that phat girl's Journal, 08 Oct 22

yes, eating too little calories can definitely affect weight loss as it will lower your metabolism and be harder to maintain, unless you eat less and less calories which isn't healthy or sustainable for longterm weightloss and not recommended 🙅‍♀️ 

1000 calories a day may also cause you to loose too muscle mass and not fat which will slow down your bodies fat burning system and will lead to your body storing the fat instead of burning it. so fuel your body so it can burn the body fat not store it 🤗 

Please take this as kindly as I mean it - but even 1000 calories per day is a shockingly low amount to eat for someone who weighs 90+ No medical professional or well informed person would ever recommend you eat that low. Not only is it seriously damaging to your metabolism, where your body slows your metabolic processes drastically in order to *survive*, but your organs could face long term damage. You force your body to mess with your ghrelin - you will face a lifetime of hunger, even after you go off your diet. Maybe, just small maybe, you will actually starve yourself to your goal weight, but you will inevitably gain the weight back. This is coming from someone who also weighed 100+ at one point….you will work *so* hard to lose the weight eating sub-1000 calories a day, only to gain it all back 😩 no that would kill me at this point. In all likelihood, like myself, your metabolism was probably already far too slow before you started a crash diet, because no one with a perfectly functioning metabolism gets to our weight love. I have tried it all…….eating disorder, yep been there……..500calories a day diet, gone for it! Did I lose weight? Yes. Did I fit in to the clothes I wanted to? Yes. Did I f*ck up my metabolism, gain 2.5 times the amount of weight I lost back then (2014) WITHIN A YEAR……….absolutely. I did long term damage that I am still trying to undo, 8 years later. It has taken me from Jan 2020 to date to lose around 30kg. I wish it had happened faster, I wish it had been easier, but at the end of the day it’s my own fault that my metabolism needs serious work, because of the absurd abuse I subjected it to in the past. At this point I would recommend you either find a dietician for an appropriate eating plan, or perhaps you can follow *the_lean_girl* or *betterwithbalance* on instagram or Facebook. I have been following these ladies, and even if you don’t join their 8 week group coaching, they still offer absolutely wonderful advice. Please don’t do this to yourself, I guarantee you you will regret it 🙏🏻❤️ 

I think the 3 ladies have given very sound advice. it is a journey to understanding and getting in tune with your body. I too ja e also done all the diets under the sun including injections, slimming tablets etc to no end. what I jave realized after all this time is that I need to understand what works for my body and learn to eat intuitively a healthy balanced diet. I have only been doing this food diary for a week and finding it super inyeresting, I formative and helpful. don't give up but be gentle with yourself and small steps 

It's better to eat 300 cals less than your daily maintenance cals and lose the weights slowly. It's a more sustainable, long term strategy and will ensure you are able to stick to it. I lost 10kgs over the course of a year this way. I know, you want to be able to see the results quickly, but trust me, it's not worth it when you rebound and gain it all back (and more) 

There are innumerable “tips” one can can pick up on this app - weigh all your food with a kitchen scale, eat whole foods and never processed foods, stick to high fibre high protein foods, go for a walk once a day, get adequate sleep… but at the end of the day I believe you may need to assess more than just your eating plan, because you’ve made a positive step by deciding you want to lose weight, but then made a very bad choice with how you want to get yourself there ❤️ It is just as self destructive, if not more, than compulsive eating 😢 someone once posted on this app, and it meant so much to me “you can’t hate yourself healthy, you can’t punish yourself thin” ❤️ 

Toddlers eat more than what you’re currently eating. 1200 is the bare minimum you should be eating to sustain your body. Eating 600 will surely cause deficiencies and other health problems. Focus on working out and strength training which will allow you to eat more healthy food guilt free 

my advice (everyone has given great advice already) but focus on what you want to look like and feel like when you are sixty. because you are doing this long term. Try to loose weight slowly. it's much more sustainable and it won't come back. your body is like a wild horse. if you bully it into submission it will run away the first chance it gets. you must prove to it that you want what is best for it's. it takes time. the hardest thing is loosing weight the right way because it takes so freaking long. I'd suggest eating just under your recommended calory intake. that alone is hard enough if you are used to eating more. little changes takes time to learn but it adds up and makes a big difference in the long term. stop using sauces. swop sweets for fruit.but eat enough don't make yourself hungry. look for how to loose weight without loosing your mind on YouTube. Doug LC lile. guy saved my life. 

I think a person shouldn’t only focus on what amount of calories they consume, but also on what amount of calories they burn during a day. If a person is active and has a physical job, and burn about 2500 calories a day, then consuming 2200/2000 calories a day for weight loss is will work for them. However, if a person has a sedative life style and or can’t train for some health reason or injury, and they burn only around 1500 calories a day (24-hour cycle including sleep), consuming 1200 calories (although low) is the only way I believe to lose weight. I am a strong believer that the ONLY way to lose weight effectively is to be in a calorie deficit. It doesn’t matter what works for you, keto, low-carb, carb-cycling (what I do) it all comes down to burning more than what you consume. But I do agree on doing it as a long-term goal, something that is sustainable as opposed to a crash diet. 

the weight will start packing on, your body will store every ounce of food, 300calories is way too little. at least 1200 calories needed 

Read The Fast 800, written by Dr Michael Mosley. it's got all the facts 

It can lower your metabolism, try to eat more than 500 calories(at least eat 800-1000 calories per day), dont starve yourself otherwise, you will give up when your weight stalls due to a sluggish metabolism 

Just to add on my comment, you need to be on the HCG protocol to at least manage 500 calories, otherwise you are setting yourself up for disaster as you will lose muscle, instead of fats 

Follow Better with Balance and Lean Girl on social media. They explain what your calorie deficit should be.  

Eating too less calories makes your body and mind think that it is going into starvation and starts storing calories for energy that may be needed rather than burning it  

Thanks guys for all the advise. Thank u guys for caring, there's such an amazing sense of community on this app, the support is awesome. That being said, I do not normally eat so little I try to keep it around 1000 to 1200. Its Just that it was a hectic week with my elderly mum moving in with me that I honestly didn't have time to eat. I feel if I do over 1200 a day I'm going to look for junk just to fill up the extra cals. 1000-1200 covers my breakfast, lunch, and diner comfortably. And you are all correct. I think I went into starvation mode and didn't lose a thing last week. This week however I went back to eating and started exercising a bit and I've lost. I've set my calories to 1000 on the app but I do actually eat over, coz there are somethings u just can't calculate or the amounts are off and not exact somewhere along the line so I allow for leeway. I also do eat over my 1200 goal over the weekend so I like to also balance that out during the week. I do a weekly count of 8400 cals. To balance out the weekend I intermittent fast for a few days, I eat foods that are lower in cals, I definitely do eat and im not starving every week. I do not deprive myself of anything coz in the past that led to disaster, if I feel for something I eat it and add it to my cals. I now eat til I'm comfortably full and not stuffed. The mind and body are amazing, mine are somehow insync I know when I've had enough, im satisfied and need to stop, whereas in the past, it was never enough, I used to unconsciously eat, unaware of how many calories i was putting in. I can now however, have 1 serving of dessert and walk away from the table. I'm also working on a formula/plan for me, where it's not only concentrated on calories but I'm breaking it down into groups of carbs, veg, proteins, fruit, fats, dairy, so I get nutrients from all the groups. Thank you my lovely people.