Weight Loss
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1000 calories and Still squishy


I don't get it i eat a 1000 calories and i have a healthy bmi 19.4

but i still feel fat and squishy

any excercises that build lean muscles?

Edited Nov 15 2008 17:36 by nycgirl
Reason: Locked thread as against posting guidelines. Please read the useful responses in this thread and abide by PGs. Promotion of starvation diets or habits that exhibit signs of an eating disorder ("pro-ana", "pro-mia", etc.) is prohibited
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Everyone's going to tell you that you need to be eating at least 1200 calories.
Just so you know.

I second what jblarghp said, I won't get into it, someone else will copy and paste the links to you

and yes there are exercises that build lean muscle. all of them that involve some kind of resistance. Actually, there's no such thing as muscle that's not lean since that's what muscle actually is.

By eating that little, I'm guessing that you've managed to burn all your muscle away while retaining all your fat (since you're starving your body).

Make sure to eat more -- MINIMUM 1200 calories (and that's if you're COMPLETELY sedentary).

While you continue to undernourish yourself, by eating substantially less than you need (teens need bare bones minimum 1500 cals a day - adult women minimum 1200), you will not be able to build lean muscle as you won't have the building blocks available to do so. Plus if your goal is weight loss, eating less than 1200 calories doesn't benefit you at all.

From the Ask Mary section of Calorie Count:

In the long run, you won’t lose weight faster by eating <less than or just about> 1200 calories a day.  Under-eating deprives your body of essential nutrients and leads to muscle breakdown to provide energy.  With less muscle, you require fewer calories and you reach a weight low plateau more quickly.  Restrictive dieting also places you at risk for binge-eating which can lead to weigh gain and a life of yo-yo dieting.

In addition, please realize that Calorie Count's mission is to promote healthy and sustainable weight management. So please adhere to the posting guidelines:

  • Your post is subject to modification or deletion by our moderators. Repetitive, off-topic, disruptive, and frivolous posts will be removed. We will take down any posts that violate either the letter or the spirit of any of these rules.
  • Promotion of starvation diets or habits that exhibit signs of an eating disorder ("pro-ana", "pro-mia", etc.) is prohibited.

Please know that Calorie Count cannot and will not support you eating less than 1200 calories a day. We consider this unhealthy and CC is all about HEALTHY weight loss or weight maintenance

From Mary Hartley, Calorie Count's Director of Nutrition:

"By eating only 800 calories, you will not get enough energy, protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals and other components of food. In time, you could become malnourished, which can cause severe health risks such as respiratory infections, kidney failure, blindness, heart attack and even death."

Here is a brief reason why never less than 1200 from the Advice section of Calorie Count Plus, under the Q&A tab:

Why must I eat at least 1,200 calories a day when I want to eat less?

In order to get the daily food servings you need for a balanced diet, it takes about 1200 calories a day. With careful planning, you could have a balanced diet on 1000 calories, but the restrictiveness of a very low calorie level can lead to binging and weight cycling, which will take you further from your weight loss goal. What's more, very low calorie diets can cause excessive muscle breakdown and metabolic adaptations, which can drive down your calorie requirements. In the end, you'll need fewer calories to maintain a higher weight

To build muscle you need to nourish your body, not starve it.   By eating so little you are wasting your muscles.  Start getting 2000+ cals per day, combine with some strengthening/resistance exercises and you'd begin to build muscle.

Dito to all the above.

You can't expect to be toned and firm if your body is busy eating away all the energy out of your muscle.

Step 1: Eat more - can't build muscles if they don't have the calories to sustain them.

Step 2: Lean muscle = strength training. Start lifting weights! squats, lunches, pushups are all good exercises to start with. 

And do not be afraid that strength training will make you look like Sheman - it is (usually) very very difficult for women to get Hulk like muscle bulk from a  strength training regime. But muscle tone is always wayyyy more sexy and attractive than flub... IMO. 

The other day you mentioned in a post that you usually eat around 1000 calories but were feeling "way too full to eat" on only 580 calories and wondered if it was normal. Everyone, including myself, told you that it was not normal and that you needed to eat more. Today others are telling you the same thing - eat more.

The recommended minimum 1200 fcalories is for a SEDENTARY person to survive. Or an obese person (typically sedentary) to lose weight  at the maximum rate that is safe for your body. You've asked about exercises to build muscle. With exercise the minimum calories your body needs -- to build muscle and not store fat -- increases. Many experts (fitness and nutrition experts) say that an active person needs NO LESS THAN 1600 calories to fuel the body, build muscle and keep your metabolism burning high. Since you're not trying to lose weight, from what you've told us (BMI at the low end of healthy) you likely need closer to 2000 calories with exercise in order to build back the muscle that your body has destroyed in trying to survive on so few calories.

If you are afraid to eat more because you feel "fat and squishy" you risk a downward spiral in which your body will store more and more fat and lose more and more muscle. Not the end result I think you probably want. Please be careful.

You are feeling fat and squishy because you have no muscle, you have no muscle because muscle requires Fuel and stimulation.

If you eat just under what your body needs, you will lose fat the more fat you lose the firmer you will look because you lose the fat but keep the muscle.

However if you eat WAAAAAY under what you need (like you are doing) you will lose fat and muscle ... because your losing both you won't tone up, you wont feel firmer because the thing that makes you firm (muscle) is disappearing as fast if not faster than the fat.

You you carry on the way you are you'll just become a Squishy sack of boney mush ... all bone and skin... NOT attractive.

You need muscle to look good (how much is a matter of personal taste) but right now you arn't giving your body enough food to maintain the muscle you have never mind anything else.

 

 

 

 

 

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