I found out a few weeks ago that I have high blood pressure. In addition to medication, I need to start dieting and exercising more. No problem there; I should be doing that anyway, and it actually feels good. I’m not morbidly obese by any stretch of the definition, but I could stand to lose about 30-35 pounds or so.
So, I’ve been on a diet for about two and a half weeks now. No special diet; just eating better and less fat. Lots of fruits and vegetables. So far, so good. I’ve lost about 10 pounds. Which is a little more than the recommended healthy guideline of “2 pounds per week”, but not too much that I’m concerned about that.
What really has me… well, not so much concerned, but just wondering… is the amount of calories I’m consuming per day. I’ve been keeping careful track (via the iPhone App “Lose It”, by the way… I recommend it), and my daily average is far below the recommended minimum daily calorie intake for males of 1,500 per day. I’d say I’m averaging about 1,000 per day. Some days more, some days even less, but that’s about the average.
Here’s the thing: I don’t feel like I’m intentionally starving myself. I have healthy snacks like fruit, and if I’m hungry, I eat something. My energy doesn’t feel particularly low; I’m going for 2-3 mile walks every day and feel great.
So, am I doing harm to myself? Should I force myself to eat, even though I feel satisfied?
EDIT: On review, I hope this doesn’t count as asking for medical advice. That’s not how I mean it; I just want to know the science behind it. If it is considered asking for medical advice and needs to be closed, I understand.
Your body gains the additional calaories it needs by burning up some of the stored energy (i.e., “fat”) that it has. That’s what the point of ‘dieting’ is.
Too limited an intake or calories, o extended too long, or a limit on needed vitamins & minerals will have side effects, of course. But in normal dieting, no problems.
Remember that the recommended intake is what’s necessary for an average-sized, healthy male to stay the same weight. You want to lose weight, so you need to put yourself in an energy deficit. Your body makes up the deficit by burning fat. Keep in mind that while your body can provide energy by burning fat, you still need nutrients from food. So make sure you’re getting a good balance with your meals.
As your body gets smaller, it uses less energy, and eventually you reach a new state of homeostasis. (Or you start eating more and get fat again.)
If you are not very active, you may not need very many calories. That may have something to do with it. Also, the 10 lb loss in the first week may just be due to your digestive tract not being as full as it normally is. Your weight loss will probably slow in the next week.
The biggest problem with losing weight too fast is that you will lose lean mass, which is the reason for the 2 lb/week guideline. To combat this, take up weightlifting. If you keep your calories restricted, you won’t bulk up, but you will stave off muscle wasting. Exercise also increases appetite, so you may naturally find yourself eating more. This is fine, just keep it healthy.
If you go under the minimum allowance, it gets hard to meet all your nutritional requirements. 1,000 calories a day is not many. But considering that you feel well, I wonder if there is a mistake in that number. Maybe the app has some wrong values, or is doing something unexpected, or maybe your kitchen scales aren’t accurate.
Remember you need a minimum of 15g of polyunstaurated fats, and watch your vitamins and minerals, especially iron, zinc and magnesium.
(IANADoctor, or dietitian, or in any way qualified to give nutritional advice)
May I ask how old, tall, heavy, and active you are?
I’m using the same app (agreed, it’s great) and I’ve calculated my BMR, adjusted it to my activity level, and then adjusted it further so that I lose 1.5 pounds per week. Right now I’m 5’4", 154 pounds, and my intake is set at 1280 calories. This is just enough to keep me satisfied and my weight loss is right on track. I also walk about 2 miles a day.
If you’re smaller than me, I can see 1000 being acceptable, and of course I don’t think you should force yourself to eat. If you’re eating a balanced diet and feeling satisfied, that’s good.
Still, 1000 calories sounds low to me, especially for a guy. I think you should consult your doctor to make sure this and your food choices are ok.
Back in the stone age, we learned that if you don’t eat enough protein to maintain your muscle mass or gain muscle if you’re working out to that effect, then your body will be forced to use its own protein from places you don’t want to lose protein, like organs or muscles. You should look into this to see if it’s still considered accurate or not.
Indeed a body can only burn fat so fast. There is often some muscle mass loss with dieting. A more modest calorie deficit and exercise, especially including some resisitance exercise like weight training, minimizes or prevents that muscle mass loss.
It must be remembered that weight loss is not necessarily fat loss. Some initial weight loss is often the result of fluid shifts (this is especially true on high protein diets.)
Still I wouldn’t force myself to eat but then I wouldn’t count calories myself either.
One thing I learned about low-calorie diets: after the first couple of days, I was never, ever hungry. I was irritable, impatient, had a poor attention span, no sense of humor and was in general a PITA to be around. After some time–a week to six months–I would wake up one day and say “I just can’t live like this. If this is what it takes to be thin, I just can’t do it”. The thing is, I didn’t realize it was the hunger that was making it so unbearable–I thought it was depriving myself of things I liked, the tedium of eating the same things, resentment over bowing out of social activities. I didn’t know how much of my mood was hunger. So I would chuck the whole plan because I thought dieting inherently made you feel like that.
This time, I’ve eaten more–at times, a lot more (I work out a lot). Turns out I don’t mind dieting at all as long as I am eating enough quantity. I’ve been doing this almost a year, and I’ve had fewer than 6 days where I ate over 2000 calories, and each of those was planned well in advance. I could do this forever. It was the being hungry that made me give into temptation–not self-indulgence for the sensual experience. But I really, truly didn’t realize this for 15 years–and I am generally pretty self-aware.
This may not apply to you, but I have heard so many people say “X works great for me, when I stick to it”. If you can’t stick to it easily, it doesn’t work great for you. So if you notice in another 3-4 weeks that you are giving into temptation more and more often, I’d recommend you try planning to eat more, and see if that makes it easier to eat only what you planned. I wish to god that I’d figured this out 15 years ago.
I was on a doctor supervised liquid diet of approximately 450 calories a day for six months. Sometimes I would forget to drink the liquids even though I liked them. My blood was checked once a week to be sure that everything was in balance. After about three months I had completely lost my appetite and didn’t get hungry at all.
At the end of six months the doctor told me that I needed to begin refeeding because my electrolytes might get out of balance. It took only a day or two before I was craving sugar and carbohydrates. I had lost about 60 pounds or so. I gained it all back easily.
When I tried the liquid diet again, I couldn’t stay with it.
See a nutritionist at least one time. It’s worth the money to insure your health. Most doctors are not well-trained in nutrition.
It’s quite normal to lose a few more pounds more quickly when you first start. I asked my doctor about this when I easily lost 30 pounds in a couple months back when I was in college.
I have also been told by others that this is mostly “water weight”, but I have no idea how true that is.
Yes, I do understand that much of the initial weight loss isn’t necessary fat loss. I don’t expect to keep losing weight at this rate. But – I would like to reiterate, that it was 10 pounds in about 2 1/2 weeks (actually, about 3 weeks at this point), not one week, as someone mentioned in a reply. So, it’s still higher than the recommended ‘2lbs per week’, but not crazy high.
I’m not keeping track of nutrients as well as I know I should, but I am trying to maintain a balanced diet. Chicken breasts, tuna, lots of fruits and vegetables, some grains. Getting calcium from light string cheese. I’m also taking multi-vitamins daily, although I am aware there’s debate whether they actually do anything at all, so I’m not relying entirely on them.
I’m 39, 5’6". When I started this diet three weeks ago after being informed of the high blood pressure, I weighed 182. At this morning’s weigh-in, I was 171.5. Unfortunately, my work for the past few years has kept me fairly inactive during the day, and I wasn’t really making up for it with exercise. I’ve been going for brisk 2-3 mile walks almost every day over the past three weeks. The doctor told me not to exercise too vigorously until we’ve got the blood pressure under control some – I’m not sure if that includes weight training. I have another appointment with him in two weeks… I’ll ask then.
Thanks for the few people who recommend seeing a nutritionist – I just might do that.
I still feel fine. Energy is still high. No cravings, no extreme hunger. I guess I should just listen to my body, which is saying everything is good. But I will talk my doctor about it when I see him soon.
Long story short: the reason it’s so hard to “stick to” a diet is that willpower is limited, and every time we fall off the wagon makes it harder to stay on the wagon the next time. Each time we quit makes it harder to commit the next time. Also, to create the calorie deficit needed to lose weight, controlling your diet actually contributes more than exercise, which only burns a relatively low number of calories to begin with.
I played around with a couple online BMR calculators, and they calculated a BMR of about 1695. This is how many calories you’d burn per day if you just woke up in the morning and never moved out of bed. Assuming a sedentary lifestyle, it bumps up to about 2100.
The recommended weight loss rate is 1-2 pounds per week. If you went ambitious and adjusted your caloric intake to lose 2 pounds per week, that’s 7000 fewer calories to consume per week, or 1000 per day. Which would put your intake at 1100 a day, which is more or less what you’re doing now.