If you can really 'eat too little' to lose weight, then why do people on the jabs lose weight?

[GinnyPiggie]

Just that really!

There's often advice on here that people are 'eating too little' to lose weight and going into some sort of fasting mode. I've often thought this sounds like bollocks.

So - If you can really 'eat too little' to lose weight, then why do people on the jabs lose weight? Half of them seem to be surviving on very little food indeed.

Does this disprove the theory that you can 'eat too little' to lose weight?

The vast majority of nutrition trends on internet are rubbish and simplistic.
Be it starvation mode, low carb insulin model, carnivore, ...

Yes, i think the weight loss jabs have shown that up haven't they? People losing a lot of weight because guess what - they are eating less.

Is it not that they eat to little at some point they cave and eat loads because they’re starving but the jabs stop the feeling of starvation?

The thing is, the problem for many people is that it’s not weight loss that’s the issue. It’s keeping it off.

And this is because as you lose weight and become lighter/smaller, your body needs less calories. So you have to keep dropping calories to maintain your “losing” status- and then the accepted wisdom is that at your ideal weight, you find your “maintenance” amount of calories.

Which sounds fine, in theory. But in reality, for lots of people maintenance will be a calorific value that is lower than is realistic for them to maintain psychologically over a long period. They are still “deprived” (relative to their previous diet, and probably relative to people around them), but no longer seeing a weight loss (which they’ve been conditioned to understand as their “reward”), so the dopamine “hit” that seeing the number on the scale gives them, doesn’t make up for the “deprivation” any more.

So weight loss drugs are great in theory- as they should keep the appetite suppressed, meaning people can not just lose weight but crucially MAINTAIN weightloss… but I wonder what the long term effect of a lifetime on them will be? Or if it’s economically viable?

People who under eat for long periods are more prone to binging later on and regaining wait.

If you can stick to eating much less then you will certainly lose weight.

I don't believe theories like you need a hearty breakfast to get your metabolism going. I think skipping meals/fasting can be brilliant for your health. Your digestive system needs a rest.

Great response @TakeMeToFlorida

It is absolutely true that our metabolism will slow the less calories we put in, making that fight to continue to lose harder (as well as the urge to eat increased). Regardless of whether you're on injections or not (I am currently) it's entirely likely that your weight loss will a) be easier and b) more sustainable if you balance your calories in properly, as opposed to starving your body. I would have thought that would be obvious.

Starvation mode is a total myth. You eat in a deficit, you will lose weight. Sometimes you stall or plateau but you keep going, it rights itself again.

@YourTwinklyDeer You still feel hunger on the jabs, you're just less bothered about it. I am on Week 11 of the jabs today and could gnaw the hind leg of a donkey this morning.

The jabs don't just suppress appetite though, they also act on insulin response (hence they are also useful for treating diabetes).

I hear you! I follow a rigid, calorie controlled diet for the majority of the week, but I'll have a night off occasionally and enjoy a glass of wine and some Brie on crackers, or maybe it's a colleague's birthday and I'll have a piece of cake to be polite, or DH and I have the same day off and decide to go for a pub lunch. My weight loss has stalled because of the extra calories I'm consuming over the week. I haven't gained any, mind you. I'm only kidding myself that I'm taking in less calories than I need, I'm obviously not.

There are multiple strands to your original question OP. @TakeMeToFlorida has given a really good explanation.

Humans like all animals are designed to survive and reproduce. To survive we have to be able to get through periods of starvation (up until our fairly recent human history). Therefore the body effectively down regulates when food intake drastically reduces. Various hormones will drop right down, appetite will decrease and the body kicks into survival mode. That also happens if you restrict food intake severely to diet. Hence, the query about whether people are eating enough on a diet.

The weightloss injections help people diet by increasing satiety, slowing food transit, reducing appetite, stabilising insulin and glucagon responses and so on. Hence people who often struggle to diet are able to. However, you can diet and lose weight without it being starvation.

You can’t eat too little to lose weight. Cmon now. And the starvation thing has been hugely debunked.

im astounded anyone actually believes you can eat too little to lose weight, we have seen very sad cruel events in history that show what happens to people if they eat too little,

the only way to not loose weight is to eat too much. It would be Lovely if the more we ate the thinner we got, but it’s a ludicrous concept.

Op you can google the initial study that created the whole starvation mode myth.

the people on it were starved. I mean zero food. What ultimately happened is their bodies shut down, their metalbolism slowed as their organs tried to survive, and as there was nothing to fuel them,. They lost weight , it didn’t impact that. Lost it drastically. As that’s biology.

but what seems to have happened is someone somewhere took that utter starvation and slowed metabolism and said oh that’s what happens if you don’t eat enough, your metabolism slows, you don’t lose weight and it’s clearly bullshit. No one is starving themselves literally. 1000 calories a day is not starvation. Neither is 800 or 600. Starvation is zero. For a prolonged period. Amd the people doing it, lost the weight you’d expect, even though their metabolism slowed.

its all on line, but the human body loses weight in line with energy in energy out. It is basic biology, and starvation mode is a myth,

@TheBoldHelper no one is disputing that you can starve to death. No one!

However, the argument is that you should try to avoid dieting to the point that your metabolism slows down to starvation mode or adaptive thermogenisis. If you do that weight loss becomes much, much harder.

The scientific jury is out on exactly to what degree that this occurs in all individuals and how it occurs, but I know that I managed to disrupt the normal functioning of my thyroid hormones by extreme long-term dieting in the past. I know this because I ended up being seen, tested and diagnosed by an endocrinologist, so it wasn't made up 'woo woo'.

Thats right, everyones metabolism changes as they lose weight anyway, because you're smaller, you might have a TDEE of 2000 to start with, then it comes down to 1800 then 1600 and so on. Mine was something like 2300 when I started! Now its 1400 to maintain. I can increase that with some exercise but exercise doesnt amount to very much.

Its another reason why people are advised to check measurements and not just scales, what shows on the scales is notoriously inaccurate due to water, atmosphere etc.

I remember 'gaining' 6lb overnight one day, I dont pay much mind to it but someone else would probably panic and think they had literally gained nearly half a stone overnight and that 'they werent eating enough'! Or stalling and plateauing which is just a natural fluctuation.

Of course it was 6lb off again a few days later, and then some more loss later on.

You should really only weigh monthly, you'll then see just loss, some months more than others.

There are countless studies trying to explain that although your metabolism slows slightly when you eat less, its not anywhere significant enough to stop weight loss if you are eating in a calorie deficit, thats all that matters.

That theory is about body composition not weight. You can eat too little to gain muscle and so look skinny fat all the time. But if you want to look toned you need to build and hone muscle and for that you need to eat well.

Oh and I have pcos and hashimotos and am on Mounjaro. I haven’t changed how I eat or exercise and supression hasn’t kicked in except for the first two weeks - but I’m still losing weight consistantly in a way I wasn’t before.

Weight loss on Mounjaro is not linear though. You may be surprised to know I’ve only lost 3 pounds in 3 months. My body is being very resistant despite massive weight loss earlier on (from March I’ve lost nearly 4 stone).

I’m finding it very annoying the assumptions people make about weight loss jabs. The experience is an individual process and I’m very happy with slow and steady weight loss. It just proves how difficult it is for PCOS sufferers like me to lose weight - I really couldn’t have done it without the jabs.

You’re missing the point. To diet to that level you have to starve yourself. Literally. No one is doing that.

People starve to death on more than zero calories. It's such a grim topic of conversation, really upsetting and not linked to most dieting beyond the very extreme, but people die from severe calorie restriction, not just from a literal zero intake. When sufferers of anorexia die of the disease, or people in a famine die, it's not usually because they are eating absolutely nothing at all ever, it's that they are eating too little to sustain the body's function. And people do all kinds of dangerously low calorie diets (whether you call them starvation diets or not, I don't know if there is a concensus on what calorie intake would be classified as starvation - but I do know it isn't zero!) that have extreme long-term health effects, one of which is damage to the metabolism. You are responding to someone who has done that kind of diet and suffered the consequences so it isn't really fair to say she's 'missing the point' - she's lived through it.

No, I'm not missing the point at @TheBoldHelper you are. You do not have to starve yourself of all food to mess with the normal functions of your body. I am astonished that you are so unaware of this. Our bodies are designed to save us in a famine situation and they do that by down-regulating all functions. One of the many hormones that starts altering are those from the thyroid gland and the hypothalamus that controls the thyroid. Believe me, I do know because I got a very long and thorough telling off by the endocrinologist.

Ok, you seem to be on one, and clearly not reading what I wrote in the context of the subject matter, not the wider one. Honestly crack on.

Or she’d die.

you don’t just continuously adapt to lower intakes. Once you get to too low a weight your organs will start shutting down and you will die.

otherwise you could just leave anorexics to it and they’d eventually adapt to their lower intake. But they die without intervention, so clearly you don’t adapt.

The context of the subject matter - I assume meaning the OP? - is about people on diets worrying they are eating too little to lose weight. I don't think it's helpful to cite starvation studies and insist that maintaining a calorie deficit will always result in weight loss without considering that people eat and diet in real life, not studies, and they have to find ways to manage successful weight loss while working, looking after dependants, all the facets of life - and an understanding of the ways in which the body fights weight loss can really help. As in, after a while in deficit, it will make you more tired and less active. Your metabolism will slow down. You will be hungrier. However much willpower a person has, they can't override their body's most powerful instincts. So I am really suspicious of people talking about studies in isolation and insisting that something is 'basic science' when science is complex and full of variables - and weight loss is notoriously hard and prone to failure in almost all cases. It's much more helpful to people to understand a bit more about how and why diets fail so frequently, and part of that is the truth that a human body does not want to lose weight. And for a lot of people, many of whom who have been fucking up their body's systems for decades with terrible diets, these injections are the only realistic way to stay in that calorie deficit and ride out the bumps in the road on the way.

@TheBoldHelper I am politely explaining my point of view and that of an endocrinologist. You are the one calling everything bullshit. I have read your posts and the context and I am counter-arguing your points.

@Scarletstenfeettall Mounjaro increases insulin.