[TW] I think I’ve messed up my metabolism with a very low calorie diet

I would mostly agree with @Sundaymorningcalla

i would add some caveats - your body will resist being in calorie deficit - you do the all but you might actually be spending a bit longer watching telly than reading your book or doing the housework - your body will encourage you to drop activity to prevent weight loss

your body and brain basically seem to conspire to cheat you - be it being motr ideal or forgetting to count something

How many calories are in your ready meals? Are you aware that a 20% tolerance is allowed between stated calories and actual calories? So if your meal says 600cal it could potentially actually be 720cal? That won't tip you over the edge unless you are eating a lot of ready meals, but worth bearing in mind.
Working out the calories in whole natural foods is more of a faff, but nobody has a vested interest in under-exaggerating how many calories they are! They are also much better for you, as it's well known that some UPFs mess with the way your body handles food.

I already have. It's the same every time, there is no magical disease that makes your body defy the laws of physics.

Sure, there are health conditions especially those involving hormones that increase your appetite so you consume more calories, but there is no such disease that defies thermo dynamics and makes you burn a meaningful number of calories more than any other person. There are differences from person to person but the numbers we are talking are negligible.

The key to sustained weighloss is education, very few people have any idea of the true number of calories they're consuming because frankly their diet is total garbage. Typically high in UPF and calorie dense foods where the odd extra untracked gram here or there cumulatively makes a huge difference.

It's not until it's pointed out to an individual that the penny drops, not that it is necessarily true in this case but the extra calories are coming from somewhere. There is not an adult person on the planet who can consume 1000 calories a day consistently and not lose weight, the math doesn't math.

Typically someone will eat 1000 cals per day for 3-4 days, fall off the wagon because it's so unsustainable, binge and not track what they're eating and low and behold their average calorie intake is actually higher than if they'd have just consistently eaten a healthy number of calories each day.

I'm a qualified nutritionist if it makes any difference to you. This forum is full of people who will perpetuate myths and promote weight loss jabs/fad diets etc, encouraging people to develop deeply unhealthy relationships with food, and then you get the other crew such as yourself who refute every single piece of evidence thrown at them.

My best advice would be to take your weight, heigh and measurements to calculate your TDEE, factor in your daily activity levels and adjust your calories to suit and sustain a calorie deficit of 500 calories per day.

OP if you feel comfortable doing so please share your height and weight so we can make meaningful recommendations.

The 45 min brisk walk a day you're doing will be burning somewhere in the region of 200-300 calories for an average woman. There's no way by virtue of being alive your body is using less than 700-800 calories to stay alive...

Here is the expert nutritionist/dietician/endocrinologist. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

Perhaps you could offer your best advice? Eat less and move more maybe?

Unless you've broken the laws of thermodynamics you haven't ruined your metabolism.

Starvation mode isn't a thing. You're miscalculating calories.

For you to eat 1000 calories a day and gain weight you'd have to be four foot nothing and weigh about 30kg.

Eat real food, track properly.

Are you going to the toilet? If I ate ready meals and boiled eggs I would be totally blocked up! Sorry TMI.
We really don't need loads of protein. We need fibre.

I permanently messed up my metabolism with years of extreme and yoyo dieting. I have to reduce to 800 calories or lower to lose weight.

This was confirmed by my GP who monitored me over a year and a half of dieting and only losing a stone and a half.

Getting older also compounds this issue, as does developing insulin resistance.

www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-truth-about-metabolism

I did Fast800 and have a similar story; once I started eating carbs again, the weight came back on very fast, and I wasn't overeating, calorie wise I was in maintenance level. I'd never do Fast800 a day because of how quickly the weight came back once I stopped it. Did you resume eating carbs when you came off it?

I've been doing a different low calorie diet since January in 10 week cycles with a month of maintaining in between. It's not as low as 800 per day though (it was 1400 per day at the beginning, now 1200), and I have plenty of healthy carbs. I've lost 42lbs in total since I started, which averages out at roughly 2lb per week. When I took a month off and increased my calories, I maintained with no dramatic weight gain like when I stopped Fast800.

Don’t rely on ChatGPT, it’s not reliable at all and makes up stuff that sounds true.

What a grotesque comparison ffs.

Not to be crude but are you pooping on that diet? Also ready meal = salt = water retention.

Sorry I haven’t read every post but just wanted to say I’ve found chat gpt really helpful for tracking macros and planning meals and helping me think what to eat at the next meal to hit my goals

Hello! Just reading through your thread and wondered whether your weight is always something you’ve struggled with? I ALWAYS struggled with mine and then I was diagnosed with PCOS and everything made sense.

I was forever on diets, but couldn’t lose weight unless I was eating 800 calories or less. That in turn would make my hair fall out and I’d be exhausted because I wasn’t getting enough nutrients or energy. Anything over 1,000 calories would mean I gained. I was miserable with a BMI of a huge 37(!) and comparing my diet to women around me made me so hopeless as everyone was eating more than me and staying thin.

When I was diagnosed, I was prescribed Metformin (2000mg) and started only eating whole grain carbs. I was a regular gym goer anyway, but with the Metformin, I noticed a huge difference. I could see the change in weeks and focused on lifting heavy and building muscle which boosted my metabolism.

Keep in mind that if you are going to the gym and building muscle, the scale might go up because muscle weighs a lot. I’d recommend measuring so you can see inches coming off even if the scale remains the same. Or go by how clothes fit/how you feel.

If you have PCOS, HIIT won’t necessarily help you. Walking uphill and elliptical are good, but massive strain cardio is a no no as it causes inflammation.

You may not have PCOS (sorry for going on about it) but it is SO common and many women are undiagnosed. I’ve lost around 30lbs - still got a way to go, but much much happier now! Good luck!!

well done OP for addressing an issue and taking action head on. Exercise is going to be key here to revving up your metabolism and sustaining weight loss - all the best at the gym this week. What do you plan to do there? Does your gym offer access to a personal trainer as part of the gym enrolment?

Chatgpt can get things very wrong with math and can make things up. Seems unlikely given this is a frequent topic in its training data, but you might want to try another calculator for BMI and calories etc.

Hi OP...
Could you go to your GP and asked to be referred to a dietician? You could even get a telephone appointment.
They are keen on this as they want to get people to lower their BMI.. and it sounds like you are working hard but need proper advice to continue.

I agree with the PP who said that weightloss can go in fits and starts.. You lose weight more quickly at the beginning and the plateau is a sign you need to adjust your approach. But I think you need expert advice.

Worth a try anyway

What do you mean gain weight? Are you weighing every day and reading normal fluctuations in weight as 'gaining'. I had a big meal last night with drinks and put on about 2kg overnight. It's not fat though and it will go in a few days.

Anyway, regarding your metabolism you need to do a slow increase, adding 100 calories or so for a while then adding more. Ask chatgpt to put a plan together for you

I think (hope) she means once they recovered, most of them seemed to be a healthy weight, but I'm not sure how true that is. Obviously, no one would argue they looked healthy in the immediate aftermath.