Is 1000cal/day (or less) healthy? Bc it's working for me.

[Owesome]

So I've been sustaining a GOOD lifestyle. Healthy delicious food, a FUN diet, FUN exercising and much energy and positivity that I never used to have before AND I'm losing weight! And I'm so into dieting since I started (I've only started gaining fats a year and a half ago and started dieting a few months ago), I discuss it with my friend who happens to be a trainer, and he tells me that eating 1000cal or less per day is disastrous.

I was a little chocked and I actually tried to increase my calorie intake without messing with my carb/protein balance but I couldn't! I can't seem to feel comfortable eating most of the food anymore, surprisingly.

So I'm kind of confused, do I keep my current dieting habit (which is working for me really well) as it is? Or is it necessary to change it by increasing my calorie intake (which makes me uncomfortable, for some reason)?

Note : My daily intake averages are 75-95g carbs - 55-75g protein - 8-11g fat.

I guess it's usually called a 'Low-fat diet', I call it a 'Fun diet' lol. Anyway I hope you guys would end my confusion! Thanks in advance!

[Owesome]

Also note : I take a cheat day after every 6 usual dieting days, at which I eat things that I basically don't eat at all, like food that's cooked in oil and what have you.

[Dominique]

Difficult to comment without knowing more about you:

• age, gender, height
• starting weight
• starting date ("a few months ago" is kind of vague)
• current weight
• goal weight / date

[Owesome]

Thanks for replying, Dominique!

There you go :

-Gender : male

-Age : 21

-Height : 180 cm

-Starting date : I've started getting along with dieting 3 months ago, but I've started being constant on the diet that I've mentioned in the post and losing my very FIRST grams of weight exactly ONE MONTH ago.

-Starting weight (One month ago) : 88 kg

-Current weight (Today) : 83 kg

-Weight goal : 75 kg

-Goal date : none

[bikerhiker]

@Owesome

Well it's awesome to know someone other myself who are enjoying a fun lifestyle and having fun losing weight!

There are many reasons that you would be losing weight quickly and I suppose you need to determine whether you have any underlying thyroid, liver or other undocumented conditions that may seem benign to you now as you're not feeling it, but may make you want to eat much less.  The body usually doesn't like to use its reserve tank, body fat, that easily UNLESS when there is an underlying hidden illness that you are not currently experiencing.  So you might want to check with your GP to make sure you don't have any underlying issues that you are not aware of.

Having said that, if you are eating until you feel full, then perhaps you are getting enough of the nutrients, minerals, vitamins and the 3 macros.  For example, junk food and sugar water (coke, pepsi etc) can contain a lot of calories but with little to no nutritional value, so your body constantly wants more food until the nutritional requirements are met.  And that's usually more calories than you ever need.  But if you now consume more healthier food, because of a positive lifestyle change, then you would be consuming more nutritional value food but less in quantity as they make you feel full sooner and hence much less calories.  The key is; when you are happy the hormone Oxycontin allows you to sleep well and be restful, and prefer food that is anti-inflammatory.  Inflammatory foods are processed meats, sugar drinks, transfat fried foods).  Your body will instinctively KNOW THIS and for me, I subconsciously avoid it.  They make me feel heavy and takes out the fun.

Whereas the opposite of happy go luck is stress, where the hormone Cortisol tempts you to go towards sugary or high fat comfort processed food which is inflammatory in nature and which is the main driver of weight gain.

It's ok to consume some of those bad food like once a week.  I do this, but of course it's not a great feeling when your body takes them in.  But sometimes as part of your social activity with your friends and that's ok as long as you maintain a 80% healthy diet and you can afford to stray 20% away from that.

Anyhow, see what you think about seeing a GP and get a complete health check up just to be on a sure side and if your GP says everything checks out, like mine did, then you're good.  If you are not, then your GP will advise you on the course of treatment.  

[Dominique]

Thanks for the additional info you provided about yourself. I’ll assume you’re in good health, since that would be the default for someone your age maintaining a normal weight. Obviously, if you think you may have a particular condition, do consult with a doctor.

Your calculated BMR is 1855 calories and even if you were only lightly active, your total energy expenditure would be 2551 calories (I’m using this online calculator). Therefore eating 1000 calories would qualify as a crash diet. If you were a petite sedentary female, especially an older one, 1000 calories would result in a rather modest deficit and wouldn’t qualify as a crash diet.

So you lost 5 kg (11 lbs) in 4 weeks. This implies an average daily deficit of 1375 calories, which is quite a lot. You want to lose another 8 kg and could think you just have to keep doing the same for another 6-7 weeks. I would ask: why the rush? why not giving it a little bit more time, which would increase the chance of not rebounding and would also result in less lean mass loss?

[Owesome]

Thanks for replying, Hiker, and nice choice of name haha!

I will check with my GP. I appreciate you pointing my attention to that.

And yes, I do eat untill I'm full. I try to eat protein-ful food that doesn't contain fats that'd affect my balance, like grilled chicken breasts and egg whites. And my intake of carbs is mostly whole vegetables, fruits and a spoonful of honey (sometimes sugarless natural juice as well), I tend to avoid starches bc I don't really like them. I guess feeling full makes sense. I'm just a little worried about whether 1000cal is necessarily not enough or not, but other than that, I'm really quite satisfied.

[Owesome]

Thanks for replying, Dominique!

Well, in fact, I'm not in a rush at all. That's why I consider this a bit of a problem, bc it would've been easy to increase my intake of calories if I were just kinda forcing myself to eat less, but I'm actually enjoying it all and eating well. Nevertheless, I wouldn't want to be on a diet that would affect my health negatively (losing lean mass). If you could suggest food that'd keep my protein/carb balance on track and elevate my calorie intake, I would really appreciate it!

[bikerhiker]

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@Owesome wrote:

Thanks for replying, Hiker, and nice choice of name haha!

I will check with my GP. I appreciate you pointing my attention to that.

And yes, I do eat untill I'm full. I try to eat protein-ful food that doesn't contain fats that'd affect my balance, like grilled chicken breasts and egg whites. And my intake of carbs is mostly whole vegetables, fruits and a spoonful of honey (sometimes sugarless natural juice as well), I tend to avoid starches bc I don't really like them. I guess feeling full makes sense. I'm just a little worried about whether 1000cal is necessarily not enough or not, but other than that, I'm really quite satisfied.

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I do love the outdoors and the freedom!!

Anyhow, while you do want to cut out off what is unhealthy fats, like transfat from fried foods,  dietary fat like Omega 3, 6 and 9 from fatty fish, whole egg, cheese, virgin olive oil, nuts and Avocados are part of your essential diet.  The reason I mention fats is that, there are certain Vitamins like A,D,E and K which are fat-soluble (meaning they can only dissolve in your body in the presence of fat in your diet).  Without adequate dietary fat, too much consumption of these vitamins and the inability to dissolve can cause vitamin toxicity, because you are consuming also vegetables which can contain sources of these vitamins A,D,E and K.

As part of the 3 food macros, fat provides the highest calories/g (9 cal/g) as opposed to carbs and protein @ 4cal/gram.  So you can start to see the implication of what you are doing.  What you are doing is similar to another poster who is taking supplements to "block" the absorption of fat in the food, thus inducing a drastic caloric deficit.  You simply reduce the consumption of dietary fat to the minimum, essentially reducing your fat in your diet.  Since fat provides 9 calories / gram; in a 500 calories/week diet and by cutting out completely fat in your diet to a bare minimum that a typical 500 calories deficit/week can easily go up to 1000 calories/week deficit.  Do you follow my train of thought? Which is why these so called fast weight loss supplements work so fast and well and don't feel all that hungry.  

Just to be sure you are doing this right, I would highly consult your GP to make sure that you are eating a healthy balanced diet and making sure all vitamins, minerals and nutrients are properly absorbed with the right amounts of dietary fat, carbs and protein.

[Dominique]

The recipe for preserving lean mass when dieting down to a lower weight is:

• eat enough protein (e.g. 1.8 to 2.2 g of protein per kg of bodyweight)
• engage in resistance training (lift weights)
• keep the caloric deficit reasonable (*)

(*) aim at losing no more than 1% of your body weight per week. In your case, 1% = 0.83 kg = 1.8 lbs, which implies an average daily deficit of 913 calories. Nothing wrong in going for less than that, e.g. 500-600 calories.

There is no magical ratio of protein to carbs. Protein should be based on your body weight (or, more precisely, your lean mass), while carbs should be based on your activity level. Therefore the ratio of protein vs. carbs will vary depending on how active you are are.

As to what foods to eat: try to get the majority of your calories from whole/minimally processed sources (cook yourself from raw ingredients rather that eat out or eat foods prepared at a factory). It’s OK to have a bit of "fun" foods here and there.