OK - TDP has me consuming about 1700 calories per day to lose 2 pounds per week. After playing around on their calculator I discovered that they see 500 calories per day to equal 1 pound per week. After tracking my calories on their website for over two weeks I have discovered that their 1700 calories maintains my current weight quite nicely. Since I was doing 1700 calories (ish - menu at 1300 allowing a 400 calorie buffer) on the Glucerna diet - and also maintainig my weight I have figured that my MAINTENANCE calorie level is 1700. So - using a 500 calorie per day/per pound I would have to eat 700 calories per day to lose 2 pounds per week (about 1% of my total weight which is what healthy diets are supposed to do). That would be one cup of coffee, a piece of dry toast, a bowl of soup, a banana, a small (undressed) salad (which would aggrivate my gut - maybe I should have steamed veggies) and a 300 calorie dinner. That is it. (Actually, that takes me over the daily allowance of 700 calories.) For variety I can have an egg for breakfast instead, I could skip the coffee and have 1/2 a pat of butter on my toast, I can switch the fruit to an orange or apple or whatever - which would leave a few calories to spare for a cup of coffee.
I don't think I can do this. I REALLY don't think I can do this for more than a week. Maybe I will do it for Lent. Maybe if I get into a habit I can actually stick with it. I don't know if I would be able to exercise on this amount of calories. Maybe a slow stroll on the treadmill. I am wildly curious though. I would like to know if at 700 calories I would lose weight. I think I will try it. I don't know when - maybe the first week of January (after all the junk of the holidays is gone...).
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TDP has me at 1200 to lose a pound and a half a week. Even with exercise, eating 1200 calories a day (or slightly less) my weight loss has slowed down to a crawl -- more like a half pound a week, in sudden jumps down and up. But 1200 calories is totally doable. I've been eating at that level since mid-October, with only a handful of days that went significantly over (more than 200 calories over). For the first week I did fine. The next two or three weeks were horrible. But I got past them and I'm used to it now. To really lose weight, it's depressing and frustrating and tedious, but that's what it takes. I seldom have a drink, I haven't had any of the fancy Starbucks drinks in 2+ months, and I haven't had more than a taste of any fun desserts. I told Daniel that in the unlikely event that I see 130 I'll have a piece of cheesecake. But calorie restriction CAN be done. It's just a case of how much it means to you -- is it worth it to look better, to feel better, to have clothes fit better, to have a healthier heart and more energy? And can you remind yourself of that every time you think about eating?
The hunger does mostly go away and eventually all the questions become just a general sense of nagging guilt whenever you eat anything that's not a pre-set meal! I haven't been paying very close attention to nutrition, but I have gravitated toward more filling foods -- I eat plain Cheerios a lot for breakfast instead of some of the sweeter cereals because I can get a full cup for only 100 calories, for example. And I keep clementines on the counter because one of those is only half of a mini-sized chocolate or a package of skittles, for a lot more nutrition and more fullness. I DO still eat the candy but at the cost of other healthy foods, I fear! But to lose weight it has been the calorie intake number and that alone that I've paid attention to. I figure I'm not likely to die of malnutrition for a few months of eating less food, despite a slightly imbalanced diet.
I have to add that all this would be impossible for me were it not for the fact that Daniel is also eating calorie-restricted, so we talk food numbers over every meal. I think you'll have to corner Katie and bore her to death with calorie counts to make this work!
OK - You have 1200 to lose a pound and a half a week, and you weigh 85 pounds less than me. I would only be able to consume just slightly more than HALF of what you are doing now. I would barely be able to function for the day on that. I wasn't making up the list of foods. One cup of coffee (15 calories), 1 piece of dry toast (85 calories), 1 cup of (oh! VEGETARIAN)soup (150 calories), 3oz of PLAIN lettuce (15 calories), 1 banana (120 calories) and 300 calories for dinner (a grilled chicken salad is 341 calories!).
I agree with you - 1200 calories IS totally doable. I have done (frequently) 1200 calories. But 500 calories IS more than another meal (two meals or more based on the 700 calorie diet plan). Plain Cheerios is 100 calories (without milk). That is already 15 calories more than what I was allowing myself for breakfast. A hardboiled egg is 70 calories.
But - as you discovered, the days that you ate more you lost weight. That is actually the way your body is supposed to work. Eating more - theoretically - jump starts your metabolism, so you burn more calories. The less you eat the more you slow your body down (which is why you feel more tired when you don't eat enough. Calories are energy (as the British name it). Eating as little as 700 calories on a sustained basis is, essentially, starvation mode.
I am not concerned with feeling hungry. Actually, I take hunger as a GOOD sign in me. I rarely FEEL hungry - which is another indication that my metabolism is NOT working - and is why it is so easy for me to go all day at work without eating.
Cornering Katie only does so much. Katie and I only see each other morning and night. We have started eating breakfast in the morning - but mostly because Katie makes it. On the days she doesn't have school I don't eat breakfast (again - BAD habit). I really think Katie would strongly object if I suddenly started making her eat 300 calorie dinners.
This is all just assuming that reducing my calories would actually have an impact on my weight. I don't think it will. Fat Flush (a diet Katie and I both like) is 1200 calories for the first two weeks (increases to 1400-1500 for phase 2 and then to 1800 for maintenance) and I DON'T lose weight on that. I was doing 900 calories per day for the period leading up to the cruise a few years ago - and I did lose weight, for a week, but I came home from work and slept every day because I had no energy. Personally, I would rather be interesting (and interested) than skinny!!
My NORMAL habit is that I lose weight for 10 days then plateau. I don't think I could do 700-900 calories for a full two weeks just to test the theory - but if you are game - so am I. Do you want to try it? Drop another 500 calories per day?
I agree that 700 calories per day isn't really do-able--you'd most likely be exhausted and cranky. But 1200 calories a day is easily do-able long term without any negative effects, and if you combine that with a good 300 - 400 calorie workout each day, you come close to 700 net calories. That's essentially what I was doing when I was consistently losing a pound or two a week and it really wasn't that bad. If you're concerned about your metabolism slowing down to accommodate the lower calories (which it does), the exercise helps counteract that, and every week or so you throw in a day where you eat 1500 calories. Pretty much the "Body for Life" approach.
The 700 level is unhealthy, so that's why I addressed the 1200 level, which would still be a loss of a pound a week by your (very reasonable) calculations. If that's the rate at which your loss occurs, then so be it -- it's more fun to see it go quickly but any steady loss is worth it. But that 1200 would have to have no buffer -- you eat 1200 and that's it. If you think you need a buffer, then aim for 1000 and don't let incidental calories exceed 200. And I meant that as gross calories, not net -- eat 1200 and aim to burn as many as possible, as Sarah said, and you could see the 700 net level on a regular basis.
I'm not giving myself any incidental calories right now -- I count it when I eat a couple of bites of the kids' macaroni or when I have a peppermint on the way to choir. It's only 20 calories for the peppermint but those 20s add up quickly.
I didn't find I lost more when I ate more -- I just knew it was bad for my health to eat less than 1200, because I was tired and probably burning muscle. At 1200 I am losing less, as I said -- at best a half pound or so a week. But it is still vaguely going down and not up, so I'm putting up with that. Now that I am weighing less and in better shape I am burning calories at a lower rate -- I have less of me to haul around and I'm getting more efficient at exercise, I suspect. So that also accounts for the slowing I've seen in my weight loss.
Well, that was an interesting conversation!
But the only problem is I DON'T lose weight on 1200 calories. Pretty much all of the freaky diets I do are 1200 calories - and I can totally do them - but I don't lose weight. The only time I DID lose weight was when I was doing 900 calories - and exercising daily - and slept all of the time... Wait, didn't I already say that? But - that was for a limited time (before the cruise) and so I don't know if I COULD sustain that - or if the weight loss would continue. In my experience weight loss doesn't last beyond day 10.
But you said you maintain at 1700 calories, not 1200. If you expect to lose two pounds a week at 700 calories, you would lose one pound a week at 1200. If you really don't lose weight at 1200, then you should be *gaining* weight at 1700 -- but we've been seeing you maintain at that level. I suspect if you actually counted every single calorie, rather than following a 1200-calorie diet "plan" (which I've found can vary WIDELY from an actual 1200 calories) that you WOULD lose a pound a week at 1200. But if you're losing a pound a week, it's also not going to look like more than fluctuations until at least a month has passed.
I really, really think you need to commit to at least two months at 1200 calories -- that's 1200 actual calories, counted as scrupulously as possible, no "I was very good *except*" -- because any "except" over 1200 means you're NOT eating just 1200. It has to be an absolute hard line. And it has to go on for months, even if you think you're plateauing. No trips to restaurants unless you know *exactly* how many calories you're getting, no drinks out, etc. And tons of hard, hard exercise, sustained for 30+ minutes every day, and if you can't commit to 30 minutes every day then you need to be able to find an hour on the on days.
I know you have a harder time losing weight than Sarah and I do. I know your body is different and always has been. So I don't expect you to see the same exact patterns we see. But when we started this two years ago, you did lose weight, because you cut back, you exercised, and you stuck with it. That's what you need to recapture. And I think a hard and fast calorie line is necessary for that.
Ridiculous to be debating this three days before Christmas, when we all know all diets will be laid to rest for at least a day or two! ;-)
The thing is that I seem to maintain at any calorie level I do. 1200, 1500, 1700, 2000, etc. Maintaining at this current level has not involved me making any changes to my diet. What I am eating now was exactly what I was eating before I started tracking on TDP. The diet "plan" I was following was a 1300 calorie plan - allowing for a 400 calorie buffer (based on what my nutritionist told me to do). I have been "maintaining" since we (meaning you and everyone else joining me in dieting) started two years ago. I, in fact have been doing this for much longer than two years. I was doing the Glucerna plan with Katie as far back as 2003. We had done the Fat Flush a couple of times too. My initial loss two years ago was exactly like any other loss I experience when I switch diet programs - very short lived. I loss 10 pounds on Atkins too - initially. If I hadn't quit smoking last year I would still probably be at the 215 that I was all along.
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