I sat down with one of those WebMD diet calculation programs and ran what Jane and I eat, daily. It throws a snit fit if you don’t admit to a snack: wrong. We don’t. Period. So it made me say we have a fruit snack when we, in fact, have nada, zip, NOTHING. We have one boiled egg at breakfast, a cup of granola with low carb, lowfat, or synthetic milk at noon, I may or may not have one skinny no-sugar latte, depending on whether I’m skating or gardening, Jane has only water, and we have typically, half a head of cabbage, 3 carrots and a single 2″ potato for supper. Sometimes Jane has a cocktail. Sometimes I have wine, say 2-3x a week. Our caloric intake is, are you ready? About 800-1000 depending on the alcohol. The calorie-burning that the same program figures for our specific activities (skating and gardening) is 1900. We can hold our weight steady at our activity level with an 800 calorie intake. No snacks, no desserts. We go off our diet now and again (about once a week) and have (gasp) a hamburger and fries or we split an order of nachos, or we have a french dip with side salad. It makes no difference in our weight, but we will gain a pound if we eat out 2 days running, and in a week we can get it back off under the regimen given above. We split a pizza, oh, once every 3-4 months. We never have hotcakes, no syrup, no desserts, ever! no snacks, no chips, nothing but the damn boiled eggs. We don’t eat out any more. And it makes no difference. We DO not gain weight on this diet, but we do not lose appreciably. Name me reasonable people who can maintain on an 800 calorie diet while skating and working power equipment, shoveling, hand-excavating, and moving 14 yards of dirt. We can. Damn! it’s disheartening. It seems to defy the laws of physics. Or at least physiology. But the fact is—we’ll faint of exhaustion, drenched in sweat, before we start burning fat. Whatever ignites it, we haven’t got.
I’ll be interested to see if it makes ANY difference whatsoever that the endocrinologist has given me one more pill a week.
And if it should, Jane will be in to see him like a shot.
You aren’t losing because your body has gone into starvation mode and your metabolism has slowed to a crawl thinking that you NEED every bit of fat and calories from your inadequate diet or you will die. THAT is the law of physiology you are dealing with. I have a lot suggestions but I feel like I have overstepped far enough and will wait for an invitation before I impose any more of my opinions on you.
I’m glad “they” have figured out the thyroid issue, and I hope that another pill will make even more of a difference for you!
Anything is welcome, my friend. We know about starvation mode, but it did seem reasonable we could outlast it.
I am sorry to but in but you don’t outlast starvation mode as long as you eat a starvation diet, your body will conserve everything it can for as long as it is fed too short rations. I am amazed you can function at all on what you describe. I too have several suggestions but feel that for my first ever post I have been rude enough.
Best wishes, and I hope you find way of eating that will work better for you.
Not rude at all—if I post on something, I’m far from sensitive on the matter, and looking for input.
Welcome!
You can’t outlast starvation mode. I’m just an amateur, maintaining a single body [with a main interest in equine nutrition], so you ought to check this with a professional (try someone geared towards athletes rather than weightloss), but my gut feeling is that you need to add more protein (and possibly fat) to your diet if you want to lose weight. And there’ll be a period of three or four weeks where you don’t seem to lose anything – possibly gain a couple of pounds before you start burning whatever fat you have.
If you’re a female greyhound and hypothyroid, more Soloxine will make a difference. (Of course, dogs take a thyroxine dosage so far in excess of what people take that it’s unbelievable. My 50-pound greyhound now takes two .8 mg pills a day.)
Jacey’s weight stayed steady for months when she ate 3 cups of kibble a day. Her housemate ate the same amount (he’s hypothyroid, too). Then Jacey’s weight shot up by more than 10 pounds, and the boy’s didn’t budge (meaning I wasn’t suddenly overfeeding them). I slowly cut Jacey back–eventually to just two cups a day–and she lost no weight; she simply gained more slowly. After months of porky girl (a pudgy greyhound isn’t a pretty sight), the vet finally conceded that she needed her dosage upped to the current level (which is more than a 50-pound greyhound usually takes). Jacey dropped the extra pounds in about five weeks, went back to her old 3-cup-a-day rations, and she looks and feels great. (Thyroid tests on greyhounds are notoriously unreliable, so most vets prescribe based on symptoms rather than lab work.)
I’m with BetYeager, though. I think your bodies are conserving every fat calorie they can find because they’re gonna need it in what seems to be a famine. Maybe you can indulge yourselves by increasing your calorie count a bit with something your bodies (and your tastebuds) really want. You could try it deliberately (after you find out whether the meds are making a difference) for a few weeks.
Oh, and don’t forget that muscle weighs more than fat.
P.S. I think the extra meds will make you feel better and more energetic, even if your weight doesn’t budge.
If you figure something out let us know. My mom has a hypothyroid problem too and everything she does (and she does a lot, though isn’t quite as restrictive on the diet since Dad needs to eat too) just seems to maintain her at her current state rather than gain any ground. Of course being fit and eating healthy is good for your insides no matter what your weight is, but it would be brilliant if it also helped the weight issue. Gotta have some visible results too just for sanity sake. Mom does Curves and maintains a veggie and flower garden and walks the dog twice a day yet still she just stays the same. She started having problems back when she was my age so I’ve had my blood tested recently just to make sure nothing weird is starting. The hyperthyroid problem is on my Dad side so for me it is probably flipping a coin on which I get if I get any. At least I’ve had a heads up on getting acquainted with the subject.
I would suspect your diet of being part of the problem. If you add some kind of fat (olive oil) to your vegetables it might
work a lot better. The real trick is to eat a low caloric balanced diet. I know the ancestors lived on the modern recommends
(no salt, no meat, no fat and weeds and seeds), but their life span was so short they called 35 year olds wizened ancients.
You might try adding a half cup of really good ice cream to your supper just for a test, since it has most of the missing
ingredients.
I suspect that the diet restrictions lack a basic ingredient for metabolizing fat. I seem to recall that too low fat intakes
block the fat burning cycle.
Most weight loss diets are counterproductive because of imbalance, you’d be much better off with a balanced 1000 calories of
food. The reason you exist is to accumulate knowledge by experimentation on yourself or you’ll have to turn in your mad
scientist membership card…GRIN
Well, now and again, we do indulge in butter. 😉
I love butter. 😆 Way too much.
But I’m taking all these suggestions in hand and considering what to do.
I think metabolic slowdown plus maybe some loss of muscle could be one answer.
We’ve got to do something somewhat different: I’m getting real tired of veggies…but it’s the only thing that’s not had us gaining weight, and it was a desperation move.
The one problem both of us have is my not-too-accurate sense of portion control, that’s one thing; second is the fact we’re both a bit hypothyroid, for different reasons.
But I read your suggestions in comparison to all the (exhaustive, exhausting! amount of stuff I’ve read on the topic) and I’m putting it all together and trying to come up with one more try at revising the diet in favor of something more balanced…portion control, portion control. I swear sometimes if you eat ‘controlled portions’ it makes you wonder why you got a dinner plate out instead of just using a spoon.
Goodness, yes – there’s something to be said about eating a dinner-plate sized portion. I generally try to eat stuff that I can spread across parts of the plate to make my lizard brain think I’m eating more, and I’ve tried slowing down when I eat, too – so I feel fuller, with plenty of water…
Best of luck!
Glad to see others comment to help. My first thought was, surely income isn’t that low? and my second, I’m borderline hypoglycemic (or was, need to get retested) and that diet would give me an energy drop so fast it’d make your head spin like a chi. Not enough protein. Dunno about the fats, but we do need enough fats for metabolism and lipids (a form of fats) for lymph and immune system maint. Really, really wouldn’t want you ladies to konk your heads on your keyboards in the middle of a draft. 🙂 Besides, live a little. …I’m currently trying to lose a little, but it’s not happening, despite cutting down on food portions some and a generally halfway healthy diet. I have to eat what my grandmother eats, or it bugs her, and her diet (low fiber, low acid, and too many sweets/fats to suit me) is too high calorie for my needs. (I’m OK, 5’11” and 185 or so pounds, male, still less than my dad or mom weighed at my age, but I want to get back down to 160 plus or minus.) You ladies, please find something that gives you better nutrition and tastes good to you. 🙂 Weight loss / maint? Basic health first. Veggies? Great, love them. Enough proteins, fats, whatever for balance and tastiness, great too. — Maybe add a little protein (beans, nuts, meat/seafood?) to make a chef’s salad, with a tasty low-cal dressing or a little fruit juice? :hugs: Hope y’all feel better.
We have beans now and again: protein; the egg for protein. A little cheese. Squash, for vitamins.
I read recently about some new research on different ways a body responds to different eating patterns/diets, depending on genetic make up, among other things.
The researcher mentioned is based at Stanford – http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Christopher_Gardner/
The original article as I read it is Swedish language so I’ll skip adding a link 😉
Anyway, it’s amazing how little a body need to sustain itself but you really need to eat well to stay healthy. And to stay on one’s feet is not the same thing as being in good health… I’m holding my thumbs for the two of you.
I’d be interested in that – if you still have the link. It’ll be a nice stretch för mitt svenska-talande huvud.
I agree heartily with those who suggested starvation may be one part of your troubles. I recently had a patient who try as she might, including working out vigourously, could not lose wt.
I referred her to a hospital dietician / nutritionist to try to sort things out. She was sent not to be put on a “diet” but to try to sort out the issues and for nutritional education. As you know, I don’t really believe in “diets”, nor do I “diet”.
It turned out that part of her problem was eating too little. She was starving herself. She was also eating the “wrong” things in her attempt to lost wt. Bottom line: she started eating small frequent meals, and adding in more calories plus healthier types of fat, etc. Bingo. Big success.
Please let me know if you want a referral.
alas, insurance won’t pay for that. But we can digest the info. Getting rid of the wine is one,and I do. We occasionally have 3 low-carb muffin tops and butter. That’s our big off-diet splurge. Occasional beans and cheese. We ate salad until our noses twitched, and we wanted something actually cooked. Probably best would be to get back on the salad and salmon. But Lord! I’m tired of that! If either of us ate a high-sugar snack right now we’d have a sugar buzz through the roof—I haven’t eaten actual sugar in—well, one teaspoon of coconut cream pie at Costco and we were buzzed.
I posted this, because I knew pretty well what I’d hear, and I think you guys are right. We need to do something different, because though we can keep the weight down on this, it’s not doing what we hoped.
I’m mulling on this. I count calories….try to stay between 1600 and 1800a day and no more than three hundred in fats (I did eat absolutely no fat many years ago until my hair started falling out!)…..I try *hard* not to eat refined sugar…..(use agave and honey or maple)….as I seem to have problems with artificial sweeteners. I measure and weigh almost everything I eat…a small battery postal scale is one of my best aids…..I take vitamins again (thank you OSG)…..and exercise which does not seem to be a problem for you but in winter especially is for me. To get flavor in food we marinate like crazy…broil on the bbq or if I do saute use my well seasoned cast iron (as good as non stick)…..with a small amount of grapeseed oil and a touch of butter….. gives a nice buttery flavor. When I do eat ice cream it’s either home made or high quality and a small amount. I would rather have one-half cup of the best once a month than a huge portion all the time..
All that being said I fell off the wagon for about ten days….but at least I did not gain.
I’m sorry if I sound self righteous…..dismounting hobbyhorse. 🙂
This thyroid thing is pesky, to say the least. I’m living with it myself and cannot make any headway in weight loss. Before someone finally diagnosed me with Graves disease I thought I was dying of a number of cancers and other dreadful diseases. Shaking, diarrhea, vomiting, swollen ankles, out of breath from the least exertion, hair loss, heartburn. This went on for weeks while I did the round of upper and lower GI and a bunch of other pictures in the negative and whatever other wavelengths are available until some doc said, “I think you’ve got thyroid problems. You need to see an endocrinologist.” By that time I had lost a lot of weight in a short period of time and right after the endocrinologist was ready to hand me my diagnosis and the treatment for it, she (a very, very thin, tall woman) said cheerfully that I’d soon regain all the weight I’d lost. Good endocrinologist, I guess, but her sight wasn’t what it should have been or she’d have noticed that despite having lost a bunch of weight I really had more to lose and I was not thrilled to hear I wouldn’t at least be able to keep the lost pounds at bay. Months of figuring out which color little pill was right for me later, she was proved right. Of course, that there are a couple of McDonald’s between her office and my home helped her be right, as well.
Having done the yo-yo dieting over decades (I manage to lose nicely and keep it off for two or three years, then put it on again) I have now started down the path to the lap band surgery. Got to do something for the joints.
Oddly enough one of the most effective weight loss tricks I know is substituting a salad plate for a dinner plate and eating fairly normally, but it’s a lot easier to do when you’re single. I’d do Mediterranean, which can be pretty good—but Jane and I are both allergic to onions, leeks and chives, iffy with garlic (has to be fresh-roasted) and, to cap all, Jane and I are both sensitive to tomatoes, so red sauce is out and white cream sauce is it. And Jane hates olives of any sort, and can’t tolerate vinegar, balsamic or otherwise.
We’re both sensitive to potatoes and bell peppers, to paprika (goodbye, Hungarian!)
We get along ok with oriental…but…that’s got rice, which you had just as soon apply straight to our hips: it would save time. Not to mention the amount of molasses and other sweeteners that go into a lot of it.
Corn. Can’t have much of that. Jane can’t handle it. Mexican is a treat, but we can’t live that way.
I don’t like chicken and I detest all but a few varieties of fish. Jane loves chicken.
Jane won’t eat liver. Serious gag reflex. And can’t have the onions anyway.
I love sushi, but Jane physically can’t swallow it. (Acholasia.)
I love cooked spinach, Jane only eats raw spinach. I’m ok with it. I can’t eat raw carrots, celery, broccoli or cauliflower. Cooked is ok, but cooked celery? You gotta be kidding. I love brussel sprouts. Jane is only ok with them. But I can’t have the broccoli/cauliflower stuff too often. Jane can’t eat moldy cheese. I like it.
That leaves us with, let me see: cabbage, raw spinach, carrots, beans, peas, beets, cheese, beef, salmon.
Fortunately we both like eggs, jalapenos and their ilk, a few cheeses, steak and roast, salmon, bacon (Jane’s not keen on ham, about like I feel about chicken), we love pork chops, and bread of any sort. And if we started eating desserts, we’d be in sorry shape for tutus.
It’s the same thing faced by any cook: you have to compromise, which means a lot of things just don’t work for both parties. It is hard. And you toss the weight thing in on it, and it’s doubly hard. Waah. One Waah. And now we’ll be duly thankful we have plenty to eat and always have had. But the above is kind of an illustration of the pieces I have to put together into a menu—I’m a good cook. I like cooking. So if anybody’s got some good recipes, I’ll take ’em.
It’s my job to take all these puzzle pieces and make meals out of it.
Even boneless skinless chicken thighs? You can use them in any pork recipe and you might not even notice if you didn’t do the cooking.
My cals are also around 1k/day. Don’t lose, don’t gain even with extravagant guac and sour cream at lunch 😉 But, would like to drop a few more pounds. *sigh* Going to try the argument with the physio re: thyroid…
alas, chicken has an aftertaste for me that just—isn’t good. If I can pour enough hot sauce on it, I’m good, but a third of a jar of pickled jalapenos wasn’t enough to kill it this time. Sometimes you just get a piece that’s got a taste above all others.
Yikes!
What is the source of your food? I have reactions to preservatives, pesticides and genetically modified soy products; I am perfectly happy with the same items when they’re organic. (If you’re having allergies, eliminating potential triggers from your diet is never a bad idea anyway). I’m also wondering whether the bad aftertaste of chicken isn’t a bad aftertaste of industrial agriculture.
I am, of course, entirely unfamiliar with the choice of fresh vegetables you can buy in your locality, but your list seems fairly short to me; I’m betting there are a much greater number of vegetables you could eat; finding them might be a problem. (Fennel. Eggplant. Zuccini. Asparagus. A huge number of asian vegetables. Soy sprouts…)
Also, maybe you’ve just left it out, but there are whole realms of herbs and spices that will make a different meal out of the same basic ingredients.
Jane can’t eat asparagus. I like it. I’ll eat zucchini, reluctantly. We both like bean sprouts. Never tried fennel. I love eggplant; Jane tastes it as bitter as pecan hull, no matter what methods I use to take the bitterness out. Herbs and spices—I’m with you there: my spice cabinet is the whole 2 shelf cabinet above the stove, with an annex in the one next to it. If I eat something in a restaurant, I can usually imitate the spicing pretty accurately.
I was in your shoes about two years ago! You’re not eating enough and your metabolism has crapped out.
I stopped dieting completely, it was too depressing. I gained a couple of pounds and then it seemed to level off.
A month or two later I started getting heavy exercise. I mean *heavy*. Digging ditches, to be precise. Mowing a lawn on hills (I live in WV in the mountains). Heavy-duty yard work dragging junk into a pile, that kind of thing.
I gained ten pounds more but lost six inches off my waist.
Now I eat pretty normally and do enough activity to keep those hard-won muscles, and lo and behold, I’ve lost about 15 pounds with no effort whatsoever. And I eat like a normal human being and can have a treat now and again without gaining.
If you don’t have a hilly yard that needs extensive work like we do, perhaps you can do weights at a gym. It really does make a difference!
For portion control: you need a nice scale (preferably with a tare function… saves you having to do math) and measuring cups/spoons. I’m doing Weight Watchers, and those pieces are vital to me keeping my portions in control. 3 oz of thinly sliced corned beef (a huge weakness of mine, especially cooked in a crockpot) looks a lot different than 3 oz of chicken breast, which looks different than the same amount chopped up in a salad. The scale is your friend in these cases!
As to cooking… I hate to say it, but is there some reason that you don’t each cook your own food? Or maybe separate main dish, same sides? I wouldn’t generally suggest it, but if the common ground between the two of you is small enough, it might be something you have to do to stay healthy and get enough variety. You might also consider cooking in batches, throwing some in the freezer in portion-controlled containers, and then “cooking” is just pulling what you want out of the freezer and zapping it in the microwave. If you do go that route, casseroles, soups, stews, etc. are your friend.
Naw, we enjoy griping too much. 😉 and I love cooking, while Jane doesn’t, particularly. She can cook, and cooks quite well. She just chooses not to. She doesn’t mind doing dishes and I hate it with a passion. While I am constantly reading recipes and watching cooking shows. So we have a nice division of labor that works.
But I think a cooking scale is a really good thing. I had an old postage scale I used, but it finally died the death. You’ve inspired me to go on line and see if I can find one that looks good and doesn’t take up much space.
Oh, we’ve got a hilly yard. 🙂 Uphill in both directions. Stony soil. Weeds. I just moved 14 yards (that’s a full dump truck) of semi-wet dirt some 40 feet. Took me a week, but I did it.
And thank all of you for the input. I’m at my wit’s end or I wouldn’t have said anything. I’ve been on: NutriSystem, Atkins, South Beach, Mediterranean, 24 Hour Fitness, the food pyramid (revised), doctor’s advice, and I gained weight on all of them. Jane’s done all the above, plus Weight Watchers, gained weight on all of them. Starvation can hold the line, but it ain’t fun at all and there’s no desserts. I know how to bake killer pies and cakes, and I haven’t done it in thirty years.
What, after all the above, did we have for supper—on the resolve to add some fat and protein?
Chicken strips (frozen) plus varicolored small peppers, jalapenos, sour cream, and a small can of chiles, cooked together, rolled in low-carb whole wheat tortilla, loaded with cheddar cheese and microwaved. Plus half an acorn squash with butter.
The squash was good. But the chicken was gross. I do not think I want to smell or see chicken for a number of weeks. I ate it anyway. Typical. Jane didn’t complain, but she never does unless it’s downright poisonous.
So, well, I’ve got to start doing something different. Maybe tomorrow I’ll pick up some salmon and see what I can do with that. I need something to make me forget the chicken. Ugh.
You know how they always say that alligator, rattlesnake, probably dinosaur “tastes like chicken.” Yep. I bet it does.
One thing I just thought to add about the building muscle… I was fortunate enough to be in regular contact with a former body-builder so he kept me from panicking when I first started gaining the weight, promising me that as long as I kept up the strength-building, I wouldn’t gain any fat at all. If you were to find a gym, they could probaby help you with that and help you understand the difference between gaining fat and the normal process of building muscle.
I also saw an interesting article that talked about glycogen, which your body stores for when you call on your muscles. Apparently, if you’re on a starvation diet, you don’t really have any, so then if you get plenty of calories, the first thing your body wants to do is to restore that, which is often responsible for the sudden two or three pound uptick after having “extra” food–you aren’t really gaining weight at all, you’re restoring something you’ve been missing.
The biggest thing for me was to take the emotional “load” off of eating, which did no good whatsoever. It was kind of ironic that I decided that I should just concentrate on maintaining, and all of a sudden the weight started to slip away, but I’m quite sure that building up my muscles was what pushed the scale in the right direction. It’s really slow, 1/4 to 1/2 a pound a week, but the trend is downward, and that’s good enough for me 🙂
What about turkey? Does that have the same effect on you as chicken?
Yep, unfortunately even worse. Even as a child, I would not eat Thanksgiving dinner, no matter how highly touted. I’d have mashed potatoes with butter, candied yams, and my gran’s really good cranberry sauce, but not the rest of it.
During WW2 the US Army was trying to treat death camp victims by giving them lots of food. They were not gaining appreciable amounts of weight.
By accident, a couple groups got lost in the shuffle and were not fed for a couple of day. When they did finally receive food the groups that were intermittently starved then fed gained weight at a much faster rate than those that weren’t.
Low calorie diets are fine, but you have to eat every couple of hours to make them work.
Philosopher is right; a good scale is essential.
My scale is a supposedly for postage. It’s battery powered, can do ounces or grams, will weigh up to five pounds and has a tare function. I know it is accurate as I tested it with my tare weights from a triple beam balance scale. I think it came from Staples and cost under $20.00.
At one point I had a recipe for zucchini lasagna with a white sauce…I’ll try to dig it out. I am assuming that since you have problems with tomatoes and peppers that eggplant is not a great idea for you.
Completely off the subject: Summer must be coming. There is a luna moth outside my glass slider as I write this. 😉
Some suggestions from a post-menopausal obese woman who is finally losing weight. The issue is aerobic exercise. That means figuring out your target heart rate and hitting it twice a day. That keeps you burning the fat and less likely to draw on muscle. Every day. Twice a day. Walking is the best way to do it, although depending on how much actually skating you do (sustained laps for instance) that would work also. But the stop and start of yard work tends to be too much, or too little, or too anaerobic (straight up muscle building).
Second, the thyroid exists in the midst of a cascade of hormonal actions. You can medicate for the thyroid but if you throw the body into starvation mode it whacks the insulin/glucagon interaction which is where the weight issues really lie. A calorie is a calorie. Your body doesn’t give a crap where it comes from. You can eat 800 calories of carbs from hot fudge sundaes or spinach, it counts the same. The difference is in how fast it metabolizes into a carb — hot fudge sundae will absorb fast as anything and provoke a high insulin reaction. The spinach with it’s volume and fiber creates a slower, sustained rise of carbs and gives the insulin something to do rather than just rapidly store.
Third. Enjoy your food. Really. The emotional/mental stress of deprivation suppresses all kinds of hormonal reactions. And it’s just a lousy way to live. Plan out four small meals at 300-400 calories. Have your steak, have a few fries. Have a glass of wine. Make each meal a nice combo of small portion protein/complex carbs and mono-unsaturated fat (which does not metabolize as body fat but is so important.) You’ll end up giving up pasta and bread most likely, but these are highly processed carbs and provoke a really fast insulin rise. The complex carbs and proteins give you a nice slow insulin rise. And it is INSULIN (not thyroid) that is the storing mechanism. The faster it rises, the longer it stays high, the more weight will be stored. Hence the problem insulin injecting diabetics have with weight gain.
Fourth, and I think this is the most important of all, meditate/visualize. Everyone has their own way of doing this but if you take just five minutes a day to quietly give the body a nice set of instructions — I accept who I am and I see myself at an appropriate weight — it all goes into the computer of the subconscious and helps a great deal. Don’t attack the self. Love the self. And that’s so much harder to do than it sounds.
Best of Luck.
Kathy
The body does give a whack where a calorie comes from. A Protein “calorie” can be used to build new muscle tissue or can be broken down via gluconeogenesis into glucose, at about 58% efficiency – meaning you get “42% less calories” from a gram of protein as you do from a gram of carb.
Fat, similarly, can be energy (don’t have the numbers on that but it’s not hella efficient) or a building block – your brain is made mostly of saturated fat, fat is incorporated into cell membranes (one of the reasons transfats are So Very Bad), saturated fat is the medium of the O2 exchanging surfactant in your lungs, etc. So some protein and fat may never be “calories” at all, where as all carbs are always calories all the time.
Insulin has better things to do in the body than store fat, but that’s mostly what we use it for these days. It is an extremely powerful hormone – and in excess (which is why you should avoid the hot fudge) it is a depressant, it inhibits gut motility (constipation) and has a roughens the walls of blood vessels which makes plaque adherence more likely.
Fat storage without insulin is very inefficient, but I have to disagree that a calorie is always a calorie, because sometimes it’s the brick and sometimes it’s the mortar and sometimes it’s the fire.
My point being only that intake is calories. Metabolizing that breaks it down into component parts. A calorie is a calorie. Once broken down, if that calorie is mostly simple carb it creates a rapid store process. If it has to manage the protein and fat components that then becomes something else. Basic biology.
I will risk getting a little technical, but I must point out that a fatty acid or ketone derived either from your own body fat or from dietary fat does not go through the same metabolic process to be used as does a glucose molecule. I do not actually know whether I can get more work out of a ketone or fatty acid than I can from glucose, but I don’t really care about that because in those forms it is difficult for the body to store either of those as fat. Ketones are routinely excreted, adding another category of what happens to a calorie: wasted.
As an aside, for me as an athlete I have to say that using body or dietary fat for energy is vastly superior to using glucose – there is no lactic acid produced on the Fatty Acid Spiral – only CO2 and H2O. It is awesome to be able to go to karate camp and do 4 workouts a day and be only tired, not sore.
The argument against the “calorie is a calorie” argument is very effectively summarized here: http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/metabolism/is-a-calorie-always-a-calorie/
Short version. Two diets, accidentally isocaloric (same calories) but different macronutrient compositions. VASTLY different results.
For reasons I won’t get into, I am on a diet similar to yours most days: 800 cal, ***50 grams of protein***. That second part is essential so you don’t lose muscle mass. Take vitamins and consider seeing a doctor to check that you’re not doing bad things to yourself.
A key is having a good scale and reading the package labels. This is an excellent scale: http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/oxo-digital-food-scale/?pkey=x|4|1||4|scale||0&cm_src=SCH Do not get the beautiful Salter scale: it burns through expensive watch batteries quickly. The scale will let you easily track *everything* (even wine, ~120 cal in 5 ounces/150 g). Get a metric scale–all the math is easier in grams. (The one I suggest can do grams or ounces.)
I can do it pretty unconsciously at this point, but early I put out 80 cents in one pile (for the 800 calories) and 50 cents in another pile (for the 50 g of protein). This helps track through the day. Don’t trust the portion numbers on packages: divide the serving size into the net weight. Usually they cook the books and have half a portion unaccounted for on the label. Things advertising non-fat are usually high calorie.
Another thing I did early was a graph, calories by protein for common foods I ear. For example, a 7 ounce can of tuna: 2 oz servings. “About 3”–well, no, 3.5 (*grr*) Anyway, total for the can 175 cal, 38 g protein. This is a real winner for getting a lot of protein with few calories–eat a can of tuna, and you’re almost guaranteed to get the other 12g of protein in the remaining 625 calories. So if I graph stuff I commonly have around, I can just look at my penny piles, see if I’m behind on protein for the day, and look at the graph to see what foods will get me back to protein-high. I tend to have four ~200 cal “meals” in the day. I quote “meals” because trying to do the whole square meal or food pyramid stuff is pretty much impossible at this level of dieting–too many things are all calorie, zero protein, and I, at least, have to eschew carbs totally or break diet. (The one exception is the low fat popcorn.)
I find it helpful to drink high-flavor, zero calorie drinks. Favorites are cinnamon tea (from Rogers Gourmet Coffee & Tea–no URL to miss the spam filter), sweetened with Splenda from Costco, and ice tea in summer. Drink lots of fluids, but don’t weigh yourself except in the morning when you’re pretty consistently dehydrated. Remember that food takes a while to go through your system, so being “bad” will have an effect that will last for a few days, but it’s not real weight, just stuff in process–don’t weigh yourself in these periods; remember the tendency to remember bad news more than good news.
If you’re hungry early, try taking a walk. That can suppress your appetite for a while. Or drink zero calorie stuff. Water works. Intense involvement–writing, gardening, computer games–can also distract you from hunger.
Try salads with just vinegar–no oil. Generally, try to drop the fat part out of everything. Low cal popcorn can be a good indulgence, but drink fluids so it’s more filling. Outside of that, meat and fish are your friends; they’re about the only way to get enough protein. Try to eat them without any added fat or carbs. Boring, yes, but that’s kind of a good thing since yummy makes for eating more. Know the calories/protein for foods you commonly eat: it’s *tough* to get 50 grams of protein in 800 cal! At the store, try to avoid things that aren’t going to be a net win–you want to try for 10 g of protein per 100 calories since not everything will be able to contribute to the protein. Tuna, salmon, and chicken are good. Pre-prepared dishes are nearly always a disaster, especially since the servings are usually too large.
It’s really amazing how going off your diet just once a week can hurt your progress, especially in a restaurant, where it’s easy to take in a few thousand calories. Going off for two days in a row gets me out of being used to eating less. If you need a break for morale’s sake, try to make a controlled break. For example, do the normal 800 calorie thing (or even cut to 600 high protein calories) and split a bottle of wine–600 calories total, so you’re each at only 900-1100 cal even when you’re being “bad”. I made a lot of progress recently by going out only a couple times a month and going to more controlled breaks.
A lot of the stuff I eat, I get at Costco. Just don’t get that one indulgence at Costco! It’ll be so big, you’ll be off-diet for a week!
Don’t ever go under 50 grams of protein or 800 calories, and if you can, get your MD involved.
Best of luck! I know the pain…!
Wow, lots of standard information. I hesitate to add to it and create overload, but my advice is simple and very different: Stop eating all that low-carb, fat-free, sugar-free frankenfood. Don’t eat packaged, processed, preserved anything. Never ever ever eat high fructose corn syrup (except once in a very rare while) and don’t even think of using artificial sweeteners.
But eat everything else! Everything you eat should be as close to its natural state as possible. Whole wheat, brown rice, and other whole grains. Fresh fruit and vegetables, organic grain-fed beef (because feedlot beef has a nutrition signature closer to corn than meat while grass-fed beef has all the omega 3’s of salmon). Stay away from dairy- cheese and sour cream are made out of fat and its not the good kind. Save the dairy for your lattes, and get 2% instead of fat free. If you sweeten something use sugar, honey, or agave nectar. Use extra virgin olive oil instead of hydrogenated oils for cooking. Add lemon juice or vinegar for salads and marinades instead of bottled dressing. Use avocado instead of cream cheese or mayonnaise. Tortillas look healthy because they are skinny, but really they are (hydrogenated, nasty)fat held together by flour. Try whole wheat pita or lavash bread. Everything you eat should be real with no ingredients that aren’t actual food.
Right, eat small amounts every couple of hours. That is very good advice. If you aren’t starving you won’t want to eat junk. Give yourself permission to eat and enjoy your food. You deserve it. 🙂