judibird's Journal, 25 March 2014

600 Calories??? as far as I know... less than 1,000 calories a day is very unsafe.  

If your body isn;t getting enough calories, everything you eat will make you gain. That is NOT healthy or condusive to weight loss. 1000-1200 calories should be just right for you.  

It is so easy to be hooked on the scale. I have struggled with weighing in too much. Try to weigh yourself 1 time per week. As the others have said you need more calories to be healthy. Do you count carbs? When I visit I know a little weight is going to go on. Aim for the veggies, meat, and just a little of the other items being served. Eat the inside of the sandwich and forget the bread. Be careful like you are doing but also do enjoy the time with your sister. Family time is just plain to valuable to stress totally out.  

Actually, 1200 calories is the absolute minimum. And yes, when you restrict your intake that much, any little splurge will make you gain. Your body is officially in fasting mode. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/761810-the-starvation-mode-myth-again 

Basically, you can only restrict your calories that much a couple times a week. Consistently only taking in that many calories per day puts you in starvation mode. So your body tries to store the little food you give it, rather than burn it off. This article can help you out of it, http://www.metaboliceffect.com/starvation-mode/ 

Thank you all for your input. I will take it under consideration. 

600 a day? I also think that's REALLY low. What Caralyn said, I echo. Whatever you do has to be sustainable for a lifetime, first to lose the weight and then to keep it off. I will check my weight often but only have one day a week where it "matters" - because a woman's body can fluctuate so much in a week's time. Have you talked to a doctor or a dietician? 

I participated in a weight loss study a few years ago and was told by the doctors that 900 calories is the lowest amount per day that a person can do without medical supervision. Restricting your calories lower than that would require you to be in a hospital and monitored by a doctor. 600 cals is not enough! Your body needs food for energy and to replenish its systems. Weight loss should be done in a healthy way, which isn't always a speedy way. 

eh, besides all the well meant concerns, do we even know how tall Judibird is? It is not wise to advice a person to eat over a fixed number of kcals unless you are her doctor. My advice for Judibird is to go to a nutritionist and cook up a healthy weightloss plan. Then your sister will have to approve and help you! 

Doesn't matter how tall someone is, 600 cals per day for an extended period of time is generally considered risky for an adult. I Googled around and found a blog with a Q&A with a Dr. Anderson, who leads weight loss groups, and he wrote an answer to someone thinking about eating only 600 cals/day: ". . . to be successful, you need to develop habits that you'll have for life, so what's the rush? Doing something that you can't live with, like a 600-calorie diet, will not help. Eventually, you'll have to do something you can live with, and if you've not developed habits of eating what you like in the right ways, you'll just go back to what made you overweight and regain it. There is a better way. To answer your question about the safety of a 600-calorie diet, it is absolutely not safe. It is a prescription for health problems. Very Low Calorie (VLC) diets around 600 calories have been used under medical supervision, with special diets mainly of protein and supplements, when a person's life depends on rapid weight loss. Even then, they are medically monitored constantly and used only for short periods of time. You risk serious health problem if you attempt it without close medical supervision and intervention. Your body needs specific nutrients to run every day, not just the energy of calories from stored fat. If you don't get enough protein, carbohydrate, fat, vitamins and minerals from the food you are eating, your body will strip them from your muscle, bones and organs to stay alive. You will suffer malnutrition and disease, perhaps be at risk of sudden death. Extended starvation, which a 600-calorie diet is, is serious. I'm sure you've heard of the RDA, the recommended daily allowance of all the nutrients I mentioned that the medical professionals believe is absolutely necessary to stay healthy. It is next to impossible to get them all from food with less than 1200 calories worth of food, even if you had a dietician's carefully formulated diet of all the right foods. That's why you hardly ever hear of doctors' diets of less than 1000 for women and 1500 for men."