I saw another thread that somebody stated that 400 calaries a day for a diet is good. I glanced over at my 1 liter bottle of coke, one of which I have every work morning, and realized that there was the 400 right there. Then I considered how much I have in a day (I am a Popaholic I guess (Sodaholic for you non-Minnesotans)) Probably around 1000 Calories just in Coke and Sprite.
So my questions are these, I’ve been considering switching to diet (ugh), mainly for my teeth. Will switching over to diet help my teeth at all? Will a sudden loss of 1000 cals a day cause me to lose weight, or will my body quickly adjust to the lowered intake? Will I ever get used to that nasty aftertaste? Will it come out years from now that Asperteme (sp?) is really really bad?
I’m 6 feet, 185. Kinda have a little bit of a gut, but nuthin major. Male. (sorry about the misleading nick, it’s a long story) WAGs and IMHOs are welcome.
400 calories a day?!?!
That’s not good, no way in hell, not even if it freezes over and becomes a Satanic winter wonderland.
In order to be safe, you don’t want to go under 1500 calories a day (no cite, just what I’ve heard). A woman with similar inclinations should not go under 1200 a day. Anything under 900 is dangerous.
If you’re really concerned about your teeth, stop drinking soda of any kind. Cutting down 1000 calories a day will slow down the rate at which you’re gaining weight (or cause you to lose weight, depending on how many calories you’re still taking in), but I’m not sure it’s the sugar in sodas that causes problems for your teeth.
Err… Four hundred calories a day is extremely unwise. It’s unsustainable without bad side effects. Your body won’t get the nutrients it’d need - even if you chomp an entire bottle of Flinstone’s Chewables. You still need proteins, fats and carbohydrates, and those provide calories.
Four hundred calories will send your metabolism into ‘starvation mode’ - it’ll slow down drastically. You could actually gain weight if you do it right on this. I had an eating disorder about a year ago - I was almost constantly in starvation mode, eating no more than five hundred calories a day. I was constantly weak, light-headed and shaky. Do you want to be on the verge of fainting every time you stand up? Really. I had to stop and wait for the blood pressure to come back up in my head before I could continue, or I really would faint.
The bare minimum for calories is around 1200 for most people. It depends on your basal metabolic rate, gender and activity level, which, if you’re dieting, should be increased. If you’re more active, be sure to get extra protein and carbohydrates. Don’t cut fat out entirely - it’s necessary, too. My recommendation is to completely cut out junk food - save it for special occassions - and eat your vegetables, with only small amounts of meat, if you so wish. Eat plenty of vegetables - they’re typically low in calories and rather filling.
Dieting will do almost nothing for your teeth, though. Unless you cut out the soda, that is.
Being six feet tall, you need at least 2,000 calories a day (probably closer to 2500) to maintain your weight of 185. One pound equals 3500 calories. So if you ingest only 1,000 a day, you’d lose two pounds every week. In one year, you would have lost 104 pounds.
Besides the fact that losing that much weight so quickly is not good, you could not possibly get all the nutrients you need on a 1,000 calorie diet, unless you take supplements like mad, and even then, you may not, as we may not know all the nutrients that are in food. I’ve never heard of a diet less than 1200 calories (actually “Calories,” but since “calories” has been so oft misused, I’ll keep with the misusal. :)) even for the massively obese. You’re not even obese, just slightly overweight - possibly. You could be very muscular and not overweight at all.
In addition to the sugars, an insufficient diet, being short on nutrients, would harm your teeth.
Upon previewing, I see Lodrain has said some of the same things I have, but I’m going to send this as it is anyway.
weight X 12 = general rule of thumb
185 X 12 =2220 …with a low activity life and 25% body fat +/- 2%.
Lose weight by eating fewer calories per week than you burn…usually, about a 500-700 calorie deficit per day. The goal: every 3500 calorie deficit means you body had to burn 1 pound of fat for fuel.
Do you exercise? Add that in to the 2220 baseline. Check calories burned here:
http://www.personalhealthzone.com/caloriesburned.html
Good aggresive goal: burn 500 extra calories everyday (2220+500=2720) and eat 500 less than baseline (2220-500=1720) and at this aggresive rate you’ll burn 2 pounds of body fat per week.
Starvation at your weight = 1200 calories daily. To get good nutritional balance below 1500 calories would require a full time chef and food chemist on hand round the clock.
At 1700-1800 calories, nutritional balance is a bit more do-able.
You would ABSOLUTELY lose weight by cutting soda out of the diet. I’m convinced the stuff is highly to blame for fattening up America. Gatorade, fruit punch and fruit juices too. All absolutely terrible for you. Well, at least fruit juices have vitamins, but vitamins are not hard to come by. Although to answer your question, the smallest, thinest person in the world should still be eating over 400 calories.
You can get used to diet soda. And once you do, normal soda will be less than pleasant to drink – it makes your teeth feel sticky.
If someone’s a big consumer of sugared sodas (1000Cal/day) it will certainly help weight loss to cut out that many Cals. 7000Cal/week of refined sugars = 2 pounds worth of Cals from other sources not burned. Cut out the sucrose and whatever else you consume that’s keeping you alive should keep doing the job. However the body may need to get used to no longer having a supply of metabolically “cheap” sugar and having to make its glucose out of the carbs in your diet (insulin levels recompensated).
As for the teeth, coating them frequently in sugary stuff is not the best idea, though many people become resistant to caries (cavities) during their adult years (But then, some become again susceptible to caries in middle age!). Even so, even diet carbonated sodas tend towards high acidity so it may not be that great for the teeth either. (As for some day finding out Aspartame is bad for us somehow… heck, anything is bad for us in large amounts.)
My alternative: Sparkling spring water, with a shot of lime juice to flavor it. And be punctillious with the the dental hygiene.
I think that what the person in the other thread was saying was that a REDUCTION of 400Cal a day from whatever the person is already getting would be a good diet.