... to tell you that diets don't work for everyone

[Wroxie]

Today is my 9 month anniversary of tracking every bite of food that's gone into my mouth, with the exception noted below:

My birthday (one day in which I had, as I remember, pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast, no lunch, and fish and chips + a couple of donuts for dinner).

And that's it. I don't drink alcohol. No takeaways. No restaurants. Nothing that I didn't weigh, portion, and track faithfully. Even when I bake or make something from a recipe, every ingredient is weighed and the calories per serving calculated. I skip breakfast during the week and have normal, healthy food and smallish portions for lunch and dinner.

I eat, on average, 1,100 calories per day. I have a desk job but I walk for 30 minutes to an hour nearly every day.

Before this, my diet was pretty bad - takeaways 3-4 times per week, pastries for breakfast, sandwich with crisps and chocolate at lunch, biscuits whenever I felt like it- probably more than 2,500 calories most days (I'm 5'3" so that is A LOT).

And now, nine months later, I have gone from 13 stone to 12.3 stone. That's a grand total of ten pounds lost on an extremely restricted diet- and it was all within the first two months.

Please don't give me diet advice - no, I'm not in 'starvation mode' (because that's a complete myth). No, I don't need to 'cut carbs'. Seriously, I do not want your advice. What I want is to point out that, the next time you're tempted to say something asinine like 'it's just about calories in vs calories out' or to dismiss or vilify or judge someone based on their weight, to realise that the human body is not a two-stroke lawnmower engine and weight, food, activity, hormones, age, genes, and a million other factors are at play. Losing weight isn't simple and even with all the willpower in the world - which I have demonstrated - it isn't always possible.

I'm not giving up. I have gotten used to eating this way and I actually feel like my blood sugar is more regulated (no 'sinking feeling' a few hours after eating a big lunch, for example) and I know that as I get older, it will be better to, at the very least, not get any fatter. That, at least, I can probably do. But nothing short of eating less than 1000 calories per day or surgery or medication are going to get me to a 'normal' BMI.

But it’s the impact of the calorie. I’m not interested in what happened to a random Male who ate Twinkies in a short term trial. He does not represent me or my hormones. You need to look behind the message and understand who is funding the message.

Calories are not calories, it’s so much more nuanced than that. In fact I can give you anecdotal personal evidence of this. I’d completely forgotten I actually did something recently that proved this.

I decided to try Michael Mosley’s the Fast800 online 12 week plan that you pay for. I’d been stalled on Keto for a good six weeks and thought maybe some calorie restriction would help. I assumed the plan was low carb as that’s what he advocates but was really surprised to find it wasn’t. Because I’d paid I decided to go against my better judgement and just do i. I followed the plan perfectly for a week and put on 3lb!!!!! Cancelled the plan, got my money back and lost the 3lb within a week using Keto.

For some people adding back in fruit and low fat products just triggers weight gain. I don’t properly understand why I just know I have to watch my sugars abs carbs like a hawk. So a calorie is not a calorie. If it was I would have lost weight on 800 cals considering before than plan I was eating more than double that on Keto.

@SchrodingersImmigrant

If we could move away from CICO and focus on the quality of food we’re ingesting and what impact that has on our fat storing hormone, it would save a lot of heartache.

We can very well do both tbh. I am. Calories help me re learn portions and the over amount. Reading up about what's good for me and eating nutritionally sound food on top of that means I am actually working on a sustainable and healthy eating.
Basically I am returning to my childhood though😂 We eat much better then. I lost sight of it and portions especially.

It doesn't have to be one or the other. Calories or nutrition. Or pleasure for that matter. You can be losing weight while still enjoying piece of stilton with pear😁

Energy is important. I can be burning fat but if it’s dietary fat instead of stored fat I will maintain. So now I need to reduce my energy to lose again. Right now I’m about to eat some courgette noodles and a grilled chicken breast. I want to SMOTHER it in oil but I’m trying for a low ENERGY day today and I’m going to refrain.

To be fair, whilst I do think many people just don't count carries properly and could lose weight on a well managed diet, a calorie definitely isn't just a calorie.

I believe drinking alcohol, for instance, makes one store fat more readily if consumed concurrently, and I believe protein is more thermogenic (is that the right word, I mean it takes more energy to burn). And some people indeed do very well on keto.

Your attitude is one of the worst I’ve seen on this site.

I'm not sure we can make any conclusions on your anecdote. My personal anecdote is that low carb bootcamp lost me water weight then nothing more. CICO lost me 2.5 stone and I'm having to increase calories to maintain. I've eaten cake and carbs every day.

Forget the diets and stop thinking of your body exclusively from the outside.

OP you should exercise more. It'll make your body healthier, stronger!! Let's focus on what's important

A calorie is only a calorie only in the context of the laboratory bench. In the context of the human (or animal) body, biochemistry comes into play, such that the body deals with the different macronutrients: carbs, fats and proteins, in very different ways. Like someone said upthread, it's like putting your salary in ready cash into your wallet vs putting it into a 90 day access savings account... you might have the same amount of "wealth" overall (read: laws of thermodynamics in the dietary context), but your cash flow situation would look very different in those scenarios. It's the quality of calories that count relative to the quantity of calories you eat, rather than the crude straight number of calories. If you stick to high quality nutrient dense food, you reach satiety much sooner than if you eat highly processed low nutrient food, and you find your appetite naturally regulates itself. You just need 2 - 3 side platefuls of food per day (eg a steak/chop/spag bol without the spag) plus a big pile of sauerkraut, salad with olive oil or buttery veg to feel replete from food.

@IDontMindMarmite

I'm not sure we can make any conclusions on your anecdote. My personal anecdote is that low carb bootcamp lost me water weight then nothing more. CICO lost me 2.5 stone and I'm having to increase calories to maintain. I've eaten cake and carbs every day.

I don’t mind you gleaning nothing from my anecdote. That’s the joy of anecdotes, they mean bugger all to anyone other than the person who experienced it. But for me it was gold.

I'm guessing you just haven't found the right diet/way of eating for you OP.. Everyone's body reacts differently. For example I cannot lose weight unless I low carb despite how much I exercise I do, whereas my DH can lose weight by just cutting out snacks and running a couple of times a week. I know you aren't after advice, but the book that really changed my life on this subject was The Obesity Code by Jason Fung.

I’ve found this thread so interesting. I didn’t realise you can work out percentage body fat with an online calculator - just done mine and have 27% body fat - not as high as I’d assumed which is encouraging. I’ve been looking on active.com and found this of great interest about the role fat itself plays in keeping us fat. Who knew? Not me!!
“The problem is that fat plays its own role in the metabolic game, and it's literally working to slow down your calorie burn. See, the term "fat and lazy" is pretty accurate from a scientific standpoint. Fat is lazy, on a metabolic level. It barely burns any calories at all. For your body to support a pound of fat, it needs to burn a mere 2 calories a day. Muscle, on the other hand, is very metabolically active.

This is key and why muscle is your BFF in the fat-burning process: At rest, one pound of muscle burns three times as many calories every day just to sustain itself—and a lot of those calories that muscle burns off come from fat's storage units. That's why fat hates muscle, and why you should love muscle, because muscle is constantly burning fat off.

Fat actually fights back, trying to erode muscle and fit more of its fat friends into your body. The real villain in this internal battle happening right now, in your body, is a nasty character called visceral fat. Visceral fat is the kind that resides behind the abdominal muscles, surrounding your internal organs.

And visceral fat works its mischief by releasing a number of substances, collectively called adipokines. Adipokines include compounds that raise your risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, inflammation and heart disease. Visceral fat also messes with an important hormone called adiponectin, which regulates metabolism. The more visceral fat you have, the less adiponectin you have, and the lower your metabolism. So fat literally begets more fat.

A study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology showed that those biologically active molecules that are released from visceral fat can actually degrade muscle quality—which, again, leads to more fat. The solution?

More Muscle
After age 25 we all start to lose muscle mass—a fifth of a pound of muscle a year, from ages 25 to 50, and then up to a pound of muscle a year after that—if we don't do anything to stop the decline. And on top of a slumping metabolic rate, loss of muscle strength and mass are empirically linked to declines in the immune system, not to mention weaker bones, stiffer joints and slumping postures. Muscle mass also plays a central role in the response to stress. And further research is expected to show measurable links between diminished muscle mass and cancer mortality.”

I have not read the whole thread, I imagine there is a hard core of people insisting that somehow you must be doing it wrong because calories in calories out MUST work and somehow it much be your fault it is not in your case, either you are cheating, or you are eating wrong or it is something medical

but of course you are absolutely right, caloric deficit diets do not work in the long run for losing weight, they don't, they just don't, but many people will not accept it, because we have believed it for such a long time, and, I suspect, because they like to think overweight people lack will power and are lazy!

CICO works like fulling a bucket with fluid. Obviously if you put in more water than the capacity of the bucket, it will overflow.

What CICO doesn't take into account is that some fluids make holes in the bucket, and so different fluids mean the capacity of the bucket over time can be variable.

You can't have a situation where you consistently eat more than you need and don't put on fat. You can have a situation where eating x calories of one thing has a different effect (on your weight gain/loss/maintenance) than eating x amount of calories of another thing.

100 calories of sugar provides us with 90% (roughly) of its energy to use, because it is 'ready' fuel'. 100 calories of fat provides us with 60 - 70% of its energy to use, because it uses more energy to process into ready fuel.

Everybody has a different ability to process fat and carbs, so it'll go at different rates for everybody. That's why you have to experiment. The right weight loss diet and exercise regime for you is the one that works!

I think we should also talk about another dark side of weight loss.
Like why my DH got compliments from all his mates and I have heard nothing from mine bar 1 who is also losing weight😂 And yes. It is noticeable. I took pics.
Sexism, I tell ya😂

Anyway. We are all anecdotes until someone decides we would be good for their study and puts our anecdote on a paper. Cheers to anecdoting.

A long time ago, when I used to do the Atkins diet, I remember he said in one of the books that some people are really resistant (physically) to losing weight. For some unfortunate people dieting really can't work for them, which leads them into the belief that they can never lose weight no matter what they do.

His solution (if I remember) was something called a fat fast; which was a very short term programme consisting of 3 very high fat small meals a day. (They were not exactly meals nor were they particularly pleasant to eat. A tablespoon of full fat mayo with a little tuna in it was one of the meals if I recall). However he states it does work drastically for those that are very resistant physically to weight loss, and that it is helpful to do not only to drop pounds, but to give you the knowledge that weight can be lost under the right conditions.

If this of any help further details are in the original Dr Atkins weight loss book.

We are in a constant battle where our bodies want to be fat. They are biologically programmed to eat things that will add to their safety net of 'carried food' (ie body fat); it's a safeguarding measure against food scarcity. If you surround a biological need with fat-inducing food (ie put supermarkets all over the place), then our brains are bound to struggle to overcome it. It's like overcoming the urge to drink when you're thirsty, or use the loo when you need to.

The problem is we have no scarcity. When we do (ie famine), nobody stays fat. Our bodies are designed to be fit and healthy in a system we are not in.

You can be pretty slim but with low muscle mass and a higher fat percentage comparatively which would mean your body burns less calories than somebody with more muscle mass
This is me. That with low heart rate means I don't burn much at all. I don't need a lot of calories at all, but like most, I like eating!

@Janeaustensquill, yes,I quite like online calculators. There's loads of different ones. Although the fat estimates using measurements get me at less than my scales which use bioelectrical impudence. Although I may have pulled the tape measure in rather tightly!

@namochangoro

bioelectrical impudence

Best typo I've seen on MN so far... coffee came down my nose!

Eckhart yes I agree. We don't see fat people during times of famine and starvation, do we.

I know it's hard. But doing no exercise and still managing to lose 10lbs purely from lowering the Calorie intake is definitely a dieting success story in my eyes?!

@Eckhart , ! I've very impudent scales!

Wow I'm the same. I've been on calorie controlled diets pretty much all my adult life. Have also had a spell on teamRH which is like an anti diet which was an eye opener and I was able to eat 2200 cals a day but still nothing for me. I just can't lose any weight. Either on a 1800 cal diet or a 2200. I burn approx 3500-4000 cals a day and nothing lol. Baffles me. I do have underactive thyroid but supposedly well controlled according to blood tests

@Looneytune253

Wow I'm the same. I've been on calorie controlled diets pretty much all my adult life. Have also had a spell on teamRH which is like an anti diet which was an eye opener and I was able to eat 2200 cals a day but still nothing for me. I just can't lose any weight. Either on a 1800 cal diet or a 2200. I burn approx 3500-4000 cals a day and nothing lol. Baffles me. I do have underactive thyroid but supposedly well controlled according to blood tests

I did teamRH and couldn’t lose weight. May I very quietly suggest low carb. Just try it for a few months, I’ve lost nearly two stone now and am fighting the last vanity pounds.

Calories in v. Calories out may be basic science if you function normally. But 'normal' and 'average' are just the middle ground. Not everyone is or does work the same way due to many factors.

I've got PCOS and insulin resistance because of it. If I diet normally by just limiting calories I gain weight. I gained weight on 1,000 cals a day and that should not be possible. My doctor told me to limit carbs and I can now lose weight at way more cals a day than before because my body can actually process the food without the insulin spikes. I initially did Keto but that is far to extreme and I find adherence a challenge (and yo yo-ing between weights when doing keto and not is worse for you that being obese like I was) so now I just eat lower carb (100g a day usually).

I also take supplements to help sort my blood sugar and metabolise the carbohydrates I do eat (berberine and inositol if anyone's interested). Its literally the only way I can lose anything. So yes, the op is right just eating less doesn't always work, but at the same time, there is usually some solution out there for every different body type: you just have to find out what works for you.

Those supplements are interesting @MuddledMiddlebrow. Do you know how they help?

Calories in v. Calories out may be basic science if you function normally. But 'normal' and 'average' are just the middle ground. Not everyone is or does work the same way due to many factors

My grandmother survived a concentration camp. Its funny, but everyone did in fact function the same way, literally every person was extremely thin. There were no people who simply didn't lose weight no matter how little they ate. There weren't overweight people whose super special relationships with food/fat/insulin/carbs etc meant that they didn't lose weight the same as everyone else on starvation rations.
Odd that its only people with access to endless food that are ever overweight, isn't it?