet he cant control his weight. Comes from sitting at a desk 10 hours a day no doubt.

Some people simply have to go that low to lose. I worry seriously that people eating that little are malnourished and would argue seriously that its not necessary for most people, but when it is, you've got no real choice have you?

I dont really believe in starvation mode personally. And I'd rather run for 3 hours every day than try to live on 800 calories, lol, I like my food too much to tolerate that.

[charlygirl08 0]

Stina,

Thanks so much for sharing!! It's very enlightening to know that what I'm saying makes sense!! Thanks so much!!