to recommend the 800 cals a day diet?

[Settle59]

I know a book has been written on this - the fast 800 - by Dr Michael Mosley. I haven't followed his recommendations in the book to the letter and his recommended recipes but I still stick to 800 cals daily - since April 14th this year I've started this diet and the results in 4 weeks have been amazing. When I started I was 5ft 1 and around 12 - 12 and a half stone - now I'm around 11st 4. I know I'm still overweight but feel so much fitter. I also run for at least 30 mins every day. My previously tight size 16 clothes feel looser. I had so much difficulty losing weight before- for the past 3 years I've not been able to diet and binge eaten a lot. However, now I've stuck to this for nearly 5 weeks I feel I'm on a roll and determined to keep it going. Has anyone else tried this diet and had similar success?

[h3av3n]

I faint when I eat this number of calories per day... Even if the food is nutritious, the body doesn't only need micronutrients and macronutrients, enough calories is literally essential for the body to function. Also not everyone is overweight, this number of calories can cause significant harm and is highly uneccesary for weight loss when a 500 calorie deficit causes weight loss without going to such a ridiculous extreme.

[h3av3n]

Calories are the only thing that matters when it comes to fat loss, there are many different ways that could help someone stay in a calorie deficit such as eating healthier foods but the reason for weight loss is still the calorie deficit.

[MsTSwift]

It’s weird if I have a carb breakfast as I always used to I felt shakey and ravenous by late morning. If I have nothing but tea I feel fine until lunchtime then have a healthy lunch. Really bizarre that what I thought was hunger and me needing lots of good was actually a carb / sugar crash. Got to 45 without realising that!

[YgritteSnow]

It is the only way I can lose weight. I am peri-menopausal but even before that when I look back I could only lose weight by drastically cutting calories right back. I am not massively overweight, about a stone, so it isn't like I lost loads and then couldn't keep it off. I put on and lost four stone after each pregnancy and have kept it off apart from this pesky stone that has crept on over the last two or three years and I am struggling to lose. I won't lie, its hard but there is no reason you can't get all the nutrients you need on an 800 calorie diet. I think the calories we are told we need are far too much and its no wonder people keep gradually piling the weight on. I would be the size of a house if I ate 2000 calories a day, which is supposedly what someone of my age, height and exercise level should be eating. I am doing the 800 calorie diet at the moment. Today I had boiled eggs for breakfast - kept me full for ages, then a tuna salad sandwich on seeded bread for lunch and just now had small bowl of home made veg curry with butternut squash, red pepper, spinach, onions and mushrooms in. I am just under 800 calories and do not feel hungry. I would bloody love a mint aero right about now though! I am determined to emerge from lock down even just a bit thinner but definitely not having put any on.

[cansu]

I have been doing 16:8 and around 1000 calories a day for three weeks now; have lost around ten pounds and am feeling really good and strangely have stopped craving food all the time! What I have noticed is that I am really enjoying my meals now and that I have massively increased the amount of salad and veg and reduced sugar, carbs and processed foods. Yes, it is hard to start with but I do feel it could be sustainable and could be easily adapted when I am down to a healthy weight.

[Ponoka7]

h3av3n, calories only matter if you stay calorie deficient for long enough and you aren't concerned about health. But most of us want to see a difference within a couple of months and we don't want hair, muscle, bone loss.

The science stuff done by Michael Mosley and others show that not all calories are equal when it comes to weight loss and the effects on hormones and the brain.

Also this diet is designed for people who are overweight or versions of it for those who need to turn around their stats/levels.

At 5'2" with CF, my TDEE is 1400, so 900 is my maximum if I want to lose weight. For most women hitting the menopause etc, 1200 calories would be maintainance. Ideally we would do enough exercise to ne able to eat more, but with a BMI over 35, or the tiredness that hits in perimopause. which these diets were developed for, that's not always possible.

[Settle59]

Well done Ygritte sounds like you're doing well and sticking to it!!
Well done cansu! - 10 pounds in 3 weeks is excellent!

[Opendraw]

Since having done the book I eat way more fruit and veg than I ever did.

[Settle59]

Ponoka7 - oof !! 900 is a small 'maximum'!!

[BridgeFarmKefir]

Interesting to see people's different approaches. I've been following this since the start of lockdown and lost 19lbs. I would have lost more but wine.

I fast 8pm-noon. Then I have a meal replacement shake (keeps me full, nutritionally balanced and tbh easy to sort while I give my daughter lunch and try to work)

Dinner is usually around 500-600 cals of a relatively low carb dish like a salmon burrito bowl or dal and roasted fish. Always with a load of veg. If I get hungry I have some cheese or a spoon of peanut butter. I work out about 2-3 times a week.

Works for me. When I get to my next goal I'll go down to 4:3. I'm not eating 800cals a day forever!

[Opendraw]

I didn’t follow it Uber closely but typically omelette or 0% Greek you for breakfast. Lunch homemade soup couple of Rivita , dinnner fish or chicken loads of veg and butternut squash pieces (ready made) in place of potatoes or cauli rice. Often made a huge prawn stir fry bean sprouts no rice.

[Nottherealslimshady]

Didn't know it was a thing but this is how I diet and sometimes throw in intermittent fasting for fastr weight lost.

[Leflic]

It absolutely worked for me. The combination of it being tasty, healthy real food you cook and the fact you do actually have to stop eating when you fancy it helps re programme you.
I got down to my ideal size in four months (10/12) from a 16. I stuck to it properly for 18 months and then not so much. Really didn’t put on so much weight.
Went back to eating what I wanted at Christmas as actively self sabotaging. Lockdown has been a disaster but I know if I jump back on now I could lose a stone in a month.

[Miajk]

Oh god please don't do this!!! You cannot get all the nutrients you need under a 1000 calories.

Diets like that can cause eating disorders, as well as a quick yo-yo effect. I started on the 1000 calories diet, going down and down and fast forward to later when I had an eating disorder and the weight came back.

Please do research. Under 1000 calories is NOT SUSTAINABLE, and once you start eating more with a metabolism that's slowed down so much the weight will really easily pile back on.

Of course it works, since you're starving your body. But then you hit a plateau and need to starve more and before you know it your hair is falling out, bones are getting brittle and you need to start eating more but the weight comes right back.

[Opendraw]

Depends how you do it I eat that for around 8 weeks but I have a very sedintary job . I wouldn’t do it if I had a physical job for eg. I felt I was and now do eat really healthily although snacking has increased during
Lockdown ...

[LadyEloise]

@Leflic
Which diet are you talking about that worked for you please?

[wowfudge]

@Miajk - what you are saying is not true of the Blood Sugar Diet and Fast 800 when done properly. 800 calories is the optimum reduced number of calories to get what your body needs and rapidly lose weight. It's all to do with regulating blood sugar and insulin levels. It's not about eating 800 calories of biscuits.

[Leflic]

Even if the food is nutritious, the body doesn't only need micronutrients and macronutrients, enough calories is literally essential for the body to function.

Er yes. That’s the point of eating less calories...use up those fat stores we are carrying round.

[NameChange84]

Considering that after two years of a supposedly very healthy 1200 cal per day diet, not only had I gained weight, I had also given myself what I later discovered was a “low calorie induced hypothyroidism” as well as several vitamin deficiencies and it took me two years to reverse some of it and there has been permanent damage to my body...

YABVVU

Mosely is a quack. It’s untold what long term damage will be done to the bodies of those who do VLCD long term. We’ll see the results in years to come.

[Leflic]

LadyEloise It was the Blood Sugar diet - 800 Cals a day.

I failed miserably with Atkins. I was obsessed with eating lots of neat and cheese because it was allowed. And because I was eating loads I would crave carbs and then give in. And then realise with all the eggs, cheese and meat the amount of calories plus carbs was twice as much as normal!
Even though it’s a similar principle ( no sugar and carbs).
I think the Michael Mosley focus on diabetes and health not weight really helps. He also introduces the idea of cells being allowed to rest and release the toxins rather than constantly processing food all day. Eating became less important.
Off the diet I tend to think about food all day long. Cooking, snacking and meals take up a lot of my day. Oddly I find It really freeing, despite being restrictive.

[LadyEloise]

Thank You.
I got a bit lost on the thread with all the input from posters so wanted to know exactly which one you had done.

[mumofamenagerie]

I did a slightly modified form of the 800 calorie diet (I didn't strictly calorie count as I ate unlimited non-starchy vegetables) and it reversed my T2 diabetes.

I was never hugely overweight - I am 5'7" and 12st 4, so about a stone overweight - and have two dogs so I always walked for over an hour a day, so getting the blood test results was a massive shock. I started of by trying a simple calorie restricted (not carb restricted) diet for 6 months, but despite losing some weight my blood glucose levels got worse.

I switched to the 800 cal low carb diet for 4 weeks (and then transitioned to higher calories while maintaining low carb) and it completely reversed the blood glucose levels. Two years on, they're at the best level they've ever been, even though I've slowly reintroduced carbs into my diet.

So I highly recommend it for a 'system reset'!

[BIWI]

@Miajl

Please do research. Under 1000 calories is NOT SUSTAINABLE, and once you start eating more with a metabolism that's slowed down so much the weight will really easily pile back on.

I think you need to do your research! Unless you think your opinion holds more water than all the research that's been conducted by the University of Newcastle? one link here

The Fast800 diet is based on this research, so no idea why @NameChange84 or anyone else would insult Dr Mosley by calling him a quack?

And if you'd bothered to read anything about The Fast800 you'd see it's only recommended for up to 12 weeks. Thereafter you move to a Mediterranean diet - lots of fresh meat/fish/eggs/pulses and vegetables and fruit. Keeping the protein high and the fats and carbs at lower levels.

[Ninkanink]

800 is actually fairly easy to do if you keep to a few simple rules and especially eat plenty of veg and protein. I used to do it routinely years ago and actually calorie counted to make sure I wasn’t taking in too little.

I much prefer low carbing though.

[Ninkanink]

It’s depressing isn’t it, BIWI

So much misinformation still around. As a person with type 2 diabetes (not as a result of being massively overweight!) I know how much low carbing and the blood sugar diet is at the forefront of current thinking in relation to diet and health. All the consultants I have dealt with (my daughter is type 1) over the past 10 years have been fully aware of the benefits of a low carb lifestyle and fully behind it.