# Diet strategy **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 24, 2000, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059 "2000-10-24T01:55:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/1 "2000-10-24T01:55:48Z")
I’ve been on a diet since October 1st. It’s 1000 calories a day divided into 3 meals. Your supposed to lose a pound a day, and so far it’s working: I’ve lost 22 pounds!!!🙂 And I feel pretty good and I’m not hungry at all. But I wonder, what if I simply didn’t eat all day and consumed all 1200 calories at one sitting (eating the foods I’m allowed, all low fat, catabolic foods). Would it matter if I did this? I don’t want to experiment and screw up my current success, as I have 26 more pounds I need to drop. So, the question is, what matters more, daily caloric intake, or calories consumed per meal? ---
**Author:** ![peace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@peace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peace)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/2 "2000-10-24T02:13:07Z")
Daily caloric intake. ---
**Author:** ![jamesglewisf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a5b964/32.png) [@jamesglewisf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jamesglewisf)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/3 "2000-10-24T02:54:41Z")
I’m not a doctor, but your caloric intake is probably too low. I don’t think you should be losing a pound a day. I don’t think you are supposed to have a diet with less than 1,200 calories a day, but I could be wrong. It’s not healthy, and if I remember correctly, you could have gall bladder problems. It was one of the basic problems with all of those shake-drinks diets. My mom had to have her gall bladder removed after a diet called BaylorFast killed it. ---
**Author:** ![Cyndar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cyndar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyndar)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/4 "2000-10-24T11:53:49Z")
1000 calories a day is WAY too low. Go see a doctor or a registered dietician for some proper advice. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/5 "2000-10-24T15:21:42Z")
This morning I weighed myself…I’ve now dropped 23 pounds. The diet is actually 1200 calories but I usually don’t have the bed time snack it allows because, believe it or not, I’m not hungry! The diet was written by a doctor, who says a person needs 2000 calories a day to maintain their present weight. I can’t believe that subtracting 800 calories from that will result in overly severe health problems. I would rather be overweight than thin and sick. But back to my op. Is daily caloric intake more of a factor than calories per meal? So far I’ve only received one answer. But I will keep the advice about to few calories in mind. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/6 "2000-10-24T15:22:20Z")
This morning I weighed myself…I’ve now dropped 23 pounds. The diet is actually 1200 calories but I usually don’t have the bed time snack it allows because, believe it or not, I’m not hungry! The diet was written by a doctor, who says a person needs 2000 calories a day to maintain their present weight. I can’t believe that subtracting 800 calories from that will result in overly severe health problems. I would rather be overweight than thin and sick. But back to my op. Is daily caloric intake more of a factor than calories per meal? So far I’ve only received one answer. But I will keep the advice about to few calories in mind. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/7 "2000-10-24T15:23:50Z")
This morning I weighed myself…I’ve now dropped 23 pounds. The diet is actually 1200 calories but I usually don’t have the bed time snack it allows because, believe it or not, I’m not hungry! The diet was written by a doctor, who says a person needs 2000 calories a day to maintain their present weight. I can’t believe that subtracting 800 calories from that will result in overly severe health problems. I would rather be overweight than thin and sick. But back to my op. Is daily caloric intake more of a factor than calories per meal? So far I’ve only received one answer. But I will keep the advice about to few calories in mind. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/8 "2000-10-24T15:23:51Z")
This morning I weighed myself…I’ve now dropped 23 pounds. The diet is actually 1200 calories but I usually don’t have the bed time snack it allows because, believe it or not, I’m not hungry! The diet was written by a doctor, who says a person needs 2000 calories a day to maintain their present weight. I can’t believe that subtracting 800 calories from that will result in overly severe health problems. I would rather be overweight than thin and sick. But back to my op. Is daily caloric intake more of a factor than calories per meal? So far I’ve only received one answer. But I will keep the advice about to few calories in mind. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/9 "2000-10-24T15:23:52Z")
This morning I weighed myself…I’ve now dropped 23 pounds. The diet is actually 1200 calories but I usually don’t have the bed time snack it allows because, believe it or not, I’m not hungry! The diet was written by a doctor, who says a person needs 2000 calories a day to maintain their present weight. I can’t believe that subtracting 800 calories from that will result in overly severe health problems. I would rather be overweight than thin and sick. But back to my op. Is daily caloric intake more of a factor than calories per meal? So far I’ve only received one answer. But I will keep the advice about to few calories in mind. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/10 "2000-10-24T15:24:52Z")
This morning I weighed myself…I’ve now dropped 23 pounds. The diet is actually 1200 calories but I usually don’t have the bed time snack it allows because, believe it or not, I’m not hungry! The diet was written by a doctor, who says a person needs 2000 calories a day to maintain their present weight. I can’t believe that subtracting 800 calories from that will result in overly severe health problems. I would rather be overweight than thin and sick. But back to my op. Is daily caloric intake more of a factor than calories per meal? So far I’ve only received one answer. But I will keep the advice about to few calories in mind. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/11 "2000-10-24T15:36:01Z")
I have no idea what just happened here. Will the Admin. or moderator please correct this. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Cyndar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cyndar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyndar)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/12 "2000-10-24T15:42:58Z")
peace already answered you. Daily caloric intake. And if that diet plan was devised by a doctor, I advise you get a second opinion on it. One to three pounds of weight loss per WEEK is healthy. A pound a day is not. As soon as you start eating like a normal person again, you’ll gain all that weight back, and then some. ---
**Author:** ![Aestivalis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Aestivalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aestivalis)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/13 "2000-10-24T20:44:43Z")
Let’s get this straight. An ‘average’ person needs 2000 calories a day to maintain his current weight. A more accurate way to calculate this is to multiply your weight by 12 (our multiplier value would be 12 for moderate activity, less for sedentary people and more for active people) to determine your maintenance level of calories. So say I weigh 175 pounds and I exercise moderately so my maintenance calorie level is around 2100. This number will vary depending on your ratio of muscle to fat, exercise, personal metabolism, etc. A pound of fat is 3500 calories. A typical (reasonable) diet plan will have you create a daily caloric deficit of 500 calories (through diet and/or exercise) so that you can lose a pound of fat a week. And that’s not bad, considering you could in theory lose 52 pounds in a year in a very healthy manner. However, trying to accelerate this process can have unhealthy consequences. Losing weight any faster causes you to not only lose fat but also muscle, as your body does not have the building blocks it needs to maintain the muscle mass. This will slow your metabolism and make losing any further weight more difficult. Anyway, to get back to the original question, eating 1200 calories at one time may only be bad in that your body may notice the excess, start socking away as much as it can as fat, and then make you hungry before your next mealtime (potentially causing snacking). Splitting it into three meals will help keep your hunger down and insure that your body is continually burning the food that you eat. One saying is that ‘fat burns in a carbohydrate fire;’ you are likely to burn more fat when you have a steady supply of fuel than when you are alternating between feast and famine. ---
**Author:** ![TampaFlyer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/71e660/32.png) [@TampaFlyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TampaFlyer)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/14 "2000-10-24T21:16:45Z")
Like the last poster said, spreading your food over several meals/snacks will usually work better, not necessarily faster weight loss, but less hunger, & less temptation to cheat. If you schedule 5-6 eating times a day, one every 2-3 hours, knowing that you get to eat again in that amount of time helps. ---
**Author:** ![TampaFlyer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/71e660/32.png) [@TampaFlyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TampaFlyer)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/15 "2000-10-24T21:21:47Z")
Oh, yeah- to avoid losing muscle while dieting, you should do weight training. That makes a bigger difference in maintaining your lean weight than the rate at which your weight declines. I read a recent study that said 1/3 to 1/2 of weight lost is lean weight, unless some sort of weightlifting is done. That explains why diets don’t work as well after a few times. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/16 "2000-10-24T21:42:00Z")
it depends on what you are eating. high carb foods will cause an insulin spike if you eat to much at one time. basically it would work like this: 1 eat carbs 2 body quickly converts the carbs to glucose - absorped into blood via stomach 3 blood glucose levels rise, body says ‘whoa’ and dumps insulin into blood to lower gloucose levels 4 insulin instructs body to convert glocose to stared fat (maybe some gyclogen) 5 As supply of blood glucose, Insulin levels lags, when body gets a ‘good’ blood glucose level, it shuts off insulin - but too late… 6 insuling still in the blood forces you body to remove more glucose, dropping your blood glucose level to a low level. 7 when your blood glucose level is low you don’t have energy and feel hungry adding fats and protien moderate this effect while elimiating carbs has a diffrent reaction. Also you were told here before but 1200 Cal seems too low ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/17 "2000-10-24T21:49:32Z")
There is no “average person”. Thus, 2000 calories really doesn’t apply to anyone but they needed to say something. 1 lb a day is too much. 2 lbs per week is what is suggested. If you eat all those calories at night, before bed, you’d lose less weight because you would burn less calories when you sleep. ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/18 "2000-10-24T22:04:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pkbites \* > \*\*I have no idea what just happened here. Will the Admin. or moderator please correct this. Thanks. \*\* Sorry, I can’t. The board experienced a bigger than normal burp this morning, and we want to leave the trail so the techs can try to track it down. Rest assured, though, that the board was at fault. ---
**Author:** ![charizard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charizard/32/4166_2.png) [@charizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/charizard)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/19 "2000-10-24T22:06:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Aestivalis \* > \*\*However, trying to accelerate this process can have unhealthy consequences. Losing weight any faster causes you to not only lose fat but also muscle… > \*\* This is just the beginning of it. There are lots of things that can go wrong at much more subtle levels if you’re on a diet that restricts calories too much. One other thing is that, if you go below a certain calorie level, your body will begin to use almost all of the protein that you eat for fuel. This is a big problem, in that protein is used to regulate many different body functions, so the whole functioning of the body is affected. I join the calls for a more moderate approach, or at least to put yourself under the supervision of a doctor. (I noticed that a previous post said that this diet was “written by” a doctor, but this is no substitute for a physician’s direct involvement. ---
**Author:** ![charizard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charizard/32/4166_2.png) [@charizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/charizard)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059/20 "2000-10-24T22:11:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by handy \* > \*\*If you eat all those calories at night, before bed, you’d lose less weight because you would burn less calories when you sleep. \*\* Handy, if you have a ref. for this, I’d be interested in seeing it. I’ve seen this asserted in different places, but it runs contrary to the more usual statement that the only important number is calories in - calories out. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/diet-strategy/38059.md?page=2)