Is it really true that if you don’t eat enough you won’t lose weight?

[RedCandyApple]

I just don’t buy this, surely if you have a calorie deficit you will lose weight? How can not eating enough stop you from losing weight? Isn’t it suppose to be the opposite? If you are burning more calories than you consume then you would lose weight? I am obese, don’t want to say how much I weigh as I’m so embarrassed but I am a dress size 20, I’ve started calorie controlled diet on 10th of jan, but I’ve barely lose anything, last week I lost nothing at all! Not even a lb, I have cut out all takeaway, fizzy drinks, sweets, chocolate yet the scales are barely moving. People always say when you are obese you lose weight at quicker rate and the weight just falls off so I have to admit I was expecting quite big losses each week but how can I barely be losing anything, when I’ve cut everything out and have drastically changed what I’m eating? I am absolutely not in denial about how much I am eating I count everything. I don’t use oil, butter, I don’t drink tea or coffee so no hidden milk or sugar I don’t drink alcohol. I am eating 1200/1300 cals a day, what is going on?

Of course quality of food matters. Companies spend millions very year trying to make us eat more of their products.

www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/van_tulleken

And like a pp, it's often better to have a less punishing calorie goal. I'm quite short and also menopausal but got myself down from a bmi of 26 to 23 averaging about 1800 calories a day. Like you, my only exercise was walking and I can't even do that for as long as I used to, as most of my joints are knackered in some way. It wasn't a quick one month fix but I only calorie counted strictly for about 3-4 months. I don't weave all my own lentils but when I do have convenience food, I have something fresh with it.

A couple of thoughts:

1. Your food tracking is off. You cannot eat 1200 cals every day at a size 20 and not even lose a pound. Either you're eating more than you think every day, or you're sticking to it all week then going off piste on the weekend and eating back your deficit. It's weekly average calories that matter, not daily. This is the most likely explanation.

1. You have naturally cut down your NEAT to compensate. Your body is hungry on 1200 calories and so is making you sit on your arse as much as possible. This has decreased your energy burn so that your deficit is lower than you think. Less likely as I'd still expect you to have lost some weight, even if it's slow. Get a step counter and make sure you do 10-15k steps a day. You have to move to keep your energy deficit at the same level. If you change your movement level then your energy expenditure will drop.

1. You have a condition that is limiting your metabolism so you don't lose weight in the expected way. Again, although metabolic conditions make weight loss slower or faster, they don't completely prevent it, so I'd still expect some change on the scales.

1. You are a medical enigma and the rules of entropy don't apply to you.

My money would be mainly on 1 with a small contribution from 2.

I’m not binge eating at all.

I'm 57 and a size 8 to 10..... I would lose weight on 1200c a day ( I eat around 1500)

The '1200 calories is 1200 calories and it doesn't matter where it comes from' isn't really true. High sugar foods in particular cause a very particular bodily response which gears the body to produce fat much more quickly. The documentary 'Fed Up' is quite interesting on this topic.

I think it is working, you just need to persist. If your clothes feel looser you just need to keep going. That said, I hope you can take the advice on the thread because eating one way when you're in weight loss mode is not going to help you when you've achieved your goal. You won't have developed healthy eating habits.

All you have to do is watch I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. They lose so much weight in a very short time due to low calorie diet. It's not even that they're going to the gym either.

Low calorie = weight loss.

@RedCandyApple just wanted to say well done on starting the journey to lose weight, don’t let it de motivate you and try to keep going. One thing I’ve noticed with calorie counting is if I drink alcohol, even if it’s counted and within my allowance, so still allows for a deficit I don’t lose weight. It very frustrating! So I’ve realised I need to cut out alcohol for now until I’ve reached my goal unless there’s a special occasion. Jsit thought I’d mention in case that’s helpful and something you could try. Try to keep track of everything for now and if you’re really still not losing after a couple of months I’d see your gp and take your diary/log with you to show them what you’re doing. Good luck and keep it up 🙂

HeadInTheProverbial*

A calorie pretty much is a calorie. There was that professor who are only Twinkies and junk food at 1800 cals a day and lost weight (OK, N=1 isn't highly scientific, but 🤷🏻). You'd feel like crap, because there's very little nutrition in it, but you'd lose weight. The trouble with highly processed food is it's hard to stop eating it and to only have 1800 (or whatever) calories worth but if you could maintain a deficit you'd still lose weight

edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html

If you’re certain you’re tracking everything you eat and drink perhaps make a doctors appointment as there are some conditions which make weight loss a lot harder.

If that were true survivors of concentration camps and famine would all be overweight, or at the very least a healthy weight. Less calories = weight loss. You could eat 5 mars bars a day and lose weight - but you'd be unhealthy. Eat in a calorie deficit and eat the right amount of fruit, veg, fibre, carbs, dairy and protein and you'll lose weight AND be healthy

Sounds like you have been v focused and motivated. I remember once noticing and telling a colleague that she looked like she had lost weight (I wouldn't normally comment on people's weight) and she said that she hadn't actually lost any weight according to the scales. However she had taken up running and she must have lost inches. I think maybe it's the water retention that a previous poster said. Keep going and good luck

Sorry I meant to add that my colleague had said how loads of people had said that to her so it wasn't just me who noticed. So I bet you have lost inches and soon it will show on the scales too.

A calorie isn't a calorie from what I understand and I'm not an expert.

Your body burns calories. I think it burns 7 calories for 1 calorie of protein in and like 2 for fat. These could be the wrong figures but the principle is the same. The harder your body has to work to digest and metabolise your calories the more weight loss you will achieve. Yes you can do this eating crap on a calorie deficit but if you get your macros right with protein, carbs and fat, and your micros right you can eat a lot more calories and be in a larger deficit.

@HeyBlaby

It's untrue, but the standard diet advice peddled by most users on here is utter rubbish, not backed by any evidence and doesn't stand up to basic scrutiny. The 'starvation mode' and 'cut all carbs' crew will be here soon.

I'm fairness, I had the 'starvation mode' explained to me by a consultant at Seacroft Hospital. So it's a little more than a theory....

@ClawedButler

Of course it's not true - if it was, no-one would ever starve to death.

And all this talk of "revving up your metabolism" or your metabolism slowing down etc is garbage. It's not an engine, you can't speed it up or slow it down. It's the number of calories your body needs in a day to exist at its current weight. So overweight people have higher metabolisms than underweight people. But losing a stone or two isn't going to "slow down" your metabolism to the point where you can't process any calories. It just means that, as there's less of you, you need fewer calories to exist. But it's to the tune of a couple of hundred, not 1,000

Ohh so you know better than qualified Doctors, Consultants & Professors do you?! You'd better get on the phone to the NHS and let them know that their decades of research & testing on metabolic issues is all 'garbage' then! Quick!

A calorie really is a calorie. It's a unit of energy and by definition has to be the same. But different macros contain different numbers of calories per gram. Fat is 9 calories while protein and carbs are 4 calories so you get a larger volume of food with some compared to others. Saying not all calories are the same source of energy is a nonsense. It's like saying not all miles are the same distance. They are. A mile uphill might feel a lot different to a mile downhill, but it's still a mile!

Starvation Mode isn't something that will stop you necessarily losing weight. And it isn't inevitable.

What happens is as you lose weight, and get to low levels of body fat, your body compensates by starting to decrease your energy expenditure. It starts with making you more lazy, to conserve exercise and NEAT energy. However, if you force yourself to keep moving at the same level, you'll continue to burn the same number of calories. At the same time your brain and body will start to push you to eat more and the cravings set in massively. People usually can't fight this for long and will give in and binge. Because your body panics a bit, you usually end up over compensating and eating more than the original deficit, meaning you put more weight back on than you originally lost. The decreased NEAT also lasts a few days longer than the "diet" which adds to the effect.

If this doesn't work, your body may start to shut down a few non essential processes and may start to cannibalise muscle stores, firstly as a source of energy and secondly because muscle uses energy even at rest so your body can no longer afford to have so much of it around.

However, even with all these things going on you still have a metabolic rate! It may be lower than it was before but if you continue to eat less than you burn you'll lose weight.

Starvation mode whereby your body starts to maintain weight on no calories at all doesn't exist.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MinnesotaStarvationn_Experiment

This study is where the original theory of starvation mode came from. However, you'll notice that the participants still lost 25% of their body weight by manipulating their calories. None of them stopped losing weight.

You'll also note that their calories were 1600 a day (although forced exercise levels were very high) so a damn sight more than most calorie controlled diets we peddle today (I'm looking at you, Michael Mosely). Look up what happened during the refeed period after the 12 week weight loss period, and then argue the Fast800 seems a good idea for the general population!

@RedCandyApple you are doing really well to stick at it despite not seeing the losses you hoped for on the scales.

I would measure yourself too as that might give you some results.

However, you are adamantly arguing that what you are doing has to work while st the same time complaining that it's not working. Try to cook more, you've said you can. Slimming world works well in principle of you ignore all the shitty muller lights and teeny tiny bars they peddle as it is based on filling up on fruit and veg and eating unprocessed foods.

When I'm trying to lose weight I spend a lot more time in the kitchen as it does take longer to prepare unprocessed foods but I make large quantities as far as possible and portion them out.

The only other this I would add is to ask whether you are on hormonal contraception or HRT? I found it incredibly hard to lose weight in my 20s and it was only when o came off contraception to have the children that I got control of my weight.
I recently started HRT and weight piled back on, I've come off it and am again losing (slowly) so for me that's definitely a thing too.

You spoons like you've made some great changes to your life and diet so don't stop through what the scales say

I think it will just be a big loss in a big jump soon. I remember when losing my baby weight i became so fixated on when the actual lbs would come off and read so much on it. Doesn't mean it's not going but doesn't have a set timetable for when the scales fall
In correlation to not eating .
I'm explaining that shite but it will come off if you stick to this, keep going you're doing great

@notanoccultexpert

I'm not sure if this is relevant, but is it your scales? With mine, you have to reset them after each use (step on them briefly and then step off - wait for it to go back to zero) - and then actually get on to weigh yourself.

Oh my god me too! And this fucked me over for a long tome. 4lbs heavier the first time you stand on

The body is not a calorie burning furnace machine in the way people think and is actually more like a thermostat - weight regulation - like most bodily functions - is a system that is tightly regulated ( homeostasis) and yes, the body has a complex series of hormonal interactions ( insulin, leptin, ghrelin) that work together to maintain a weight range that allows for back up energy storage ( ie adipose tissue).

There is evidence that over time a calorie defecit can be problematic for weight control, and that focusing on managing insulin resistance instead is key to a Leong your body to move its 'set weight' thermostat down over the long term.

Eating normally after an extended period of calorie deficiency often actually alters the set weight upwards even higher meaning that you will gain even more weight than you have previously weighed, and that your body is going to work harder to hold on to that back up storage.

It is what you eat and when that matters for weight loss.

Sugar and refined carbs are the most problematic for insulin resistance. That's just a fact.

@missfliss

The body is not a calorie burning furnace machine in the way people think and is actually more like a thermostat - weight regulation - like most bodily functions - is a system that is tightly regulated ( homeostasis) and yes, the body has a complex series of hormonal interactions ( insulin, leptin, ghrelin) that work together to maintain a weight range that allows for back up energy storage ( ie adipose tissue).

There is evidence that over time a calorie defecit can be problematic for weight control, and that focusing on managing insulin resistance instead is key to a Leong your body to move its 'set weight' thermostat down over the long term.

Eating normally after an extended period of calorie deficiency often actually alters the set weight upwards even higher meaning that you will gain even more weight than you have previously weighed, and that your body is going to work harder to hold on to that back up storage.

It is what you eat and when that matters for weight loss.

Sugar and refined carbs are the most problematic for insulin resistance. That's just a fact.

This is absolutely my previous experience.

I am not a nutritionist but I was going up into a size 18 and felt dreadful so I have started calorie counting and lost a stone. I tried lots of diets before but so far Noom is helping my mindset

One reason I never lost weight properly before was eating the wrong foods for what I thought was the right calories

Mug shots, muller lights, 96cal breakfast bars etc - all full of rubbish and don’t fill you up. Slimming world is the worst for this type of thing

You need to eat the right amount of food and the right type of food. If an Apple has 96 calories and so does the breakfast bar - choose the Apple. The Apple has more water in it for a start. Stop eating dry, dense foods as much as you can