1200 Calorie Diet

[Suezoled]

A couple weeks ago, there was a segment on 20/20 or Dateline or something about people who eat only 1200 calories worth of food a day. Anyone heard of this?

 

[Larspeart]

Lots of people do this. As long as you are eating more the 800 calories a day, you keep your body form going into 'starvation mode' where it conserves energy and fats and you actually gain weight (while burning muscles).

1000+ is considered safe for weight loss.

 

[Suezoled]

Can you actually eat enough and not feel hungry? The examples I saw on TV... one of the guys said he knew it was working because he felt hungry every single day. But he felt good, too. He also went to the gym with his wife, and looked very thin but was smiling a lot.

I heard there was a study about how a restricted calorie diet in lab mice had a higher percent of those rats living longer than those who were not calorie restricted. Never looked into it, though...

 

[zakur]

Link

The CRON diet -- a calorie restricted, optimal nutrition eating plan designed to extend human life -- is not for everybody. And Roy Walford, MD, a professor emeritus of pathology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and longtime researcher in aging, is the first to admit it. "It is rather difficult and only some people can do it," says the author of Beyond the 120-Year Diet. "You have to be very motivated." You should also check with your doctor first.

Years of research have shown that severe calorie restriction increases the life span of rodents by 50%. For humans, Walford's idea is to eat just enough calories to maintain a body weight 10% to 25% below your "set point" -- the weight your body naturally gravitates to. There's no minimum or maximum number of calories. After all, different body types have differing requirements; the bigger and more active you are, the more calories your body will consume. But in general, most people following this diet will consume between 1,000 and 1,500 calories a day -- about half of what the average person now eats.

Link

Scientists know that very strict low-calorie diets can prolong life. But now they report that it does not matter when you start that diet — at least if you are a fruit fly. The life-prolonging effect kicks in immediately, continues as long as the diet, and is lost as soon as the dieting stops.

[...]

In a detailed demographic analysis of life and death among 7,492 fruit flies, published today in Science magazine, Dr. Partridge and her colleagues discovered that the protective effect of dieting snaps into place within 48 hours, whether the diet starts early in life or late. Flies that dieted for the first time in middle age were the same as flies that had been dieting their whole lives. But the effect can be lost just as quickly. Flies that dieted their entire lives and then switched, as adults, to eating their fill were the same two days later as flies that had never dieted.

Dr. Huber Warner, who directs the biology of aging program at the National Institute on Aging, said that it was as if dieting flies "put on a suit of armor."

"It seems like the dietary restriction puts the flies into a different kind of state where they are temporarily able to resist damaging events so that they survive rather than die," Dr. Warner said. "We don't know what they are resisting, but they seem to have achieved some sort of invulnerability."

Dr. James W. Vaupel, a demographer at the Max Planck Institute for Demography in Rostock, Germany, said the findings put decades of research on the effects of calorie restriction in a new light. "We've known for a long time that dietary restriction increases survival," Dr. Vaupel said. "What we haven't known is that it's never too late."

 

[Rolfe]

A couple weeks ago, there was a segment on 20/20 or Dateline or something about people who eat only 1200 calories worth of food a day. Anyone heard of this?

I did it for about four months when I wanted to lose weight. Yes, I felt peckish, but I just planned ahead exactly what I was going to eat and when each day, and looked forward to eating it. Worked a treat.

I just remember one day, I'd had a Weight Watchers ready-made meal marked "less than 300 Calories", then went to choir practice. I was STARVING all evening. When I got home I looked at the box. "180 Calories" was in the small print. No wonder I was hungry.

There's quite a lot of leeway in the system, you can have chips or a piece of chocolate or anything - just so long as you don't eat enough of anything to take you over the Calorie limit.

Rolfe.

 

[Larspeart]

The key is not calories, but nutrition. If you are getting all the vitamins, minerals, and water, then you can survive on surprizingly little for a very long time.

a hunger strike consisting of water, vitamins, and maybe some fruit juice could sustain a person for years.

your teeth might decay (form lack of use), but that is about it.

 

[Suezoled]

ah okay. Neat.

But I guess you need to be very orgnanized and disciplined to do this successfully.

 

[Larspeart]

Yes.

 

[Wudang]

If you're looking to lose weight, ensure that you get at least 20 minutes exercise each day. This, according to a documentary I saw a while back, changes the way your body processes food so that calories are kept ready to be burned rather than being stored as fat. Anyone have a better reference?

 

[Suezoled]

So basically, a very good multi-vitamin, calcium supplements, and vegetables to munch on?

 

[Larspeart]

well yeah, sort of. IF you can follow it 'to a T', and you don't deviate.

I'm wondering if you are going to go out and do some intense fast right now and possibly hurt yourself.

 

[Suezoled]

well yeah, sort of. IF you can follow it 'to a T', and you don't deviate.

I'm wondering if you are going to go out and do some intense fast right now and possibly hurt yourself.

heck no! I'm munching on a rice crispie treat right now. But I am curious about this lifestyle choice, what it entails, long term benefits, detriments, who should not be doing it, etc...

Personally, I run 5 miles every 3 days, lift weights, and take pilates class, as well as ride horses. My diet consists of a lot of whole wheat bread and rice, eggs and soups, bananas and seasonal fruit, vegetables thrown in too. I very rarely eat things like cookies and ice cream, or even much chocolate.

 

[shemp]

Lots of people do this. As long as you are eating more the 800 calories a day, you keep your body form going into 'starvation mode' where it conserves energy and fats and you actually gain weight (while burning muscles).

1000+ is considered safe for weight loss.

Nonsense. If this were true, hunger strikers would balloon until they burst.

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

We must remember that our physiology was developed and exists today ( fairly unchanged ) to have us chase our food and not buy butter in pounds at the store or even eat " three square meals" a day. That is one of the reasons we have a "fat" tooth, fats hold more caloric value then complex carbs ..so we are tuned to eat them when ever available because they were rare in our past and even tho our supply has increased the way we use ( digest) food hasn't changed. Many studies have shown a reduced calorie diet increases life span, the people who follow it are healthier and feel better ( unless thier weight watcher rejects who blame thier problem on genetics or "glands" anything but thier own habits.)

 

[Yahweh]

Lots of people do this. As long as you are eating more the 800 calories a day, you keep your body form going into 'starvation mode' where it conserves energy and fats and you actually gain weight (while burning muscles).

Breatharians come to mind...

 

[Brian]

I'm a freak in this respect. I figure I eat about 1,000 calories a day. I have a small appetite and I'm guessing a small stomach. I eat 3/4 of a half pound cheeseburger and I'm done for 8 hours or more. I'd get sick if I ate anymore. I eat once or twice a day. I'm 6 foot and 145 lbs. Of course the 1,000 calories doesn't count the beer. I don't know if the beer counts as food.
I have a slight gut, but no other noticable body fat. I can carry 110 lbs up a flight of stairs by myself twice in a row. I rarely if ever get a cold. This is with an almost complete lack a vegatables and fruits. I eat a slice of lettuce and tomatoe on sandwiches, tomatoe sauce, corn on the cob and not much else as far as veggies go. Maybe 2 apples a year.

 

[corplinx]

1200-1400 is about how many calories i can consume without gaining weight

I need a metabolism transplant

 

[Tanja]

I'm a freak in this respect. I figure I eat about 1,000 calories a day. I have a small appetite and I'm guessing a small stomach. I eat 3/4 of a half pound cheeseburger and I'm done for 8 hours or more. I'd get sick if I ate anymore. I eat once or twice a day. I'm 6 foot and 145 lbs. Of course the 1,000 calories doesn't count the beer. I don't know if the beer counts as food.
I have a slight gut, but no other noticable body fat. I can carry 110 lbs up a flight of stairs by myself twice in a row. I rarely if ever get a cold. This is with an almost complete lack a vegatables and fruits. I eat a slice of lettuce and tomatoe on sandwiches, tomatoe sauce, corn on the cob and not much else as far as veggies go. Maybe 2 apples a year.

Of course the beer counts! It is quite nutritional, actually.
My husband gets most of his calories from beer. When I try to tell him that he should watch it, not only because of the amount of alcohol, but because of the calorie intake as well, his favourite reply is: a pint of Guinness has less calories than a pint of orange juice. To this, I usually reply: yes, but I've never seen anyone drink eight pints of orange juice in one evening...

 

[UKBoy1977]

Lots of people do this. As long as you are eating more the 800 calories a day, you keep your body form going into 'starvation mode' where it conserves energy and fats and you actually gain weight (while burning muscles).

1000+ is considered safe for weight loss

What a generalisation. How many calories are required varies greatly for each person. At 6'6" and over 16 stone I would be crazy to drop my calories anywhere near 1000 a day. Some people may need to go this low, mostly petite females, but for the majority 1000 calories would be too low, especially for men.

The key is not calories, but nutrition. If you are getting all the vitamins, minerals, and water, then you can survive on surprizingly little for a very long time.

a hunger strike consisting of water, vitamins, and maybe some fruit juice could sustain a person for years.

Please, everyone ignore this. You will do some real damage to your body if you cut out either fat or protein, let alone both. In fact you would die. Your body can survive without carbs, as evidenced by diets like Atkins, but your body needs a regular intake of fat and protein. Without these it cannot regenerate new cells, your body would literally start eating itself.

your teeth might decay (form lack of use),

Your teeth are not a muscle, they do not decay from lack of use. They decay because of bacteria which build up if you don't keep them clean.


I don't mean to seem harsh, but some of the advice you have given above is simply appalling and could literally kill someone who was to follow it. I suggest you don't post advice on this subject again until you have educated youself on the basics of nutrition and dieting.