Weight-Loss question about stalls

Weight-Loss
DMAX2007

DMAX2007

New member
I read some nutrition articles recently about how the average male needs to eat over 1500 calories to actually lose weight and anything lower than that can cause stalls and even weight gain. The basic premise was you need to eat good fats, grains, fruits, veggies to lose fat, within limits of course.

Now the question is, how many diets do you think fail because the person didn't eat enough calories? Basically I'm asking for the validity of the argument in above paragraph. For those of you who lose weight steadily and successfully, what was your fat gram count daily? thanks!
 
You can't make a blanket statement about how many calories people should eat across a broad spectrum. It doesn't work like that. Caloric intake is very individual, based mostly on current size. The bigger you are, the more calories you need, and vice versa.

And what does fat grams have to do with anything? Dietary fat doesn't make you fat. Excess energy makes you fat.
 
I agree with Steve here. Some individuals can get away with 1000 calories a day (not many though) and lose fat easily, while severely overweight individuals may be able to consume 4000 calories a day and still lose fat.

However, I do feel that many individuals think that the best way (or the ONLY way) to lose fat is by drastically lowering their calories or starving themselves. While you can lose weight (and sometimes a great deal of it too!) initially, this will be water and muscle loss, which will result in you being dehyrated and your metabolism slowing to a stall which is when your weight loss will plateau and you find yourself in a very awkward position.

What I teach is dropping the unhealthy fattening and high-sugar foods, and eating regular balanced meals, using portion control and intuitive eating to limit your intake while focusing on burning the fat off through regular aerobic exercise and building muscle through strength training. With this approach, you'll see far greater improvements than you would from any calorie-counting diet, in my opinion.

Hope that helps. :)

Warmest regards,

Joseph Cole
 
josephcole said:
However, I do feel that many individuals think that the best way (or the ONLY way) to lose fat is by drastically lowering their calories or starving themselves. While you can lose weight (and sometimes a great deal of it too!) initially, this will be water and muscle loss, which will result in you being dehyrated and your metabolism slowing to a stall which is when your weight loss will plateau and you find yourself in a very awkward position.
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This depends on current fat levels though. The higher the level of fat you have, the deeper the energy deficit you can create. Fatter people don't lose muscle while dieting like their leaner counterparts. Partitioning at its finest.

Of course you have to consider the individual. Some big people will not take kindly to a strict diet that drastically reduces the amount of food they can eat. I know many who can though. It is all about developing a plan that combines long term adherence with the most efficient success possible.
 
And even if you do have enough calories, but still maintain a deficit, you may stall. I am "Mr. Plateau" around here. Mine generally last 30 days or so, and I assure you, it's not from starving myself, or from losing track of what I eat. Some of us just have to deal with plateaus, no matter what we do.
 
Steve said:
Of course you have to consider the individual. Some big people will not take kindly to a strict diet that drastically reduces the amount of food they can eat. I know many who can though. It is all about developing a plan that combines long term adherence with the most efficient success possible.
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Recently, i've been watching a documentary in the UK called Half Ton Hospital about Brookhaven Clinic in New York (not sure how well known it is in the US, but it was the first I'd heard of it). It was really interesting, but the first thing I really noticed about it was how many people were a) there for a long time and not losing weight, and b) losing weight and leaving, then putting it back on again. Everyone there was on a 1500 calorie diet, regardless of how much they weighed, and the majority were cheating on their diet. It made me wonder why they were cutting their food down that much. OK, a few people stuck to it, but the majority didn't, and after the amount they'd been eating in the past and the weight many of them had got to, the staff could easily have let them have twice what they were giving them and they would have still lost weight. It seemed utterly crazy.

They were promoting themselves as the "radical" solution to obesity, and I didn't really see anything radical about it. It was just drastic calorie cutting. Now, if they'd spent time with them, helping them work out their own personal goals and finding realistic ways of getting there, that would have been radical for the diet industry. But it seemed like just another one of those one-size-fits-all programs, and if you don't succeed with it, well, it must be your fault.

Sorry, I've gone way off topic. Your posts always get me thinking, Steve.
 
Yes you are right.You cannot lose weight by going on a crash diet.Thanks for the information.
 
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