To be uneasy/confused by what the weight loss coach said?

[QuestionableMouse]

Just left an appointment with her after being referred by my GP for help losing weight.

She told me I must eat within and hour of getting up and something at lunch or my body will go into "starvation mode" and hang on to fat. I thought the whole starvation mode thing was proven to be rubbish? And that I have to exercise more.

It's left me a bit bemused and not sure how helpful the whole thing is going to be!

How is skipping breakfast detrimental?

@QuestionableMouse if you’re a PCOS sufferer, then a low carb diet would work for you.

Bear in mind that GPs have very little training in nutrition. In one of the Bootcamps I ran, a few years ago, we had someone who was a GP sign up, and she said she’d only had a week’s worth of training/teaching about food/diet/nutrition.

FWIW I also think your ‘coach’ is talking bollocks!

There’s a Low Carb Bootcamp running right now, that just started this week, being run by @Just4June. That might help you.

It definitely isn't detrimental. For some, it might be essential to eat breakfast depending on their lifestyle and blood sugar levels (ie their genetics and general health!) but in terms of general weight loss it definitely isn't.

Breakfast being so important was heavily perpetuated by companies wanting to sell 'breakfast foods'.

Case in point I am slim and toned and have never eaten it. Plenty of people I know are similar.

Mine told me I need to exercise more, I run marathons 🤣

I think it's rubbish. I was doing quite well losing weight just having brunch and dinner and I went to a healthy eating thing about menopause and they said menopausal women should be having 30g of protein at breakfast and you must have it before ten am.

Well, that just made me far hungrier all day and I put weight back on as I was eating too much. I'd say being a healthy weight in menopause is more important than eating breakfast!

Everyone is different, but generally it's not a good idea to eat when you aren't hungry.

I mean sometimes I fancy having granola, high protein yogurt and fruit instead of a more brunchy egg on toast or something but I'll have it at 11am and then not need anything until 6-7pm, maybe a cup of tea or a banana in the afternoon sometimes.

I'd be inclined to feed back to the GP that the 'coach' is spreading dated and inaccurate information, and I'd ask about their qualifications/actual profession. They honestly sound like a dieting consultant from Slimming World or Weight Watchers.

As for breakfast, from what I've understood the only issue with not eating breakfast is if you're planning to exercise and are a woman. There is some evidence to suggest that fasted exercise is detrimental to women and can lead to hormone imbalances and the use of lean muscle as fuel. Beyond that, you'll find people who swear by eating breakfast and people who swear by fasting. I've kind of trained myself into eating breakfast and now my mind thinks I'm being tortured if I haven't eaten by 10am 😆

I’m no expert but it may help your hormones regulate if you eat balanced meals at consistent times across the day. If you don’t eat until 5pm when you are starving you are more likely to eat a larger, more unhealthy meal and potentially binge.
Why not try what she is suggesting for a few weeks and see how it makes you feel.
If you aren’t happy with what she is suggesting, despite clearly needing to lose weight, withdraw from the programme so someone else can benefit.

Hmm do you have an under active thyroid by any chance?

The reason fasting doesn't work with that is because your body holds on to any food if not eating regularly and stores it sort of like starvation mode.

I thought there is actually some evidence that the metabolism adapts to its expectation of the food environment.

I can't quickly find a source I 100% trust but this article is interesting and has some research references:

https://erindeckernutrition.com/the-truth-about-starvation-mode/

maybe you could ask your coach for some links to the research literature.

I might be more concerned that she thinks exercise contributes to weight loss, there's evidence it doesn't (though it's still good for you). Read Burn by Herman Pontzer.

Skipping breakfast is not detrimental - many people have found success with intermittent fasting, although it often works better for men.

Exercise has been continually shown to have no effect on weight loss, it often makes people more hungry. What it can do is help maintain a healthy weight and provide cardiovascular, mobility and strength benefits as well as improving mental health.

Starvation mode - no. Your body will need fewer calories to function in sustained calorie deficit leading to weight loss (muscle/fat mix), especially if you lose muscle which is metabolically active tissue requiring more calories to maintain it (another good reason to weight train)

It sounds like my NHS weight loss experience - it wasn't all total rubbish, but it certainly wasn't evidence based.

of course it does. It's not everything, it's about 70-80% diet 20-30% exercise, but weight training has an impact.

The only problem is when people believe it gives them permission to increase their calories, or that it's enough to keep their current diet. People completely over-estimate the amount of calories they burn when they exercise. 30mn exercise twice a week is nothing, neither is "cleaning the house".

Instead of calories, we should have the number of burpees you need. That would make it more obvious. 😂

If you exercise AND diet, of course you see results.

when you say 'of course it does', do you just mean that should be obvious to all right thinking people, or is there some research you can point us to...?

See, if I eat breakfast I’m starving by 11am. If I skip breakfast I can last longer before getting hungry.

I’m rarely hungry when I get up so that’s why I don’t eat anything- though I have coffee.

there's loads of research about the impact of strength training.

Technically cardio too, but realistically most people can't reach the level of cardio needed to see a difference. It's not even rocket science, you do cardio, you burn calories, how can that not contribute.

No one has put on weight by exercise more and eating less.

https://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11518804/weight-loss-exercise-myth-burn-calories

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8365736/

https://health.umms.org/2023/07/31/strength-training-for-weight-loss/

thanks, I was just reading that in fact! Says exercise contributes to weight loss but not weight maintenance, which is interesting.

"don't expect to lose a lot of weight by ramping up physical activity alone"
well, yes, I did say that...

"Montclair's Thomas warned not to count those calories burned in physical activity toward extra eating"

No-one is disagreeing with that one either

"use physical activity in addition to calorie counting and other behavioral changes."
Again, 20-30% vs 70-80%

From that study:

Exercise led to a significant weight loss (4 SR‐MAs, MDs ranging from −1.5 to −3.5 kg), fat loss (4 SR‐MAs, MDs ranging from −1.3 to −2.6 kg) and visceral fat loss (3 SR‐MAs, SMDs ranging from −0.33 to −0.56)

Maximum of 3.5kg weight loss -fat 2.6kg (so lean mass 1kg approx loss) - whilst it's statistically significant, it's not really what most obese people are looking for.

It's all about food.

If we want to tackle obesity, we need to improve our food environment and the food that we provide in schools, hospitals, workplaces and any government funded environments (I think the houses of parliament's food is pretty good)

Exercise is great for lots of things, but not significant and sustained weight loss.

Problem is @FoodAppropriation exercise makes you hungry. Weight training makes you very hungry. Marathon training makes you hungry.

Creating muscle requires an increase of energy..

So you're not meant to eat more, but you will be hungrier - which will make it harder to stick to a calorie restricted diet and more likely to fail.

Not for me it’s not. I lose weight relatively easily on two meals a day (about 11 and about 6). Not everyone benefits from early breakfast

My husband and my daughters best friend both told my daughter that by not eating she wouldn't lose weight because of starvation mode, she's gone from a size 14 to size 8 by not eating much