Too Radical? 500 calorie diet

[Ambah]

Hmmm I agree that cutting your calories so low will do nothing good for your metabolism.
Sometimes it can take your body a while to show the changes, especially if you are exercising - as you may be gaining more muscle whilst you lose fat. Have you been taking measurements? Have these changed in the past 2 weeks?
Best way to get your metabolism kicking is exercise!!! I have managed to lose 10kg over 3.5 months by exercising, 5 days a week, an hour a day (sometimes a bit more, sometimes less)... I have been watching my food a bit, but I'm sure my intake is still well over 1200 calories (still BF though).
Try and mix up the exercise a bit... take long fast walks, with stretches of jogging or sprinting. Do you have a bike you could ride? Go swimming?

[Michelle71]

If you are doing that much exercise already (and you have only a small overall body weight left to lose) you may find the plateau is from muscle mass gain rather than a true lack of fat loss. I hate the BMI for that reason. It is demoralising when you are, in fact, losing body fat and centimeters but not *on the scales* weight.

Maintain the caloric intake. Measure portion sizes to ensure you aren't accidentally getting more calories than you think. Take your measurements and go by how your clothes fit. Ignore the scales for 2 weeks and keep going as you have. Then see what has happened

As everyone has said, the short term gain (or loss ) can leave you getting an extra fat deposit when you start eating a normal calorie intake again. Not worth destroying all the positive effort you are currently putting in.

[sleepless in tas]

I've done the 500 calorie thing. I was taking in 1200 cal's a day but doing an rpm (spin) class and that knocked me down to 500cals.

Just eating 500cals a day is not good for you hun! Up your calories for your own health and maybe up the exercise.

The main thing is to look after your health and as long as you eat right and do exercise you will drop the weight in no time!

[smiles4u]

I was on a 900 calorie per day diet about 22years ago (when i was 21) ... i went from 66 to 50kilo's in 7weeks (lost 16kilo's)... just ridiculous & to think that was through the help of a weight lose centre that had just started up it's business ...

It got to the point that i felt i wasn't eating hardly anything and strangely enough i lost my appetite for food and began even eating less to the point i was losing 3kilo's per week in the last fortnight on the program ... just insane ... luckily one of the consultants picked up on this

Anyway, the outcome was i put ALL the weight back on in about 2mths plus more

I never went down that road again ... as i could see i was getting use to not really eating ... very dangerous ... So, I say 500calories NO WAY !!!

[fionas]

Judging by your ticker amysarah, it looks like you're doing GREAT!

I realy do think that the key is to do stuff that's sustainable. I know for me it took ages to lose 2kg because I wasn't willing to do anything drastic but to just make changes that I was willing to make for the rest of my life. So mainly cutting down on the booze and having smaller portions. I know when I do that the weight comes off so if, as has happened in the last couple of weeks, I have a blip because DP went and bought about 10 bottles of wine, I don't beat myself up about it too much because I know why I've put weight back on and I also know that I can get it off again.

As I said before, you're doing really, really great and I say just carry on what you're doing. No need for the faddy stuff, just do what you can stick with forever.

[Shanti]

You need ALOT more calcium in your diet than that too.... just a bowl of light milk really isn't enough for a day for a woman IMO. Gotta keep your bones strong hun! Especially ready for PG.

Yep I agree.... aim for 0.5kg a week. That's what I'll be doing when bubs arrives.

[Amie]

If you are doing that much exercise already... you may find the plateau is from muscle mass gain rather than a true lack of fat loss

:yeahthat: Are you going purely by the scales or are you also taking measurements or seeing how your clothes fit? The scales are sometimes not your best friend if you've changed diet and are doing regular exercise. Muscle weighs more than fat. Simple. With that amount of exercise you are sure to be losing fat %. Great work!

[Aimz]

I think you're all right - I was just a bit down yesterday about not losing anything AGAIN.

I know the healthiest option is to maintain my current healthy eating and step up the exercise. I KNOW I have lost cm's - but I haven't been measuring. I just feel thinner kwim?

I just feel SO close - it's only 10kgs - but still so far away. I am putting in SO much work and exercising EVERY day and to not see any results is disapointing. I guess I'll just keep at it and hope this plateau is over and I will start seeing losses again.

Thank you all for your supportive advice - I can see this kind of thing being a touchy subject for some and I didn't in anyway mean to offend (with regards to anorexia). That was not at all how I intended it - I had just been doing some reading about this diet and thought I would put it out there. I didn't post with the frame of mind of "I can't eat anymore if I want to lose weight" it was more that I wanted to know if it was achievable to eat so little but maintain the same level of exercise - clearly it's not and clearly it is NOT healthy.

[Pandora]

Its normal to reach a plateau for a while when you are losing weight, and its normally changing up your exercise routine or what you eat - in terms of the types of food, calories could be the same) that can get things going again.

If you drop you food intake too much, your body goes into self preservation and can actually start to increase you weight as it tired to hold on to its fat stores as it thinks you are starving.

I would keep it at 1000 or above.

[sleepless in tas]

if it makes you feel any better - it took me 3 solid months of exercise and good eating to loose even 1kg!! But then it just fell off! Totally normal to plateau!

[AnyDream]

On 500 calories your body will start burning muscle not fat as it consumes itself in order to survive.

I think cutting back to 1100 OR eating the same but adding some extra exercise is a much more realistic goal, they say the difference between losing and not losing usually only amounts to 100 calories a day.

BTW - If you've cut back and you're waking up hungry every morning then it's a sign that your metabolism is still working on the calories its getting. If you're waking up NOT hungry then it's a sign you've cut back too far and your body is going into starvation mode. Whole foods like lots of veggies, WHOLE GRAIN cereals and legumes (even baked beans LOL) will feed your body AND ramp up your metabolism at the same time.