Cutting Calories

WOW it's been 6 months since we've touched on this message. Thanks to everyone who shared their helpful advice. I know it's not the best way to lose weight, cutting calories isn't going to stable the metabolism. I haven't done this in months.
I am eating, not tracking, but I'm not seeing weight loss...boo.
Oh well, I feel good.

Quote from you: "But I am still tired all the time."
Yes--two reasons:
1) You are a Mother--all good mothers have children to keep up with, along with everything else that Life offers--and are frequently tired. ***Nothing-to-do-with-your-weight*** so don't think rapid weight loss is the answer to being tired!!

2) At 750 calories, You are not fueling yourself enough to meet your needed energy for #1.

Take care of yourself!!
patti

Other than your body resorting to eating your own muscle in order to survive, I'd also like to mention that as you sustain a 750 calorie diet (which isn't sustainable for the long-haul, btw), your metabolism adjusts to that tiny amount of calories and slows down all your metabolic functions. When you add more calories back in, your system will continue to run slowly and you're going to gain weight because your body isn't used to you actually feeding it.

In short, if you give your body 750 calories per day for a while, it will learn to live off 750 calories a day. It will slow your metabolism to that of a snail, then you will gain weight when you up your calories to a reasonable amount again.

You may be losing the weight, but there is something else you will also be losing ...... your HEALTH! You may not realize now, but a bit further down the track you will, when you discover you have brittle bones, or there is some organ damage, or other serious issues.

Because your belly seems to be what is bothering you more than other issues, I wonder if it is more toning exercises that you need. Things like Mat Pilates are VERY good for that!!l

I DO urge you to review your eating strategies and please see the help of a Registered Dietitian to ensure that you do this safely!

Kris

You're damaging your health. You're also damaging your children.

Scary and offensive? I hope so. You need a little shock treatment, because I'm sure if you stop to think about it, your babies are a lot more important than your belly.

Two-year-olds are *intensely* aware of what Mommy eats. RIGHT NOW, and again when they're about nine to eleven, are the two moments in their life when they most closely model themselves after you. If you are starving yourself to lose weight, they are going to think that is what is right, and they'll develop a risk for eating disorders and hating their bodies. When they're 9 to 11, it's worse for girls, but as toddlers, both genders watch Mommy more than Daddy. Having a dieting mother is what creates picky eaters, anorexic tweens, and even sometimes obese kids.

Is the way you are eating right now the way you want your children to eat as they grow up? Because it's going to be. You can't "un-teach" what they see; they're not old enough to understand what you say anywhere near as well as they understand what you do.

If you want them to eat healthy amounts of healthy foods, you have to do that yourself. They have to see it, or they will never do it.

And the good thing is that if you think of every day and every bite as an example for your kids, you almost certainly will lose weight, though it will be slow. By the time they start school, they won't be paying much attention to you any more, so if you still have belly left you can try something more drastic then-- but if you've been role modeling, you'll probably be in the best shape of your life by then.

Remember-- NOW is when you're really "eating for three."

Thanks for the words of wisdom and expertise.
I wanted to just share with other moms like me who haven't lost the baby weight yet...and are hoping to lose.
Because after two years of being healthy, I still have my belly.
I am jogging a lot more now days and feeling less winded. But I am still tired all the time.
Cutting the calories is the only way I am seeing the weight loss.

Special K diet works for me as far as cutting calories, I just make sure I get a high protein meal, and lots of veggies, fruit n water...

How do you track? Are you very careful about measuring (preferably by weight rather than volume) or do you "eyeball it?" Do you track everything or are there some things you leave out, thinking they don't make much of a difference? It's possible that when you think you are eating 1500 calories, you're actually eating more.

If you know your tracking is precise, going from 1500 calories/day to 750 calories/day is a pretty huge jump. I'm not sure how physically active you are, but I assume you're pretty active with a set of twin toddlers (congrats, by the way). If you're not getting results at 1500, you can *probably* safely go a little lower than that as long as what you're eating is generally well-rounded and nutritious, but half that is plain dangerous. You're probably best off if you talk to a doctor about *how* low you can safely go, but the range between 750 and 1500 is pretty big.

Some perspective: a sedentary *two-year-old* needs around 1000 calories per day; an active one may need 1400 calories per day. Yes, they are growing and growth takes a lot of energy, but remember how small they are (on average only around 30 pounds, or a bit less).

More perspective: prisoners of Auschwitz received 1300-1700 calories per day at the beginning of the war, depending upon the energy required by the work they were forced to perform, and closer to 500 calories toward the end of the war.

750 calories a day for an extended period will, more than likely, backfire on you eventually. Maybe you'll be skinny when you finally experience the effects of prolonged micro- or macronutrient deficiency, but the effects won't be pretty. A slender woman with less muscle than her equally slender peers, or with a damaged metabolism from extended starvation, will burn less calories at rest and won't be able to eat as much. A slender woman with her teeth falling out still has her teeth falling out. A slender woman with a weakened heart can still die.

I don't meet my required calorie range some days, and when I do meet it, often I am at the low end of the range. But sometimes I'm at the high end of the range, or even higher. Overall, it's averages and patterns that make a difference. And particularly when your intake is low, *what* you eat is as important as how *much* you eat.

Even a very small, sedentary woman needs over 1000 calories per day (SP puts the number at 1200 calories) *if her food choices are perfect,* just to get the proper amounts of vitamins, minerals and macronutrients to keep her body functioning properly. If you're *not* sedentary, *not* very small, *not* eating a perfectly balanced diet (like most of us), *and* eating almost 500 calories less than the bare minimum set for such a woman *every day,* there is no way your body is receiving the fuel it needs to keep you healthy.

Of course, there are exceptions here and there when you suffer from a particular medical need, but almost everyone can and will *eventually* lose the weight if they follow the guidelines, and they won't be malnourished that way. And maybe you'd be lucky and not experience any of those problems, but why take that risk when you can get safe results with just a little more time and patience? Going a *little* low with your intake isn't likely to hurt you significantly (if at all), as long as you've cleared your totals with a doctor. But 750 calories per day for a prolonged period is not "a little low."

Believe me, I've been there. I dealt with a restrictive eating disorder for years. Two years ago, after I'd recovered, I had my first child; I gained a *lot* during my pregnancy, and it was very, very hard not to slip back into old habits when I started trying to lose the pregnancy weight. It can be discouraging to see the scale drop slowly when you are eating the way you should, especially knowing that cutting more calories will seem to show results more quickly (even if the weight lost will include a lot of muscle and bone, too). But those of us with young kids really need to make sure that we provide ourselves with proper energy and nutrition, not just to keep us safe so we can be there for our kids, but to set a good example for them so they will do the same.

Slow and steady wins the race, and doesn't keel over with a heart attack at the finish line.

Edited by: BITTERQUILL at: 6/13/2013 (20:04)

There's a good difference between "weight loss" and "fat loss". The less you eat, the more your body will turn to lean muscle and tissue for energy over fat.

I know you're excited to see those pounds drop, as any one of us would be... but eating too little for your body's needs is going to leave you with a high body fat % at a low weight (ie: skinny fat).

If you want to be happy and healthy at your goal weight, I suggest you eat more and strength train.

The more I feed my body the energy it requires and healthy nutrients, the more I challenge my body, the better I look and feel. Calorie deficits are hard enough on your body, health and mind without going to extreme deficits. We are essentially starving ourselves to lose weight in the first place. They also cause our metabolism to slow and you're going to want to do everything in your power to minimalize that. That means not creating too large of a deficit, giving your body a break once in awhile and eating at maintenance, strength training to build muscle and staying active.

Do you mean you went from around 1500/day to half of that? If so, of course you are going to loose weight at first and that's because you're eating so few calories. However, that is not a good way to go about it. Look at what you are eating instead of just the caloric numbers and it'll make a difference.

I went to take a peek at your Nutrition Tracker, but you're not using it. I assume you track your calories somewhere else.

1200 a day is the bare minimum for a small, sedentary woman-- it's not just about calories, it's also about nutrition. Getting the carbs, fat, protein plus all the vitamins & minerals etc that your body needs every day. 1200 is the minimum, to be eating a well-balanced diet that provides what your body needs. If you're tall, exercising/ active on top of that, your body needs more.

If you do not eat enough, your body will cannibilize itself, to get what it needs. You will not be losing just fat; you will be losing muscle and tissue, including organ tissue. It will suck the calcium out of your bones, for example, if you're not ingesting enough calcium.

That's why people on very low calorie diets are medically supervised; it can be very dangerous to be eating 1/2 of 1500-- as you stated in your post.

When you say "a lot of unwanted calories"-- what do you mean? The calories in fruit and vegetables? The calories in whole grains? The calories in lowfat dairy? Are you meeting your daily requirements for carbs, fat, protein, etc etc?

I know there is a lot of positive advice here about keeping your calorie intake to 1500/day.
But I've been consuming a lot of unwanted calories to reach this number and it's not helping. I recently started to cut my cal. in half and i'm seeing weightloss.
i'm happy because my twins are almost 2 and i'm finally losing the baby weight!