... 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.

@andtheHossyourodeinon

I was the only one who made a comment against your grandmother's opinion, so it was clearly aimed at me. Wriggle if you want though I'll be leaving it here as I'm rapidly realising I'm knocking my head against a brick wall. Do have a look at the science, though. I'm not just stating my own opinion. Starvation makes everybody thin. Yes. Eating too much makes everybody fat. The argument is how to find the middle ground in a healthy way, so concentration camp stories and telling people they are lying/mistaken/making excuses etc isn't really relevant. Instead of having a tantrum/being insulting, study the science behind calorie consumption. Perhaps you might learn something.

Here are some links:

If you've got anything to argue with the science here, please let me know, I'd be fascinated.

I just gave up the struggle and paid for a gastric band and lost 9 stone.
Before I'd been on diets for 50 years and invariably couldn't cope with the relentless starvation and would binge and yo yo my way back up in this fashion.
Now if I binge eat I puke up, my stomach can't cope with it so I don't binge anymore because it causes extreme stomach pain, I have now made my peace with food because I've had to.
If you are an emotional eater it's extremely hard to diet and keep it off.

Starvation makes everybody thin. Yes. Eating too much makes everybody fat. The argument is how to find the middle ground in a healthy way, so concentration camp stories and telling people they are lying/mistaken/making excuses etc isn't really relevant

Of course it's relevant, multiple posters have claimed that they/some people do not lose weight on starvation rations, and that eating too little can make you fat. Which is absolute bollocks and stories of actual starvation rations are entirely relevant to refute such bollocks.

It's easier to make excuses and blame everything else than admitting you are fat because you simply eat too much!

Are you replying to the thread @NoPainNoTartine or to the OP? I understand why people don’t always RTFT, but it is handy to at least give everyone else a clue as to which it is when you post

It's relevant to both and she doesn't need to announce for your sake,

@NoPainNoTartine

It's easier to make excuses and blame everything else than admitting you are fat because you simply eat too much!

Define too much.

I have only successfully lost weight and got to a healthy BMI three times in my life.

Once on pills (young and dumb) and all I ate was one happy meal a day.

Once through a severe bout of depression when I didn't eat at all for two weeks and after that maybe a yogurt or a banana.

During pregnancy when again I barely ate , and I puked it all back up after anyways. I weighed less after giving birth than I did when I got pregnant.

Outside those three times I have also lost weight with a fairly restricted diet (no breakfast,200 cal shake for lunch then dinner at 600 cals max). Took a year and a half to lose 11 kgs and then fucking plateaued and couldn't really go any lower calorie wise.

Would "dieting " like that work? Yes. Is it sustainable? Fuck no. Especially if I'm well and happy, with a somewhat physical job.

So how much food exactly is too much?

I'm back to dieting btw.. took 3 (fairly miserable) months to lose 6 kgs... many,MANY more to go.

@andtheHossyourodeinon

OK then.

Which is absolute bollocks and stories of actual starvation rations are entirely relevant to refute such bollocks

^^ This makes you look super smart, too. Proper science bollocks, innit, eh? Did you have a look at those links? The Zoe Harcombe one is particularly interesting. She studies the scientific studies. Just the first 10 minutes knocks CICO on its head. And she manages never to say the word 'bollocks' once.

Oh and I don't need sympathy or hand holding or anything. I've always been fat, I'll still be fat , it is what it is. I'm doing my own thing,in my own way while I can cope.

But I totally get where OP is coming from, how exhausting it can be , depressing and miserable. Just to have some fuckwit say "eat less move more" or "ohh but you lost so much weight in your pregnancy so it can be done ". Yeah mate, by throwing up 15 times a day. I don't that would be a good habit to pick up.

@andtheHossyourodeinon

It's relevant to both and she doesn't need to announce for your sake,

Yes, it could apply to either - I don’t think it’s that weird a request to ask which it was though

@ComeOnBabyHauntMyBubble

So how much food exactly is too much

It depends on what you're eating. But if you're overweight you need to experiment and find a combination of macros and timing that allows you to eat enough calories to maintain your energy and vital functions, without gaining fat. There's a balance in there somewhere. Some foods encourage your body to store fat and eat more of them (the body wants badly to have plenty of stored fat at all times, and knows how best to get it) Some foods satiate, and decrease hunger, which is necessary when we're all surrounded by such temptation all the time. Have you tried eating the same calories but chucking a fast in here and there? Or the diet where you lost weight before (no breakfast) but with more calories in the other meals?

his makes you look super smart, too. Proper science bollocks, innit, eh? Did you have a look at those links? The Zoe Harcombe one is particularly interesting. She studies the scientific studies. Just the first 10 minutes knocks CICO on its head. And she manages never to say the word 'bollocks' once.

I don't need to read or see any more of the nonsense you can link to that pretends you're so damn complicated. that none of the rules of physics apply to you. It's all so much blah blah blah. It's not like we don't all know the actual truth, no matter how comforting the lies.

I don't need to read or see any more of the nonsense you can link to that pretends you're so damn complicated. that none of the rules of physics apply to you

But the rules of physics do apply to me. There's nothing comforting in the fact that people are being miseducated and it's leading to despair and illness. There's nothing complicated about the science either, really, or about me. If you're going to argue, at least argue against a point that's actually being made, instead of getting yourself all in a little tizzy about things that aren't being said.

You don't have to agree with the facts or the scientific proof. Your opinion doesn't matter to anybody. But calling clearly stated scientific facts 'bollocks blah blah' just makes you look a bit silly really, an wilfully ignorant. Nobody's going to take that away from you. We clearly don't all know the actual truth, do we, otherwise there wouldn't be so much disagreement on the thread?

Or are you in that position where, because it's your opinion, you think it's a fact, and everybody else is a lying prat? Because that's more and more how it looks from your tantrummy posts.

But calling clearly stated scientific facts 'bollocks blah blah' just makes you look a bit silly really, an wilfully ignorant.

They aren't scientific facts. Just because you've swallowed something hook line and sinker doesn't mean it is irrefutable canon.

There are multiple posters claiming that they don'tlose weight because they eat too little, that they don't lose weight on starvation rations, that no matter how they restrict, they can't lose weight. Yiu can complain about my posts all you like but we all know that these people are talking absolute bollocks, and no link you think is great will prove otherwise.
You may not like my tone but I am quite correct, and I think you know that.

You’re not correct, you’re having a temper tantrum because people disagree with you, and I suspect that despite going on about “simple physics” you actually know as much about physics as you do biochemistry - absolutely fuck all.

so would you argue that scientific facts no longer apply in well documented starvation examples like prisons/camps/orphanage or extreme poverty cases?

That's an interesting view. Not sure where you get it from?

Ok, have it your way. People ARE fat because they don't eat enough, it's all the governments fault, reducing calories never leads to weightloss, water is not wet and obesity is always someone elses fault.

Anyone stating otherwise is having a "temper tantrum". Are you happy now?

You may not like my tone but I am quite correct, and I think you know that

Yes, of course, inwardly, we all bow down to your greater knowledge (which you have yet to back up further than saying your granny said it too, and calling other things 'bollocks')

We all know that your knowledge is the pure, irrefutable truth. We just daren't admit it, in case anybody thought we were trying to perceive ourselves as equal to you, oh, great one.

Haha! I don't really give a tinker's fart about your tone; where is the actual proof behind what you're saying? Or is it just your opinion, or what you believe other people (total strangers who are outwardly, vociferously opposing you) think? Why would I, a slim runner, be wanting to prove that running and eating correctly doesn't always make you slim?

I'm not the only one opposing you here. You seem to be stating your opinion as a fact that everybody knows. It isn't. They don't.

People ARE fat because they don't eat enough, it's all the governments fault, reducing calories never leads to weightloss, water is not wet and obesity is always someone elses fault.

Actually, water isn't wet... just saying...

Ok, have it your way. People ARE fat because they don't eat enough, it's all the governments fault, reducing calories never leads to weightloss, water is not wet and obesity is always someone elses fault

Who are you talking to?! Nobody has said these things! Are you drunk?!

@StillCantSleep

Brilliant! haha! That's true, isn't it

Some people don't believe in facts though.

Being fat isn't all about what you eat. There are so many sides to it, emotional, physical, financial, you can say stop eating and work out all you want, it isn't going to cure obesity.
How about
Stop smoking
Stop beating your wife
Stop suffering from anxiety.
Staying stop it to any of those things doesn't make it stop, there is so much more to it.
I've seen people continue to smoke even though they have lost both legs to the hip from arterial disease.

Actually, water isn't wet... just saying...

Fact

Even ive said reducing calories leads to weightloss

But at 5 foot 8 i was on about 850 a day

Deffo lost weight though

(Haven’t gained over lockdown which is weird 🤔)