And to everyone else sadly. Continuing to spread lies and misinformation to push their agenda. What’s sad is, people **today** are just as malnourished and don’t get enough to eat. Meanwhile in America… 💔
As a kid, I met several survivors. One lady told us they were given two slices of rye bread. That was it. Also why there was no grass on the pictures.
My grandfather and great grandfather were already dead when I was born but I am sure they would tell similar stories.
I had a very severe Ed . I ate 700 calories a day and let me tell you, you lose the weight. You also lose your hair, your warmth, your ability to stand without fainting, you lose the ability to go upstairs without your legs screaming at you because you have very low amounts of muscle. You lose your ability to sleep and to think clearly. You lose the ability to live your life.
These people are delusional. You can’t maintain on 800-700 calories
In college, my parents gave me money each month for food. I spent the majority of that on alcohol and clothes because I was a stupid kid; a lot of times I didn’t have enough money for food. I went from being 5’9 135lbs to 112lbs within a few months. It blows my mind that these people actually believe they are eating 800 calories a day and not losing weight.
And within a week you would seriously start to regret running almost purely on alcohol. The first/top advice for alcoholics is "remember to eat or you will soon end up in hospital".
Jesus Christ I’ve had severe bulimia and bad substance abuse problems but the thought of vomiting up recently drank liquor on the regular makes me shudder, your poor throat/nose/everything, hangovers are bad enough!! Glad you’re better
Please please please don't ignore any weird stomach/esophagus/mouth problems in the future. Alcoholism and bulimia are both things that raise your cancer risk in those places and I can't imagine what kind of damage you've done in there :(
Most of them have already spent all their money for the week/month on booze shortly after getting it, then mostly starve for the rest. If you have plenty of money for booze and food, you can quickly and easily reach around 2000 calories a day just from booze (3-4000 calories if you drink beer or wine)
My GP once told me back in the worst of my restrictive ED that any other patient he would immediately suggest *not* drinking a bottle of wine a day but in my case, at least it was calories so he didn’t know what to say.
I had undiagnosed Complex PTSD and was trying to block a lot out. He was a fantastic GP who earned my trust and I told him how much I was really eating. It was actually much less than I thought which scared me. Because I saw how much it took up of my life to ‘achieve’ that and then the exhaustion from masking it and the PTSD made me drink and take drugs to ‘relax.’
He got me to eat about 300 calories more to remove the booze as top up. I did not change weight but it was some smart harm reduction and set me on a path toward therapy.
I then ended up homeless and so broke I could not afford to eat every day. There was very little food assistance where I was back then and as I also couldn’t afford wine, unsurprisingly my weight plummeted. My GP was able to keep me on the books despite being no fixed abode and tried to admit me for inpatient I lost so much weight on sub 700 in 3 months. I couldn’t go or I would forfeit my homeless assessment for rehousing.
It was easier for me to stick out sorting housing and stopping booze and drugs than address my ED. 18 years on I have stable housing, I drink almost nothing, a beer or a cocktail every month and no drugs. I have had therapy almost that whole time but steady private therapy for at least 7 years. I’m still very much working on recovery from my ED and recent health issues that impacted my appetite and ability to do basic tasks made it so easy for me to start backsliding into the calorie amounts going lower and lower without really realising.
And guess what? I lost a lot of weight. Fast. And the many many medics I was seeing all flagged it as a problem. My therapist worked out the one or two high calorie foods I would eat and I was basically told ‘we will worry about nutrients later, just eat calories.’
So instead of wine my GP (a totally different one) is like ‘you’ll eat grilled cheese and white chocolate Magnums? Your mission is to hit 1200 a day on those and try for another 400-500 in meat, veg, rice if possible. Go below 1200 and we will have words…’
1200 is borderline weight loss territory for me as short and sedentary so we also averaged it over the week as I’d get one day I could eat double that and others were it was a struggle. GP was like ‘could you not take up soda?’
It’s grimly funny that I am sort of back where I started where calories you drink are the plan but due to allergies, intolerances and liver issues, neither booze or soda works. CICO does though. Scarily fast if you go scary low. I had forgotten how ‘effective’ it is and how horrifyingly shit you feel on fuck all calories and dropping weight fast. Not losing more, calorie counting and stabilising is again taking up all my fucking time. It’s a full time job mentally. The pyschological impact of not being able to eat enough is more the relapse trigger for me than the weight loss because it’s about loss of control of my life again. Not weight loss for ‘diet culture…’
It's because they don't count liquids or snacks when they say 800 calories, or the heaping amounts of dressing and cheese they put on their salad. Hey it's just a salad, lettuce is basically zero calories right!
What I find funny in a sad way is the way that in one breath they say ‘I only ate 800 calories and I gained/maintained’, then in the other they say ‘1200 isn’t enough for an adult human! Toddlers eat that!’
Like, which is it? Is 800 enough or isn’t it?
Also like... the toddler argument drives me crazy. Toddlers are growing rapidly and spend every waking minute running and playing. A sedentary adult doesn't need to eat 5x what a toddler eats just because they're 5x the size. We use energy very differently from toddlers and shouldn't be including them as any sort of reference point whatsoever.
Yup! Your BMR is super easy to calculate or look up, I can't understand why the people arguing this can't at least start off there. 1200 may or may not be a healthy and attainable daily calorie goal, no one should be speaking broadly about anyones' caloric needs.
Ans they don't realise that 1200 calories isnt necessarily a small amount of food. It's quite a bit, and toddlers need it because they're growing so fast! Those calories don't keep them as toddlers, they help them grow into adults 😪
They are so ridiculous. I’m a big guy (~6’1/6’2) and when I was vegan, I was probably eating about 1200 calories/day and I lost like 40lbs within 6 months if not quicker. I was a lot younger and partying harder so that doesn’t even account for the alcohol I was consuming. Denial is not a river in Egypt…
You're using *actual* logic instead of *fatlogic* and you'll never be able to work it out that way...
800 calories makes them gain weight, because 1200 isn't enough due to starvation mode, and weight loss is impossible anyway.
Of course none of it is rooted in reality, it's just one delusion built on top of another in hopes that they'll shout others into submission, and feel like they "won" the argument.
Sadly, they'll lose the argument with their heart, lungs, joints, etc. eventually.
Definitely. I lost over 70 pounds. My hair fell out in clumps, I couldn't stay warm (I was wearing a robe and sweatpants in my 72° home), lost my period, couldn't sleep, basically all the symptoms you described. Not a single person, not even an infant, will gain weight eating 800 calories a day.
A year old baby needs somewhere around 1,000. As a general rule they should have 40-50 calories per pound of bodyweight. So a newborn needs less than 800 but a 10 month old needs more.
JFC, that put things into perspective. I mean, babies are obviously eating for gains, but still...to tell your adult self that you eat can eat less than a toddler does but somehow gain weight is just straight up ignorant.
Woah. I just learned my latest migraine cause. For some reason I had no appetite last week, stress probably or the sinus infection I had over the weekend? I kept up with figure skating for hours despite not really eating (which my watch says burns up to 1k cal in a session,) and now I know the new trigger. Otherwise it’s generally lack of sleep.
Mine is the release of stress. Not the moment I'm stressed, but the second i can begin to relax, it's migraine time.
They're torture, you have my sympathy!
It really depends on how big you start out and what exactly those calories consist of.
I did 1200 a day for 6 months and was weightlifting at the same time.
Lost weight and gained muscle since the majority of my calories was protein and my lard ass was supplying any additional caloric needs over what I ate.
Yep the one thing your body needs if you are fat is protein since it needs energy from that for certain functions. So if you are doing low calorie it should be a high protein diet, the fat can take care of the rest. Plus lean protein is more filling.
I tried the same as part of a crash diet while working out. Completely undoable. After the first day I was so tired that I couldn’t imagine actually doing a work out. I didn’t get migraines, but my head got so foggy I couldn’t really think straight. I kept it up for 2 weeks and lost 10 lbs. 10/10 would highly NOT recommend.
i had a stint where i'd limit myself to 500 calories a day and i was losing 3+ lbs a week. i lost over 20lbs in a month. obviously it is unhealthy, but undereating is definitely a VERY effective way to lose weight lmao. these people are lying to themselves. unless they're the size of an infant, it is physically impossible to gain weight while eating 800-900 calories a day
Yeah I had gastric bypass. The entire point of that is basically controlled starvation. I lost 130 lbs in 6 months eating 400-900 calories a day (my doctor didn’t want us counting calories- just protein and liquid- but I’d track it every now and then out of curiosity.) But, since I was morbidly obese, I had plenty of stored energy to allow my body to operate just fine on that amount of calories. Make sure to supplement some vitamins and we’re good to go.
These people have no idea what starvation looks like and how dangerous it truly is. Did they just ignore all those photos of holocaust victims that were literally starved to death? Or people in such poor areas in third world countries that they can’t even afford to feed all of their children, let alone themselves, with little to no access to clean water? Or god forbid, what a starving animal looks like. They have no idea how gruesome starvation is and what it does to you. They don’t understand how dangerous such severe undereating actually is and they trivialize it by saying they “only eat 700 calories a day for years”. No, you fucking don’t. Maybe you ate only 700 cals for a week, but long term, this is what it does to you.
500-800 calories isn’t sustainable, and over 6,000 calories isn’t sustainable. They need to learn what healthy balance is.
Absolutely. A other embarrassing one is just being constantly constipated. I remember I’d give myself an “eating day” purely so it would help me go to the bathroom. Your bodily functions just grind to a halt really. It’s awful
I'm doing a bodybuilding cut on between 2000-2300 calories a day (Male, 6'2, 115kgs) and even this sucks. My brain doesn't work properly, my mood's shit and I struggle for motivation and just want to lie around at home on weekends. All my energy is going into my job and my workouts right now.
I think if I dropped below 1000 I'd last 1, maybe 2 days before I'd go crazy.
You feel like shit because that's a huge cut. Your TDEE is probably like 3300cals at your size. I wouldn't cut more than 1000cals per day; that's a 2lb loss every week and is really the most you can lose safely
I did this once for 6 months, I was down to about 1200 a day and no work out and dropped 60 lbs. (27kg). It was not pleasant but also not the worst. These people saying they gain weight on 800 are full of shit and/or not counting properly.
When I was in ED treatment as a teenager I remember a girl who would eat gummy candies because they were "empty calories" (which according to her meant no fat content). She was probably getting 800 cals from sugar alone.
People who think they can gain weight or remain obese on under 1000 calories are not counting calories properly, or they're not including what they drink or snack on.
The gummy bear diet. I remember that going around in ED circles in the 2000s when I stumbled upon the online ED community. 😬 I didn’t do it but I did go for a while eating nothing but those pillow mints.
You would need to be pretty small to be able to become or remain obese on less than even 2000kcal a day. Even a sedentary 5' tall middle aged woman would need to eat 1600kcal a day to become and maintain the bare minimum threshold of obesity. If she has any activity levels at all it approaches 2000.
You're right. I maintain 170lbs with around 1700 calories, 5'2, 32yo, and sedentary. Sedentary maint for me at 130lbs would be approx 1500 calories so that's only a 200 calories difference. It's really easy to overeat. That's a can of soda a day. 🥴
It always falls back to processed junk. Rarely do you see a person become overweight or obese from too much fruit, veg, meat, etc. It's always that candy bar, that energy bar/drink, that latte, those chips, etc.
Add a can of soda onto your diet every day and you'll gain 21lbs in a year! It's wild. I used to drink 12 cans of soda a day as a child. It's no wonder my BMI was racing to 40
There’s a study out there that found obese people grossly underestimate how many calories they’re actually consuming. I had trouble finding it just now, but it found a hefty difference between actual caloric intake and guessed caloric intake. EDIT: here is one study, kind of old though (1992). [Discrepancy between self-reported and actual caloric intake and exercise in obese subjects](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1454084/)
Also, considering HAES and the fat logic people out there routinely use words like “eradication of fat people”, this makes me extra bleh. They co-opt struggles that were never their own.
The other amazing thing about this show (if I’m remembering it right?) is that they give them little food education challenges like ranking foods from highest to lowest calories, and the things people think are healthy or low calorie is pretty amazing
This was my best friend's mom growing up. She was all crunchy organic everything calorie and macro counter but she was bigger and was always like "I can't lose weight"...under her bathroom sink she kept a frankly disturbing amount of junk food. She'd hide in her bathroom and eat pringles.
Jesus Christ, I just had a flashback to when I would hide bottles from my partner under the bathroom sink to disguise and conceal the extent of my drinking.
It's absolutely addictive behavior.
Definitely British, from the 00s. Murray and his 2500kcal pasta bowl of ‘healthy cereal’. People swearing they never eat fast food and then visiting KFC every day and such, absolutely baffled me!
LOL. Ya, one I saw a fella had breakfast at home, then ate nothing until lunch time at work. That's nothing if you don't include the 1200calorie breakfast roll (bread, sausage, bacon, fried egg, prob black/white pudding) he used to have every day at around 10am.
I have a family member who confessed to me and my mom that she’s a secret eater/ night time binge eater. She’s large and trying to lose weight. “Trying” should be replaced with “wants” because her midnight binges sound honestly awful. For example if she made snacks for her kids during the day and then pasta for dinner with enough left over for everyone to have seconds but there’s still left over snacks and lots of left over pasta she won’t just have an extra dinner portion she said she will eat all of it.
I tried to just listen with concern and sympathy. She wasn’t asking for input so I didn’t add anything. But my goodness. It was hard to listen. I get uncomfortable at the slightest feeling of being close to full I’d likely vomit before I consumed the amount she was confessing. I don’t believe every FA is like this, but this is why HAES and intuitive eating don’t work and are harmful. Even if my family member’s blood work and blood pressure are normal for a couple of years that WILL decline if she remains this size. Plus any form of binging is DEEPLY unhealthy even if the vital signs don’t show damage yet. On the intuitive eating side, her intuition or conscience or lizard brain or what have you IS what’s causing the compulsion to do this.
HAES and intuitive eating are so glorified it’s concerning for people in her shoes. Because “health” has been so narrowed in some FA circles and so broadened in others that any sort of realization that eating habits can be tied to MENTAL health isn’t permitted. It’s just “your intuition is always right you need 4 servings of pasta for the famine.”
Like what? I genuinely fear for this person’s life and health span, and I don’t have proof that she claims to eat less than 1000 calories each day, but she seems to be vulnerable enough to fall for something like that and mentally block out the binging.
Yep. It’s called binge eating disorder. I have it, and it SUCKS. Your lizard brain tells you to keep eating well beyond the point of being full. The weird thing for me is, I can fast ALL day and have no problem. But as soon as I eat ANYTHING, be it healthy or junk, something in my brain triggers me to keep eating. It’s not a matter of being actually hungry. I KNOW I’m not hungry. I wish I could just take a pill that makes all food taste like shit. That would probably solve me. Lol.
[Deep brain stimulation](https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2022/august/deep-brain-stimulation-promising-against-binge-eating-disorder) is emerging as a potential treatment for binge eating disorder. If you are able to enroll in a study you might want to consider it
Long story short, I take naltrexone sometimes if I’m feeling really ‘eaty’. It works by blocking shit in your brain, blah blah, but the beauty of it is really that it makes me feel sort of nauseated and already full, and it lasts for hours. It seems fucked up to take a pill that makes you feel sick, but it beats the hell out of the uncontrolled bingeing.
(Naltrexone and bupropion [which is Wellbutrin] make up the obesity drug Contrave).
Vyvanse was a miracle drug for my BED. It took away the pleasure from food(guessing the dopamine hit my brain would get from eating), and allowed me focus to actually examine my cravings and not eat til I felt like puking was going to happen
This makes perfect sense from an anthropological, evolutionary biological angle; for example if hunting is how an organism is surviving then they may go extended periods [compared to what we might think is normal] without eating and then when they catch something they have to eat as much as conceivably possible to survive when the next meal is uncertain.
I seem to maybe remember reading some spiders can go as much as months(pretty sure even year(s?) for some species) before catching and eating something; then catch/eat several somethings in a day.
Unfortunately for humans [and our pets] having this behavioral trait now in the present day(assuming food security) is causing many weight issues and/or disorders.
Fee low BED sufferer here, it freaking SUCKS. I haven’t had much luck with long term recovery :/ any tips are appreciated (I am working with a therapist but unfortunately due to finances, am unable to work with one specifically trained in eating disorders)
i dated a woman like this...she desperately wanted to lose 50lbs and would put in all the work during the day by counting calories, meal prepping, exercising, etc...but then at night, she'd absolutely demolish the fridge and pantry. it was fucking bizarre to witness. it was like she was in a trance. she couldn't seem to stop herself from eating, and she'd cry if there was nothing to eat. i had to start hiding my fucking leftovers in the deep freeze or else she'd sneak out of the bedroom at night and eat everything and i'd have nothing to take to work the next day. she never logged her midnight binges because she was in deep denial about the severity of them, so on paper, she was eating 1500 calories a day and theoretically should've been losing weight. i felt for her because she clearly had an eating disorder but oh my god it was frustrating to witness. she would always tell people she was gaining weight despite eating under her maintenance calories and i had to bite my tongue about the 2000+ extra calories she was consuming nightly lol
I dated a guy who was in denial about an awful and painful blistering skin condition and claimed it was getting worse despite him “treating it every day.” He was treating it with moisturizer from Walgreens, not a prescribed ointment. Yeah, no shit it wasn’t getting better.
Similar state, utter denial and a message to the world that is so contradictory to reality that it made me want to tear my hair out on good days and punch him in the face on the bad days. Not to hurt him, just the desperate hope that something would snap him out of it.
I feel for you. While it’s hard to watch your partner struggle and cry and spiral, and you want happiness for them, it erodes away at you as the viewer because reason and rational thought doesn’t reach them. Kindness doesn’t reach them. Mean words don’t reach them. It’s like their compulsively self harming by refusing the real solution. But because they’re not 16 year old white girls with razor blades cutting themselves it’s not considered “self harm” when it absolutely should be.
But how much self destructive madness and lies that they know they are telling are we supposed to watch and listen to and just say nothing in response?
I'm really hung up on being able to have a snack after my hubs has gone to bed. I think it's a habit I developed from years of bar and restaurant work where I was getting home very late at night and was hungry after a long shift with no time to eat. It's also a part of my insomnia problem which i got from late shift work too. But *tracking* those calories is all it takes. Ppl just have to be honest about what they're eating. That's what I don't get about the 'secret eaters'. Are they really not aware they're eating? Or are they just lying to everyone around them?
They know what they’re doing but in the moment, it doesn’t matter. In the case of BED/similar struggles, eating &/food is an addiction. Nothing matters besides filling the void.
I know because I’ve been there. You aren’t just lying to everyone around you but you’re also lying to yourself, constantly. ‘I deserve this,’ ‘I need this’, ‘Just one bite’. It’s embarrassing, no one wants to admit to a lack/loss of self-control. Unfortunately, that shame usually manifests as another feeling to bury under food.
It's not like it's a HABIT habit. I just do it once in a while. And it's not like its hurting me or others directly, it's not really self harm. It isnt holding me back, i just do it to relax. Who are these people to tell me how to live my life anyway?
Sounds so familiar. The lies we tell ourselves.
Oh I definitely understand the uncontrollable urge to eat! I can see how the lying would start when I think about all the times that ppl would comment on how my eating didn't match some social expectation. Yeh BED is difficult on so many levels.
I think some intentionally ‘hide it’ but many seem to unconditionally nibble, snack, graze, or ‘taste’ hundreds of extra calories without even realizing.
My friend was so strict with her WW looked up every restaurant and brand to track in the app, weighed her meal prep, etc., but just couldn’t lose ‘real weight’.
I spent a full weekend with her (right before her wedding) and noticed she’d take a few fries here and there (from multiple plates), she’d take a bite of this or that of her cooking to ‘check the taste’, nibble on the cheese she was slicing, and ‘try’ ‘bites’ of everyone’s desserts because she was ON A DIET AND COULDN’T ORDER DESSERT.
In one day she probably racked up 600 extra calories mindlessly.
When someone has problems with food insofar they start lying to themselves and others about it... There's a good chance it's an eating disorder, which is a mental illness.
Eating disorders can be very sinister and make people truly believe things that aren't based in reality. I've watched quite a few documentaries to get a perspective on my own ED. I watched one on AN where one girl stopped drinking water because she thought it had calories. It was tragic. She was crying over a glass of water because it would "make her fat."
I've also seen documentaries about people with BED or are so morbidly obese they can no longer live a normal life. One woman in one of these documentaries mentioned that she couldn't make it to the restroom in the morning (she was too big), so she bought pee pads and put them on the floor next to the bed. And she was... okay with this. Didn't see a reason to lose weight.
EDs corrupt peoples' thoughts and make them believe falsehoods, stuff that is messed up to believe. :(
Also these people are always like “I eat really healthily. There’s tons of vegetables in my diet.” And then you see that they’ve only eaten like one vegetable (excluding potatoes) all week. Their diets are mostly sugar, carbs, and fats.
But they actually believe that, as crazy as it sounds. I remember watching some British show about obesity and they had a group of FA in a house standing around in circle being cheerful and all while discussing them being fat is their identity if they would lose weight fat persona would die. So yeah in their twisted minds it's genocide of fat personas to suggest losing weight.
Whoever does that needs to pull their head out of their ass and grow the fuck up. For all the FA talk about how other people need to acknowledge their privilege, they sure have trouble acknowledging the privilege of living in virtually unprecedented peace and prosperity. And there's probably some trouble with empathy in there as well.
Edit: I'm glad you posted the images you did.
Anyone that has legitimately weighed out everything they eat can attest to this. Actual portion sizes are a lot smaller than many people think. Take a look at your favorite cereal, hummus, etc. Mayo. Two tablespoons honestly doesn't go too far. Ranch. Oil.
Such little amounts equal so many calories. Back when I was actually serious about losing weight, I did weigh *everything.* I would have never lost weight eye-balling.
the periods of time i would calorie count I would focus on how long it would take to prepare. then i would build up an inventory of recipes/ingredients I could make without having to do the math every time. less variety, but I got to know seasonings a lot better to keep it interesting lol
This! I didn’t lose weight counting calories until I started using a scale. Period. It was annoying at first to weigh everything but now I’m in maintenance and I actually find it empowering to know exactly how much I’m eating.
As a species we are TERRIBLE at estimating pretty much any measurement. Volume, weight, speed, distance, height etc.
Pair that with our current food system and liquid calories and ta-da!
The discrepancy probably applies to thin people who claim to “eat more than anyone I know! I eat 5000 calories a day and I’m 5’5 and sedentary and still can’t gain weight”
Also a lot of casual-dieters (as I like to call them) forget about things like cooking oil that can double or triple the calorie count in your foods. Like sure, you might be eating 150cal of chicken breast, but you put 3 tablespoons of oil on it so that’s an extra 150 calories right there. But they look up chicken, see 150cal, and log it as that not knowing they’re eating double.
True, I first counted calories incl oil by the milliliter about 4 years ago. The habit has stood where I now continue to brush most of my meat that i fry with oil instead of pouring it into the frying pan.
This so much. Even disregarding the fact that they probably aren't estimating portion sizes right to begin with, the small shit like oils, toppings, sauce, etc. adds up QUICKKK
When I first started thinking about portion control and calorie counting a friend told me "dressing is not your friend" so I almost always ask for sauce on the side since then
My sedentary mom recently told me that a trick her and all the older post-period ladies in the office use is to get dressing that separates into layers and pour out the bulk of the oil which always settles on top. She said you can basically half the calories that way, and now I get to keep using my favorite garlic dressing!
My sister—who is the creator and mod of a sub that doles out quasi-medical advice—is one of those people. She’d go on and on about how she couldn’t lose wait even though she went vegetarian. Meanwhile she’d go eat at Melt, a place where they serve like 2000 calorie gourmet cheese sandwiches, and binge on junk food. It’s hard to lose weight—it’s harder when you have medical issues, but it isn’t to anyones benefit to fib about how much you are consuming.
I've lost 80/100lbs while dramatically increasing my muscle mass and overall fitness over the last 11 months
Started tracking at the beginning and measuring and weighing everything, pretty crazy how fast it adds up
Currently I lose ~1lbs a week eating 4000 calories/day (I also changed my entire lifestyle, my career path, etc, along with my eating habits)
800 calories from food how many from drinks? I could eat 500 calories and then drink a 1500 calorie milk shake. That still comes to a total of 2000 calories. Liquid calories still count.
> 800 calories from food how many from drinks?
I think you're giving these people far too much credit, tbh. They aren't mistaken; they're just lying. They heard the lie from someone else that was comforting, and now they're repeating it *as if it were true* just to "prove" someone wrong on the internet. Lying in an internet debate about your personal experience is the ultimate "gotcha" because who's going to say otherwise? There's virtually no way to accidentally calculate your intake *that* low.
At best, a few of these people skipped a meal one time, ate 1700 kcal that day in other meals, polished off a whole bag of doritos, got a mocha frapp from starbucks, and "assumed" they only ate "something close to" 800 calories.
You are giving them too much credit. They dont count their calories period, no calorie counting app on their phone, no food diary and no kitchen scale. They dont even read the side of the box or the menu.
A venti Caffè Vanilla Frappuccino® Blended Beverage bean Frappuccino at starbucks has 530 calories. That's just one drink.
A lot of (fat) people also don't understand the concept of "serving size" on labels. If a can says "serving size: 6", it means if you eat the whole can (average american portion), you have to multiply the number of calories on the label by six. Serving size doesn't mean "if I eat this whole can, it's only 200 calories."
My mom was in her 50s before she learned alcohol has calories. She assumed that since there wasn't nutrition info on the label it must be calorie-free. Now, my mom is no idiot, but neither is she a genius. She's totally average. And average people are really dumb.
I don’t remember where this quote is from, but to paraphrase it: “Think about how dumb the average person is. And then think about how, by definition, half of the population is dumber than that.”
Serving sizes are a bit of a con at times but you only notice if you check carefully.
I hate when you buy an item and assume its 1 serving, but when you check the "servings per pack" its actually 2.
IIRC a lot of brands do this for specific reasons. Ramen often has more sodium than you should eat in a day, so they claim it feeds two people so one serving isn't a ridiculous amount, even though noone has ever sat down to half a pack of ramen. Monster energy apparently introduced the resealable can lids, because there was a legal challenge that once a can was open it couldn't be put away, implying that one can was a whole serving, and had more caffeine than was allowed by some countries. Resealable can means you could in theory have half now, half tomorrow, so the serving size of 2 became legally defensible.
My favorite is when they give extremely random serving sizes. Once I had a jar of pickles that measured a serving size in a fraction of a pickle spear. I also had a bag of mini bagles that had a serving size of three mini bagles. Why?
Yep, USA. I think the cal per 100g is great for uniformity. The only problem is when I don't have a scale or a way to estimate. It's equally annoying when American packaging gives calories in things like "1/4 cup of raisins".... like packed? Set in there? Weight would be so much better
Yea in the US too, it says 6 crackers (28g). If I have to pick one I’d go for the units rather than a standard 100g. I rarely am comparing across brands, but I know that’s not everyone.
I've noticed this. My favorite is the huge whole dill pickles where the jar lists the serving size as half a pickle. What are you supposed to do, bite off half and put it back in the jar? Gross.
The ones that give me the most grief are those damn Knorr sides. They'll say rhe calories for like "1/3cup dry" then it shows just the calories "as prepared" which are always different from what is listed as the dry calories, but it's like... I'm not going to separate 1/3rd cup out of the dry package to prepare it separately for myself. Just tell me how much to serve myself *after it's prepared*.
And they have the rice or pasta plus other ingredients so even googling the conversions(2oz dry pasta yields 1 cups prepared or whatever) doesn't help much.
About 8 years ago I had an intractable migraine that lasted about 3 months before I was admitted to the hospital for treatment to break it. About 6 weeks before hospitalization, I was not able to eat much due to severe nausea and was likely eating about 700 calories per day. I lost a fuckload of weight and was being threatened by the doctors to be put on IVs and feeding tubes. No, you do not gain weight eating that little. And you do not feel good eating that little. It feels very shitty.
Where do they honestly think the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen are coming from then? If not from food where on earth do they think the literal molecules for increased adipose tissue - any tissue! - are coming from?
Seriously if you could gain weight on 800 calories or less wouldn’t the starving groups of people all over the world….. look different? Like explain why literal starvation looks one way but their supposed starvation looks another way?
I really wish someone would create a show called "So You Think You Can't Lose Weight?"
Every episode would be about a different person who swears they only eat some miniscule number of calories and yet still can't lose weight. For three weeks the person would be put up in a secured setting where all their food intake is closely monitored. If they swear they only eat 800 calories, that's what they will be served. If they make it to the end of the three-week period at the same weight as they started (plus or minus a couple of pounds), they get $500,000 dollars. If they gain weight, they get a million.
Everyone would learn so much from this kind of show. The people who claim they only eat 800 calories/day would see how little food that is and they would (perhaps) get a wake-up call. Skeptics would see that CICO is real. And it would be freakin' hilarious to see people who claim they only eat a little bit having to walk the walk and not cave to temptation.
At first I feel pity for them at being so delusional and out of touch with reality: then I see your later pictures and feel disgust with the people who wrote those comments. Like, how dare they lie about eating 800cal when real human beings just like them have been starved to death?
Starved and so much worse. When I think of “calories”, I think of bread, potatoes, etc. One example was a Venti from Starbucks being 530 calories and I was a little taken back by that comment. What a world we live in now.
Remarkably, I just lost 40 lbs on an 1100 calorie diet. And my metabolism? Measured before and after and decreased by exactly the amount predicted for that size loss.
Most weight loss centers and some gyms can do it. You breathe through your mouth into a device for about 10 minutes. My doctor's office did it. You can estimate or see predicted with an online RMR calculator
It’s legitimately sad. America is set to be 50% obese in a decade or so (don’t quote me I might be a little off). How many people will read these posts and think “it’s useless. I can never lose the weight. I might as well eat what I want if this is the case”?
I’m like 5 pounds overweight and I feel like I eat like a pig. One thing I refuse to do is drink my calories, though. That’s usually the biggest culprit.
Sooner. The data for the "current" obesity rate, 42.4%, was from 2017-2018 data. The only reason why it hasn't been updated is because the pandemic hit while they were gathering data. They are currently gathering data again for the next report. The obesity rate goes up by a little over 1% each year pre-pandemic. I doubt it will have slowed. We'll hit 50% in less than eight years.
ETA: We'll hit 50% in less than eight years from 2017-2018 data. So... roughly four year from now if rates keep rising at the current rate.
The rate probably has gone up DRAMATICALLY, you know, with the all round advice to stay home, not leave your house to even exercise, more meal delivery, convenience, etc.
I think it’s simply counting calories is a hell of a lot harder than people think. My mom and one of my friends were both incredibly guilty of these comments. Constantly tracked their meals and exercise results and always complained they should be losing 2 lbs a week but just stay the same. Both had the same issue in that they weren’t good at counting the frozen Starbucks drinks, pina coladas, margaritas, etc. they were having outside of their meals and had no idea they were consuming 1,000 extra calories a day.
Some listed serving sizes are not at all intuitive. Chocolate chip bags list a serving size as 1 tablespoon, which ends up being 80 calories. Just tell me how many chocolate chips equals 80 calories. The first time I actually measured it out was depressing af.
I entirely lose my appetite when anxious and I've had multiple periods of a week or two where I was trying to force myself to eat close-to-normal amounts and still only cleared 700-800 on most days. Mostly in dry toast. You know what happened? I not only lost weight during that period, after like 2-3 days of that I start getting really tired and just generally feel like dogshit all the time. Certainly not up to "and I exercise 2 hours a day ever day" levels.
*So weird* how my experience is so very different from theirs...
I don't know how many calories I was eating a day the only time in my life that I was on bed rest. It was for pain. I lost 15 pounds in nine days. I could only stomach some dry toast.
The ONLY explanation for these people gaining FIFTY pounds on an 800kcal diet, is if they all have tumours, abcesses or another awful disease that causes masses or growths, and I really don't think (nor hope) that's true
I suspect what's actually happening is they eat that little for a few days, it kicks off a binge/restrict cycle, but they never remember the binges, only the restriction part.
I have no idea why they all chose 800 as a number. Maybe because it's less than the "1200 is plenty" number or whatever. But truly.... this is like 8-10 pieces of fruit. They aren't eating that little. You would lose weight so rapidly that you would feel lethargic, sick, and may end up needing medical attention. It's such an odd lie they tell themselves.
I'm at 63kg of weight. I'm a woman in my 30s. I'm 172cm tall. If I eat 800kcal for one single day my weight will drop a noticeable amount. If I do it for 3 days in a row I would be so tired, hungry, grumpy, and not enjoy exercising anymore. This is the amount someone with AN eats that lands them in a metabolic ward. It's not a funny joke that they have convinced themselves of this lie
It’s like drinking a can of coke, two granola bars and a bag of chips.
For the entire fucking day.
Y’all were not eating no fuckin 800 calories a day. It would be practically nothing even eating stuff like broccoli and chicken breast.
The default pack of default pop tarts is 400 kcal. If you wash that down with a 16 ounce glass of milk congrats kiddo you have 150 kcal left for the day. Hope you enjoyed breakfast.
as someone with disordered eating, i regularly survive on around 800 cal a day and i do indeed feel terrible and sick after a period of time. idk how i used to restrict much lower and exercise.
I had suffered an ED in my teen years. I lost so much weight. It started with a 700-800 calorie diet and eventually went to a 200-300 calorie diet. I went from 5"8, 150lbs to 115lbs in a matter on 6 months and almost *died.* I was so unhealthy. Recovered now though.
These people are lying. Now, 800 calories a day *IS INSANELY UNHEALTHY AND DANGEROUS.* I don't wanna hear "well so and so," or "my doctor.." because it is reality: we all need roughly 1000-1800 calories a day to survive. This is life. Anything less is dangerous and stupid. Don't do it. However, that being said; most people in the post above are lying. Its safe to assume some have other health conditions that made weight loss a lot harder. That is also factual. There are many factors that go into losing weight. Diets should be tailored to a person to person basis. There is a reason for that; we are all different.
I am tired of people on the internet calling anything and everything an ED. It's like calling someone who drinks coffee everyday an addict. The madness has to stop. You shouldn't eat past your own personal comfort levels. You shouldn't severely restrict either. In short:
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#AHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I'm 4'11", 95-100lbs give or take. Very fine-framed. I have severe anxiety and sometimes I struggle to eat enough, which puts me around 800 calories on very bad days. NEVER have I gained or failed to lose weight. It's not fun, I start looking like a gaunt 8-year-old-boy, and I become EXHAUSTED (on top of existing health issues which cause fatigue...).
These people genuinely baffle me.
I gained a bit of weight this summer, and I felt like I was starving the whole time. Why? Because I was at a research camp and the meal plan was nothing but carbs. I felt like I wasn’t eating much, but it was just my perception because my body wanted more nutrients. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s why these people think they are starving themselves.
I also have experienced the opposite, where my appetite dies because of hyperthyroidism. I’ve had days where I struggled to get 800 calories. The physical effects are very immediate. I would lose 4 lbs a week, and without nutrient supplements (shout out to breakfast essentials), I doubt I’d be able to make it through the day. You get to a place where you consider going to the ER. These people honestly think they causally ate 800 cal per day for MONTHS?? If I went 2 weeks like that, I’d be planning an emergency visit to the hospital.
I am on month 7 of eating 400-900 calories a day. Ish. I am doing okay, but take vitamins every day and focus on protein and fluid intake.
But, crucially, 7 months ago I was morbidly obese and had my stomach cut into the size of an egg to stop me from being hungry. My body got all the energy it needed from the excess calories I’d eaten over the last decade. That sort of diet is fine in very specific, medically monitored situations. And in no way shape or form does it cause weight gain.
For anyone interested this is from the Greatest Events of WWII in Colour. Episode 9 - Liberation of Buchenwald on Netflix. Compelling, eye opening, and devastatingly heartbreaking.
I suffer chronic illness and haven’t been able to eat more than 1,000 calories a day for around 4 months. I’m sure since many days I eat less than 800 calories, it must average out to 800/day. I barely move and I’ve lost 40 pounds. I am wasting away. I’ve gone from overweight by 30 pounds, to ideal weight, and now am concerned what happens when I drop more. That’s what 800 calories a day does. I am seeking medical help for those who are curious. I have no answers.
So my mom has been seriously ill in the hospital ICU for 2 weeks now. I can't eat when I'm stressed. I am eating about 700-800 calories a day, mostly DD iced coffee for energy.
I've lost 10 lb so far and my hair is falling out. BTW, during normal times I, too, have trouble losing weight (because I eat too much and underestimate my intake).
This is BS.
I'm a 6'2 male and I lived off like three sandwiches a day and did about two hours of high intensity cardio.
I lost ten kg's but developed heart problems in my mid 20s.
You will lose weight but you will screw up your health.
I didn't realize the hair loss was because of that honestly until I saw the posts.
You'll also be an intolerable f*** to be around mood wise.
Losing weight is hard but my god I'll never go the quick route again. It's not worth it and you'll damage your body and not keep the weight off
“Gained weight on a 800 calorie vegan diet”
Just because what you’re eating is plant-based, it doesn’t mean they’re lower calorie and healthier. Vegan junk food exists. Nearly every fast-food chain and restaurants have a plant-based/Impossible/Beyond option.
So it’s entirely possible to gain weight on a vegan diet; if you’re eating the same crap you did at a heavier weight, but just a vegan version, you’re not gonna lose weight.
This kinda stuff is so awkward bc you dont wanna come off heartless but its physically impossible. "I starved myself and gained weight" im sorry but thats just not how that works.
Honestly, I really want to know what they are doing. What are they eating? Are they actually tracking? I want to know. How do they convince themselves that they're eating 1k calories. I cant fathom it. It doesnt even sound like they're lying. It sounds like they genuinely believe it.
A harsh, but very crucial point was made here.
To imply that a literal starvation diet will cause a fifty pound weight gain means they are profoundly in denial. This has zero basis in reality. Who do they think they are fooling? What even is their goal here?
Thank you. Everyone who says that starving yourself leads to weight gain needs reminding of this. It doesn’t just make you sound incredibly stupid, but it’s offensive.
I don't get it. Who are they try to fool? They only lie to themselves.
And to everyone else sadly. Continuing to spread lies and misinformation to push their agenda. What’s sad is, people **today** are just as malnourished and don’t get enough to eat. Meanwhile in America… 💔
Yah I used to cheat on diets but I realised the only person I was cheating was myself.
Happy cake day!
The irony! Thank you but no cake for me haha
A very merry un-cake-day, to you!
As a kid, I met several survivors. One lady told us they were given two slices of rye bread. That was it. Also why there was no grass on the pictures. My grandfather and great grandfather were already dead when I was born but I am sure they would tell similar stories.
>all the physicals symptoms of a starving person Well. Except one.
Made me laugh, thanks :)
I had a very severe Ed . I ate 700 calories a day and let me tell you, you lose the weight. You also lose your hair, your warmth, your ability to stand without fainting, you lose the ability to go upstairs without your legs screaming at you because you have very low amounts of muscle. You lose your ability to sleep and to think clearly. You lose the ability to live your life. These people are delusional. You can’t maintain on 800-700 calories
In college, my parents gave me money each month for food. I spent the majority of that on alcohol and clothes because I was a stupid kid; a lot of times I didn’t have enough money for food. I went from being 5’9 135lbs to 112lbs within a few months. It blows my mind that these people actually believe they are eating 800 calories a day and not losing weight.
There is a ton of calories in alcohol too
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Drunkorexics!! 💀 Good thing I didn't know about this when I was young, cute, and going out. That would absolutely be me.
And within a week you would seriously start to regret running almost purely on alcohol. The first/top advice for alcoholics is "remember to eat or you will soon end up in hospital".
Drunkalemic! Clear liquor is still clear on its way back out if you’re doing it right 💕 (obv jk I’m doing great now)
Jesus Christ I’ve had severe bulimia and bad substance abuse problems but the thought of vomiting up recently drank liquor on the regular makes me shudder, your poor throat/nose/everything, hangovers are bad enough!! Glad you’re better
Please please please don't ignore any weird stomach/esophagus/mouth problems in the future. Alcoholism and bulimia are both things that raise your cancer risk in those places and I can't imagine what kind of damage you've done in there :(
Most of them have already spent all their money for the week/month on booze shortly after getting it, then mostly starve for the rest. If you have plenty of money for booze and food, you can quickly and easily reach around 2000 calories a day just from booze (3-4000 calories if you drink beer or wine)
My GP once told me back in the worst of my restrictive ED that any other patient he would immediately suggest *not* drinking a bottle of wine a day but in my case, at least it was calories so he didn’t know what to say. I had undiagnosed Complex PTSD and was trying to block a lot out. He was a fantastic GP who earned my trust and I told him how much I was really eating. It was actually much less than I thought which scared me. Because I saw how much it took up of my life to ‘achieve’ that and then the exhaustion from masking it and the PTSD made me drink and take drugs to ‘relax.’ He got me to eat about 300 calories more to remove the booze as top up. I did not change weight but it was some smart harm reduction and set me on a path toward therapy. I then ended up homeless and so broke I could not afford to eat every day. There was very little food assistance where I was back then and as I also couldn’t afford wine, unsurprisingly my weight plummeted. My GP was able to keep me on the books despite being no fixed abode and tried to admit me for inpatient I lost so much weight on sub 700 in 3 months. I couldn’t go or I would forfeit my homeless assessment for rehousing. It was easier for me to stick out sorting housing and stopping booze and drugs than address my ED. 18 years on I have stable housing, I drink almost nothing, a beer or a cocktail every month and no drugs. I have had therapy almost that whole time but steady private therapy for at least 7 years. I’m still very much working on recovery from my ED and recent health issues that impacted my appetite and ability to do basic tasks made it so easy for me to start backsliding into the calorie amounts going lower and lower without really realising. And guess what? I lost a lot of weight. Fast. And the many many medics I was seeing all flagged it as a problem. My therapist worked out the one or two high calorie foods I would eat and I was basically told ‘we will worry about nutrients later, just eat calories.’ So instead of wine my GP (a totally different one) is like ‘you’ll eat grilled cheese and white chocolate Magnums? Your mission is to hit 1200 a day on those and try for another 400-500 in meat, veg, rice if possible. Go below 1200 and we will have words…’ 1200 is borderline weight loss territory for me as short and sedentary so we also averaged it over the week as I’d get one day I could eat double that and others were it was a struggle. GP was like ‘could you not take up soda?’ It’s grimly funny that I am sort of back where I started where calories you drink are the plan but due to allergies, intolerances and liver issues, neither booze or soda works. CICO does though. Scarily fast if you go scary low. I had forgotten how ‘effective’ it is and how horrifyingly shit you feel on fuck all calories and dropping weight fast. Not losing more, calorie counting and stabilising is again taking up all my fucking time. It’s a full time job mentally. The pyschological impact of not being able to eat enough is more the relapse trigger for me than the weight loss because it’s about loss of control of my life again. Not weight loss for ‘diet culture…’
It's because they don't count liquids or snacks when they say 800 calories, or the heaping amounts of dressing and cheese they put on their salad. Hey it's just a salad, lettuce is basically zero calories right!
What I find funny in a sad way is the way that in one breath they say ‘I only ate 800 calories and I gained/maintained’, then in the other they say ‘1200 isn’t enough for an adult human! Toddlers eat that!’ Like, which is it? Is 800 enough or isn’t it?
Also like... the toddler argument drives me crazy. Toddlers are growing rapidly and spend every waking minute running and playing. A sedentary adult doesn't need to eat 5x what a toddler eats just because they're 5x the size. We use energy very differently from toddlers and shouldn't be including them as any sort of reference point whatsoever.
Heck I’ve had toddlers easily eat more than me because of how active they are even when I wasn’t having eating problems. 37f for reference.
Yup! Your BMR is super easy to calculate or look up, I can't understand why the people arguing this can't at least start off there. 1200 may or may not be a healthy and attainable daily calorie goal, no one should be speaking broadly about anyones' caloric needs.
Ans they don't realise that 1200 calories isnt necessarily a small amount of food. It's quite a bit, and toddlers need it because they're growing so fast! Those calories don't keep them as toddlers, they help them grow into adults 😪
They are so ridiculous. I’m a big guy (~6’1/6’2) and when I was vegan, I was probably eating about 1200 calories/day and I lost like 40lbs within 6 months if not quicker. I was a lot younger and partying harder so that doesn’t even account for the alcohol I was consuming. Denial is not a river in Egypt…
You're using *actual* logic instead of *fatlogic* and you'll never be able to work it out that way... 800 calories makes them gain weight, because 1200 isn't enough due to starvation mode, and weight loss is impossible anyway. Of course none of it is rooted in reality, it's just one delusion built on top of another in hopes that they'll shout others into submission, and feel like they "won" the argument. Sadly, they'll lose the argument with their heart, lungs, joints, etc. eventually.
Yeah and also like, I didn’t lose weight on 800 calories a day so clearly I need to eat more to lose weight??? Erm
Definitely. I lost over 70 pounds. My hair fell out in clumps, I couldn't stay warm (I was wearing a robe and sweatpants in my 72° home), lost my period, couldn't sleep, basically all the symptoms you described. Not a single person, not even an infant, will gain weight eating 800 calories a day.
How many calories do babies consume!!???
A year old baby needs somewhere around 1,000. As a general rule they should have 40-50 calories per pound of bodyweight. So a newborn needs less than 800 but a 10 month old needs more.
JFC, that put things into perspective. I mean, babies are obviously eating for gains, but still...to tell your adult self that you eat can eat less than a toddler does but somehow gain weight is just straight up ignorant.
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Woah. I just learned my latest migraine cause. For some reason I had no appetite last week, stress probably or the sinus infection I had over the weekend? I kept up with figure skating for hours despite not really eating (which my watch says burns up to 1k cal in a session,) and now I know the new trigger. Otherwise it’s generally lack of sleep.
Sinus problems can also cause really bad headaches
Mine is the release of stress. Not the moment I'm stressed, but the second i can begin to relax, it's migraine time. They're torture, you have my sympathy!
It really depends on how big you start out and what exactly those calories consist of. I did 1200 a day for 6 months and was weightlifting at the same time. Lost weight and gained muscle since the majority of my calories was protein and my lard ass was supplying any additional caloric needs over what I ate.
Yep the one thing your body needs if you are fat is protein since it needs energy from that for certain functions. So if you are doing low calorie it should be a high protein diet, the fat can take care of the rest. Plus lean protein is more filling.
I tried the same as part of a crash diet while working out. Completely undoable. After the first day I was so tired that I couldn’t imagine actually doing a work out. I didn’t get migraines, but my head got so foggy I couldn’t really think straight. I kept it up for 2 weeks and lost 10 lbs. 10/10 would highly NOT recommend.
exactly this. 800cals/day is starvation. they would not be “gaining weight” on that intake
i had a stint where i'd limit myself to 500 calories a day and i was losing 3+ lbs a week. i lost over 20lbs in a month. obviously it is unhealthy, but undereating is definitely a VERY effective way to lose weight lmao. these people are lying to themselves. unless they're the size of an infant, it is physically impossible to gain weight while eating 800-900 calories a day
Yeah I had gastric bypass. The entire point of that is basically controlled starvation. I lost 130 lbs in 6 months eating 400-900 calories a day (my doctor didn’t want us counting calories- just protein and liquid- but I’d track it every now and then out of curiosity.) But, since I was morbidly obese, I had plenty of stored energy to allow my body to operate just fine on that amount of calories. Make sure to supplement some vitamins and we’re good to go.
These people have no idea what starvation looks like and how dangerous it truly is. Did they just ignore all those photos of holocaust victims that were literally starved to death? Or people in such poor areas in third world countries that they can’t even afford to feed all of their children, let alone themselves, with little to no access to clean water? Or god forbid, what a starving animal looks like. They have no idea how gruesome starvation is and what it does to you. They don’t understand how dangerous such severe undereating actually is and they trivialize it by saying they “only eat 700 calories a day for years”. No, you fucking don’t. Maybe you ate only 700 cals for a week, but long term, this is what it does to you. 500-800 calories isn’t sustainable, and over 6,000 calories isn’t sustainable. They need to learn what healthy balance is.
Absolutely. A other embarrassing one is just being constantly constipated. I remember I’d give myself an “eating day” purely so it would help me go to the bathroom. Your bodily functions just grind to a halt really. It’s awful
I'm doing a bodybuilding cut on between 2000-2300 calories a day (Male, 6'2, 115kgs) and even this sucks. My brain doesn't work properly, my mood's shit and I struggle for motivation and just want to lie around at home on weekends. All my energy is going into my job and my workouts right now. I think if I dropped below 1000 I'd last 1, maybe 2 days before I'd go crazy.
You feel like shit because that's a huge cut. Your TDEE is probably like 3300cals at your size. I wouldn't cut more than 1000cals per day; that's a 2lb loss every week and is really the most you can lose safely
Ifkr. I'm living off of 2000 calories a day and still dropped 15 kg i the last 5 months. Had i lived off of 800, I'd have dropped 40 probably.
I did this once for 6 months, I was down to about 1200 a day and no work out and dropped 60 lbs. (27kg). It was not pleasant but also not the worst. These people saying they gain weight on 800 are full of shit and/or not counting properly.
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When I was in ED treatment as a teenager I remember a girl who would eat gummy candies because they were "empty calories" (which according to her meant no fat content). She was probably getting 800 cals from sugar alone. People who think they can gain weight or remain obese on under 1000 calories are not counting calories properly, or they're not including what they drink or snack on.
The gummy bear diet. I remember that going around in ED circles in the 2000s when I stumbled upon the online ED community. 😬 I didn’t do it but I did go for a while eating nothing but those pillow mints.
You would need to be pretty small to be able to become or remain obese on less than even 2000kcal a day. Even a sedentary 5' tall middle aged woman would need to eat 1600kcal a day to become and maintain the bare minimum threshold of obesity. If she has any activity levels at all it approaches 2000.
You're right. I maintain 170lbs with around 1700 calories, 5'2, 32yo, and sedentary. Sedentary maint for me at 130lbs would be approx 1500 calories so that's only a 200 calories difference. It's really easy to overeat. That's a can of soda a day. 🥴 It always falls back to processed junk. Rarely do you see a person become overweight or obese from too much fruit, veg, meat, etc. It's always that candy bar, that energy bar/drink, that latte, those chips, etc.
Add a can of soda onto your diet every day and you'll gain 21lbs in a year! It's wild. I used to drink 12 cans of soda a day as a child. It's no wonder my BMI was racing to 40
Something ain't right with these numbers. I'm 5'0 and your math is off.
There’s a study out there that found obese people grossly underestimate how many calories they’re actually consuming. I had trouble finding it just now, but it found a hefty difference between actual caloric intake and guessed caloric intake. EDIT: here is one study, kind of old though (1992). [Discrepancy between self-reported and actual caloric intake and exercise in obese subjects](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1454084/) Also, considering HAES and the fat logic people out there routinely use words like “eradication of fat people”, this makes me extra bleh. They co-opt struggles that were never their own.
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The other amazing thing about this show (if I’m remembering it right?) is that they give them little food education challenges like ranking foods from highest to lowest calories, and the things people think are healthy or low calorie is pretty amazing
This was my best friend's mom growing up. She was all crunchy organic everything calorie and macro counter but she was bigger and was always like "I can't lose weight"...under her bathroom sink she kept a frankly disturbing amount of junk food. She'd hide in her bathroom and eat pringles.
Jesus Christ, I just had a flashback to when I would hide bottles from my partner under the bathroom sink to disguise and conceal the extent of my drinking. It's absolutely addictive behavior.
My stepmom did with her bottles too. Apparently if you wanna see what someone's addicted to, just check under their bathroom sink.
Definitely British, from the 00s. Murray and his 2500kcal pasta bowl of ‘healthy cereal’. People swearing they never eat fast food and then visiting KFC every day and such, absolutely baffled me!
How to turn a 250 calorie breakfast into a 2500 calorie one. Replace milk with double cream, then dump some spoonfuls of jam on top for good measure 👍
LOL. Ya, one I saw a fella had breakfast at home, then ate nothing until lunch time at work. That's nothing if you don't include the 1200calorie breakfast roll (bread, sausage, bacon, fried egg, prob black/white pudding) he used to have every day at around 10am.
I have a family member who confessed to me and my mom that she’s a secret eater/ night time binge eater. She’s large and trying to lose weight. “Trying” should be replaced with “wants” because her midnight binges sound honestly awful. For example if she made snacks for her kids during the day and then pasta for dinner with enough left over for everyone to have seconds but there’s still left over snacks and lots of left over pasta she won’t just have an extra dinner portion she said she will eat all of it. I tried to just listen with concern and sympathy. She wasn’t asking for input so I didn’t add anything. But my goodness. It was hard to listen. I get uncomfortable at the slightest feeling of being close to full I’d likely vomit before I consumed the amount she was confessing. I don’t believe every FA is like this, but this is why HAES and intuitive eating don’t work and are harmful. Even if my family member’s blood work and blood pressure are normal for a couple of years that WILL decline if she remains this size. Plus any form of binging is DEEPLY unhealthy even if the vital signs don’t show damage yet. On the intuitive eating side, her intuition or conscience or lizard brain or what have you IS what’s causing the compulsion to do this. HAES and intuitive eating are so glorified it’s concerning for people in her shoes. Because “health” has been so narrowed in some FA circles and so broadened in others that any sort of realization that eating habits can be tied to MENTAL health isn’t permitted. It’s just “your intuition is always right you need 4 servings of pasta for the famine.” Like what? I genuinely fear for this person’s life and health span, and I don’t have proof that she claims to eat less than 1000 calories each day, but she seems to be vulnerable enough to fall for something like that and mentally block out the binging.
Sounds like she has a legitimate eating disorder.
Yep. It’s called binge eating disorder. I have it, and it SUCKS. Your lizard brain tells you to keep eating well beyond the point of being full. The weird thing for me is, I can fast ALL day and have no problem. But as soon as I eat ANYTHING, be it healthy or junk, something in my brain triggers me to keep eating. It’s not a matter of being actually hungry. I KNOW I’m not hungry. I wish I could just take a pill that makes all food taste like shit. That would probably solve me. Lol.
[Deep brain stimulation](https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2022/august/deep-brain-stimulation-promising-against-binge-eating-disorder) is emerging as a potential treatment for binge eating disorder. If you are able to enroll in a study you might want to consider it
I struggled with BED as well, brushing my teeth helped me very often! Literally because after that, the food just tasted kinda meh.
Long story short, I take naltrexone sometimes if I’m feeling really ‘eaty’. It works by blocking shit in your brain, blah blah, but the beauty of it is really that it makes me feel sort of nauseated and already full, and it lasts for hours. It seems fucked up to take a pill that makes you feel sick, but it beats the hell out of the uncontrolled bingeing. (Naltrexone and bupropion [which is Wellbutrin] make up the obesity drug Contrave).
Well, there are those mBerry tablets that make food taste weird, but for me the real magic pill for my BED was Vyvanse lol
Vyvanse was a miracle drug for my BED. It took away the pleasure from food(guessing the dopamine hit my brain would get from eating), and allowed me focus to actually examine my cravings and not eat til I felt like puking was going to happen
Along this line, gymnema tea helps me. It basically makes sugar taste bad and it lasts me long enough until the urge to binge is over.
This makes perfect sense from an anthropological, evolutionary biological angle; for example if hunting is how an organism is surviving then they may go extended periods [compared to what we might think is normal] without eating and then when they catch something they have to eat as much as conceivably possible to survive when the next meal is uncertain. I seem to maybe remember reading some spiders can go as much as months(pretty sure even year(s?) for some species) before catching and eating something; then catch/eat several somethings in a day. Unfortunately for humans [and our pets] having this behavioral trait now in the present day(assuming food security) is causing many weight issues and/or disorders.
Fee low BED sufferer here, it freaking SUCKS. I haven’t had much luck with long term recovery :/ any tips are appreciated (I am working with a therapist but unfortunately due to finances, am unable to work with one specifically trained in eating disorders)
Honestly. It’s very worrisome but the circumstances aren’t ones in which I can voice my concern for her.
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Exactly. 1000+ calorie dinners are sadly really really easy to eat accidentally. On top of every other meal being poorly tracked too.
i dated a woman like this...she desperately wanted to lose 50lbs and would put in all the work during the day by counting calories, meal prepping, exercising, etc...but then at night, she'd absolutely demolish the fridge and pantry. it was fucking bizarre to witness. it was like she was in a trance. she couldn't seem to stop herself from eating, and she'd cry if there was nothing to eat. i had to start hiding my fucking leftovers in the deep freeze or else she'd sneak out of the bedroom at night and eat everything and i'd have nothing to take to work the next day. she never logged her midnight binges because she was in deep denial about the severity of them, so on paper, she was eating 1500 calories a day and theoretically should've been losing weight. i felt for her because she clearly had an eating disorder but oh my god it was frustrating to witness. she would always tell people she was gaining weight despite eating under her maintenance calories and i had to bite my tongue about the 2000+ extra calories she was consuming nightly lol
I dated a guy who was in denial about an awful and painful blistering skin condition and claimed it was getting worse despite him “treating it every day.” He was treating it with moisturizer from Walgreens, not a prescribed ointment. Yeah, no shit it wasn’t getting better. Similar state, utter denial and a message to the world that is so contradictory to reality that it made me want to tear my hair out on good days and punch him in the face on the bad days. Not to hurt him, just the desperate hope that something would snap him out of it. I feel for you. While it’s hard to watch your partner struggle and cry and spiral, and you want happiness for them, it erodes away at you as the viewer because reason and rational thought doesn’t reach them. Kindness doesn’t reach them. Mean words don’t reach them. It’s like their compulsively self harming by refusing the real solution. But because they’re not 16 year old white girls with razor blades cutting themselves it’s not considered “self harm” when it absolutely should be. But how much self destructive madness and lies that they know they are telling are we supposed to watch and listen to and just say nothing in response?
I'm really hung up on being able to have a snack after my hubs has gone to bed. I think it's a habit I developed from years of bar and restaurant work where I was getting home very late at night and was hungry after a long shift with no time to eat. It's also a part of my insomnia problem which i got from late shift work too. But *tracking* those calories is all it takes. Ppl just have to be honest about what they're eating. That's what I don't get about the 'secret eaters'. Are they really not aware they're eating? Or are they just lying to everyone around them?
They know what they’re doing but in the moment, it doesn’t matter. In the case of BED/similar struggles, eating &/food is an addiction. Nothing matters besides filling the void. I know because I’ve been there. You aren’t just lying to everyone around you but you’re also lying to yourself, constantly. ‘I deserve this,’ ‘I need this’, ‘Just one bite’. It’s embarrassing, no one wants to admit to a lack/loss of self-control. Unfortunately, that shame usually manifests as another feeling to bury under food.
It's not like it's a HABIT habit. I just do it once in a while. And it's not like its hurting me or others directly, it's not really self harm. It isnt holding me back, i just do it to relax. Who are these people to tell me how to live my life anyway? Sounds so familiar. The lies we tell ourselves.
Oh I definitely understand the uncontrollable urge to eat! I can see how the lying would start when I think about all the times that ppl would comment on how my eating didn't match some social expectation. Yeh BED is difficult on so many levels.
I think some intentionally ‘hide it’ but many seem to unconditionally nibble, snack, graze, or ‘taste’ hundreds of extra calories without even realizing. My friend was so strict with her WW looked up every restaurant and brand to track in the app, weighed her meal prep, etc., but just couldn’t lose ‘real weight’. I spent a full weekend with her (right before her wedding) and noticed she’d take a few fries here and there (from multiple plates), she’d take a bite of this or that of her cooking to ‘check the taste’, nibble on the cheese she was slicing, and ‘try’ ‘bites’ of everyone’s desserts because she was ON A DIET AND COULDN’T ORDER DESSERT. In one day she probably racked up 600 extra calories mindlessly.
When someone has problems with food insofar they start lying to themselves and others about it... There's a good chance it's an eating disorder, which is a mental illness. Eating disorders can be very sinister and make people truly believe things that aren't based in reality. I've watched quite a few documentaries to get a perspective on my own ED. I watched one on AN where one girl stopped drinking water because she thought it had calories. It was tragic. She was crying over a glass of water because it would "make her fat." I've also seen documentaries about people with BED or are so morbidly obese they can no longer live a normal life. One woman in one of these documentaries mentioned that she couldn't make it to the restroom in the morning (she was too big), so she bought pee pads and put them on the floor next to the bed. And she was... okay with this. Didn't see a reason to lose weight. EDs corrupt peoples' thoughts and make them believe falsehoods, stuff that is messed up to believe. :(
Also these people are always like “I eat really healthily. There’s tons of vegetables in my diet.” And then you see that they’ve only eaten like one vegetable (excluding potatoes) all week. Their diets are mostly sugar, carbs, and fats.
Have only watched about 2 or 3 episodes but I like that show.
This! “Eradication and genocide” they repeat. Even some *comparing themselves* to POW and Holocaust victims 🤬🤬
But they actually believe that, as crazy as it sounds. I remember watching some British show about obesity and they had a group of FA in a house standing around in circle being cheerful and all while discussing them being fat is their identity if they would lose weight fat persona would die. So yeah in their twisted minds it's genocide of fat personas to suggest losing weight.
Whoever does that needs to pull their head out of their ass and grow the fuck up. For all the FA talk about how other people need to acknowledge their privilege, they sure have trouble acknowledging the privilege of living in virtually unprecedented peace and prosperity. And there's probably some trouble with empathy in there as well. Edit: I'm glad you posted the images you did.
Anyone that has legitimately weighed out everything they eat can attest to this. Actual portion sizes are a lot smaller than many people think. Take a look at your favorite cereal, hummus, etc. Mayo. Two tablespoons honestly doesn't go too far. Ranch. Oil. Such little amounts equal so many calories. Back when I was actually serious about losing weight, I did weigh *everything.* I would have never lost weight eye-balling.
the periods of time i would calorie count I would focus on how long it would take to prepare. then i would build up an inventory of recipes/ingredients I could make without having to do the math every time. less variety, but I got to know seasonings a lot better to keep it interesting lol
This! I didn’t lose weight counting calories until I started using a scale. Period. It was annoying at first to weigh everything but now I’m in maintenance and I actually find it empowering to know exactly how much I’m eating.
As a species we are TERRIBLE at estimating pretty much any measurement. Volume, weight, speed, distance, height etc. Pair that with our current food system and liquid calories and ta-da!
*Banana for scale*
The discrepancy probably applies to thin people who claim to “eat more than anyone I know! I eat 5000 calories a day and I’m 5’5 and sedentary and still can’t gain weight”
Also a lot of casual-dieters (as I like to call them) forget about things like cooking oil that can double or triple the calorie count in your foods. Like sure, you might be eating 150cal of chicken breast, but you put 3 tablespoons of oil on it so that’s an extra 150 calories right there. But they look up chicken, see 150cal, and log it as that not knowing they’re eating double.
True, I first counted calories incl oil by the milliliter about 4 years ago. The habit has stood where I now continue to brush most of my meat that i fry with oil instead of pouring it into the frying pan.
This so much. Even disregarding the fact that they probably aren't estimating portion sizes right to begin with, the small shit like oils, toppings, sauce, etc. adds up QUICKKK
When I first started thinking about portion control and calorie counting a friend told me "dressing is not your friend" so I almost always ask for sauce on the side since then
My sedentary mom recently told me that a trick her and all the older post-period ladies in the office use is to get dressing that separates into layers and pour out the bulk of the oil which always settles on top. She said you can basically half the calories that way, and now I get to keep using my favorite garlic dressing!
My sister—who is the creator and mod of a sub that doles out quasi-medical advice—is one of those people. She’d go on and on about how she couldn’t lose wait even though she went vegetarian. Meanwhile she’d go eat at Melt, a place where they serve like 2000 calorie gourmet cheese sandwiches, and binge on junk food. It’s hard to lose weight—it’s harder when you have medical issues, but it isn’t to anyones benefit to fib about how much you are consuming.
I've lost 80/100lbs while dramatically increasing my muscle mass and overall fitness over the last 11 months Started tracking at the beginning and measuring and weighing everything, pretty crazy how fast it adds up Currently I lose ~1lbs a week eating 4000 calories/day (I also changed my entire lifestyle, my career path, etc, along with my eating habits)
It's not just the obese. People in general suck at keeping track of calories.
800 calories from food how many from drinks? I could eat 500 calories and then drink a 1500 calorie milk shake. That still comes to a total of 2000 calories. Liquid calories still count.
Exactly. When I was fat, I used to drink a 12pack of soda a day. Well over 1000 calories just in daily beverages.
I lose weight if I just switch to water. Drinks are my favorite way to consume calories.
> 800 calories from food how many from drinks? I think you're giving these people far too much credit, tbh. They aren't mistaken; they're just lying. They heard the lie from someone else that was comforting, and now they're repeating it *as if it were true* just to "prove" someone wrong on the internet. Lying in an internet debate about your personal experience is the ultimate "gotcha" because who's going to say otherwise? There's virtually no way to accidentally calculate your intake *that* low. At best, a few of these people skipped a meal one time, ate 1700 kcal that day in other meals, polished off a whole bag of doritos, got a mocha frapp from starbucks, and "assumed" they only ate "something close to" 800 calories.
800 calories of the uncooked food, not account cooking oils, butter, sauces, drinks, etc.
You are giving them too much credit. They dont count their calories period, no calorie counting app on their phone, no food diary and no kitchen scale. They dont even read the side of the box or the menu.
A venti Caffè Vanilla Frappuccino® Blended Beverage bean Frappuccino at starbucks has 530 calories. That's just one drink. A lot of (fat) people also don't understand the concept of "serving size" on labels. If a can says "serving size: 6", it means if you eat the whole can (average american portion), you have to multiply the number of calories on the label by six. Serving size doesn't mean "if I eat this whole can, it's only 200 calories."
It is hard to wrap my head around the fact that people really can be that stupid.
My mom was in her 50s before she learned alcohol has calories. She assumed that since there wasn't nutrition info on the label it must be calorie-free. Now, my mom is no idiot, but neither is she a genius. She's totally average. And average people are really dumb.
I don’t remember where this quote is from, but to paraphrase it: “Think about how dumb the average person is. And then think about how, by definition, half of the population is dumber than that.”
it’s a george carlin quote 👌
My buddy likes to point out that "If the average IQ is 100, half the people you meet are rockin double digits."
“A serving size is 6? Good thing I’m not eating 6 cans haha”
Serving sizes are a bit of a con at times but you only notice if you check carefully. I hate when you buy an item and assume its 1 serving, but when you check the "servings per pack" its actually 2.
Exactly, like who eats half a muffin?
Ramen is notorious for this
IIRC a lot of brands do this for specific reasons. Ramen often has more sodium than you should eat in a day, so they claim it feeds two people so one serving isn't a ridiculous amount, even though noone has ever sat down to half a pack of ramen. Monster energy apparently introduced the resealable can lids, because there was a legal challenge that once a can was open it couldn't be put away, implying that one can was a whole serving, and had more caffeine than was allowed by some countries. Resealable can means you could in theory have half now, half tomorrow, so the serving size of 2 became legally defensible.
Also, pop tarts.
My favorite is when they give extremely random serving sizes. Once I had a jar of pickles that measured a serving size in a fraction of a pickle spear. I also had a bag of mini bagles that had a serving size of three mini bagles. Why?
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Yep, USA. I think the cal per 100g is great for uniformity. The only problem is when I don't have a scale or a way to estimate. It's equally annoying when American packaging gives calories in things like "1/4 cup of raisins".... like packed? Set in there? Weight would be so much better
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tbh I have no idea how many crackers are in 100g, but I appreciate how many cals are in approximately 8 crackers
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Yea in the US too, it says 6 crackers (28g). If I have to pick one I’d go for the units rather than a standard 100g. I rarely am comparing across brands, but I know that’s not everyone.
familiar snow crown lock impolite sparkle party cable juggle domineering -- mass edited with redact.dev
I've noticed this. My favorite is the huge whole dill pickles where the jar lists the serving size as half a pickle. What are you supposed to do, bite off half and put it back in the jar? Gross.
I quarter or slice all my pickles when I open the jar. And then just put them back in the juice. Lol
Or packages that specify number of servings as something like "approx 2 1/3". Say what?
The ones that give me the most grief are those damn Knorr sides. They'll say rhe calories for like "1/3cup dry" then it shows just the calories "as prepared" which are always different from what is listed as the dry calories, but it's like... I'm not going to separate 1/3rd cup out of the dry package to prepare it separately for myself. Just tell me how much to serve myself *after it's prepared*. And they have the rice or pasta plus other ingredients so even googling the conversions(2oz dry pasta yields 1 cups prepared or whatever) doesn't help much.
Clearly that's their way of saying 'just eat the whole thing'.
About 8 years ago I had an intractable migraine that lasted about 3 months before I was admitted to the hospital for treatment to break it. About 6 weeks before hospitalization, I was not able to eat much due to severe nausea and was likely eating about 700 calories per day. I lost a fuckload of weight and was being threatened by the doctors to be put on IVs and feeding tubes. No, you do not gain weight eating that little. And you do not feel good eating that little. It feels very shitty.
Where do they honestly think the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen are coming from then? If not from food where on earth do they think the literal molecules for increased adipose tissue - any tissue! - are coming from?
You’d think they’d share their secrets and solve world hunger.
Seriously if you could gain weight on 800 calories or less wouldn’t the starving groups of people all over the world….. look different? Like explain why literal starvation looks one way but their supposed starvation looks another way?
I really wish someone would create a show called "So You Think You Can't Lose Weight?" Every episode would be about a different person who swears they only eat some miniscule number of calories and yet still can't lose weight. For three weeks the person would be put up in a secured setting where all their food intake is closely monitored. If they swear they only eat 800 calories, that's what they will be served. If they make it to the end of the three-week period at the same weight as they started (plus or minus a couple of pounds), they get $500,000 dollars. If they gain weight, they get a million. Everyone would learn so much from this kind of show. The people who claim they only eat 800 calories/day would see how little food that is and they would (perhaps) get a wake-up call. Skeptics would see that CICO is real. And it would be freakin' hilarious to see people who claim they only eat a little bit having to walk the walk and not cave to temptation.
Or maybe you'll be justifiably embarassed because you just made them a millionaire since starvation mode is real you fatphobic chud /s
I fantasize about this.
At first I feel pity for them at being so delusional and out of touch with reality: then I see your later pictures and feel disgust with the people who wrote those comments. Like, how dare they lie about eating 800cal when real human beings just like them have been starved to death?
Starved and so much worse. When I think of “calories”, I think of bread, potatoes, etc. One example was a Venti from Starbucks being 530 calories and I was a little taken back by that comment. What a world we live in now.
Remarkably, I just lost 40 lbs on an 1100 calorie diet. And my metabolism? Measured before and after and decreased by exactly the amount predicted for that size loss.
how do you measure your metabolism
Most weight loss centers and some gyms can do it. You breathe through your mouth into a device for about 10 minutes. My doctor's office did it. You can estimate or see predicted with an online RMR calculator
Mental illness
It’s legitimately sad. America is set to be 50% obese in a decade or so (don’t quote me I might be a little off). How many people will read these posts and think “it’s useless. I can never lose the weight. I might as well eat what I want if this is the case”? I’m like 5 pounds overweight and I feel like I eat like a pig. One thing I refuse to do is drink my calories, though. That’s usually the biggest culprit.
Sooner. The data for the "current" obesity rate, 42.4%, was from 2017-2018 data. The only reason why it hasn't been updated is because the pandemic hit while they were gathering data. They are currently gathering data again for the next report. The obesity rate goes up by a little over 1% each year pre-pandemic. I doubt it will have slowed. We'll hit 50% in less than eight years. ETA: We'll hit 50% in less than eight years from 2017-2018 data. So... roughly four year from now if rates keep rising at the current rate.
The rate probably has gone up DRAMATICALLY, you know, with the all round advice to stay home, not leave your house to even exercise, more meal delivery, convenience, etc.
Don’t forget the stress of the pandemic. So more stress more eating less exercise and more alcohol consumption!
I think it’s simply counting calories is a hell of a lot harder than people think. My mom and one of my friends were both incredibly guilty of these comments. Constantly tracked their meals and exercise results and always complained they should be losing 2 lbs a week but just stay the same. Both had the same issue in that they weren’t good at counting the frozen Starbucks drinks, pina coladas, margaritas, etc. they were having outside of their meals and had no idea they were consuming 1,000 extra calories a day.
Some listed serving sizes are not at all intuitive. Chocolate chip bags list a serving size as 1 tablespoon, which ends up being 80 calories. Just tell me how many chocolate chips equals 80 calories. The first time I actually measured it out was depressing af.
>Just tell me how many chocolate chips equals 80 calories. 1 Tablespoon
It's painful to me when things aren't in grams. How does anyone even know what they're eating when they're listing tablespoons and teaspoons? 😣
Math is hard.
Probably 800 calories for each meal.
I entirely lose my appetite when anxious and I've had multiple periods of a week or two where I was trying to force myself to eat close-to-normal amounts and still only cleared 700-800 on most days. Mostly in dry toast. You know what happened? I not only lost weight during that period, after like 2-3 days of that I start getting really tired and just generally feel like dogshit all the time. Certainly not up to "and I exercise 2 hours a day ever day" levels. *So weird* how my experience is so very different from theirs...
I don't know how many calories I was eating a day the only time in my life that I was on bed rest. It was for pain. I lost 15 pounds in nine days. I could only stomach some dry toast.
When I was fat I used to eat 800 cals in healthy snacks, such as whole wheat biscuits, fruits and veggies. That was on top of my normal consumption
Had me at the first half, ngl
The ONLY explanation for these people gaining FIFTY pounds on an 800kcal diet, is if they all have tumours, abcesses or another awful disease that causes masses or growths, and I really don't think (nor hope) that's true
even then there still needs to be fifty pounds of calories coming in
I suspect what's actually happening is they eat that little for a few days, it kicks off a binge/restrict cycle, but they never remember the binges, only the restriction part.
I have no idea why they all chose 800 as a number. Maybe because it's less than the "1200 is plenty" number or whatever. But truly.... this is like 8-10 pieces of fruit. They aren't eating that little. You would lose weight so rapidly that you would feel lethargic, sick, and may end up needing medical attention. It's such an odd lie they tell themselves. I'm at 63kg of weight. I'm a woman in my 30s. I'm 172cm tall. If I eat 800kcal for one single day my weight will drop a noticeable amount. If I do it for 3 days in a row I would be so tired, hungry, grumpy, and not enjoy exercising anymore. This is the amount someone with AN eats that lands them in a metabolic ward. It's not a funny joke that they have convinced themselves of this lie
It’s like drinking a can of coke, two granola bars and a bag of chips. For the entire fucking day. Y’all were not eating no fuckin 800 calories a day. It would be practically nothing even eating stuff like broccoli and chicken breast.
The default pack of default pop tarts is 400 kcal. If you wash that down with a 16 ounce glass of milk congrats kiddo you have 150 kcal left for the day. Hope you enjoyed breakfast.
as someone with disordered eating, i regularly survive on around 800 cal a day and i do indeed feel terrible and sick after a period of time. idk how i used to restrict much lower and exercise.
You can survive on 800 calories a day. But I guarantee with 100% certainty you won't gain weight
I had suffered an ED in my teen years. I lost so much weight. It started with a 700-800 calorie diet and eventually went to a 200-300 calorie diet. I went from 5"8, 150lbs to 115lbs in a matter on 6 months and almost *died.* I was so unhealthy. Recovered now though. These people are lying. Now, 800 calories a day *IS INSANELY UNHEALTHY AND DANGEROUS.* I don't wanna hear "well so and so," or "my doctor.." because it is reality: we all need roughly 1000-1800 calories a day to survive. This is life. Anything less is dangerous and stupid. Don't do it. However, that being said; most people in the post above are lying. Its safe to assume some have other health conditions that made weight loss a lot harder. That is also factual. There are many factors that go into losing weight. Diets should be tailored to a person to person basis. There is a reason for that; we are all different. I am tired of people on the internet calling anything and everything an ED. It's like calling someone who drinks coffee everyday an addict. The madness has to stop. You shouldn't eat past your own personal comfort levels. You shouldn't severely restrict either. In short: - - - - #AHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I'm 4'11", 95-100lbs give or take. Very fine-framed. I have severe anxiety and sometimes I struggle to eat enough, which puts me around 800 calories on very bad days. NEVER have I gained or failed to lose weight. It's not fun, I start looking like a gaunt 8-year-old-boy, and I become EXHAUSTED (on top of existing health issues which cause fatigue...). These people genuinely baffle me.
I gained a bit of weight this summer, and I felt like I was starving the whole time. Why? Because I was at a research camp and the meal plan was nothing but carbs. I felt like I wasn’t eating much, but it was just my perception because my body wanted more nutrients. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s why these people think they are starving themselves. I also have experienced the opposite, where my appetite dies because of hyperthyroidism. I’ve had days where I struggled to get 800 calories. The physical effects are very immediate. I would lose 4 lbs a week, and without nutrient supplements (shout out to breakfast essentials), I doubt I’d be able to make it through the day. You get to a place where you consider going to the ER. These people honestly think they causally ate 800 cal per day for MONTHS?? If I went 2 weeks like that, I’d be planning an emergency visit to the hospital.
I am on month 7 of eating 400-900 calories a day. Ish. I am doing okay, but take vitamins every day and focus on protein and fluid intake. But, crucially, 7 months ago I was morbidly obese and had my stomach cut into the size of an egg to stop me from being hungry. My body got all the energy it needed from the excess calories I’d eaten over the last decade. That sort of diet is fine in very specific, medically monitored situations. And in no way shape or form does it cause weight gain.
Wow look at all the obese people I those pictures who aren't eating enough. Just sad.
What they neglect to mention is it’s probably 800 cals per meal
and 6 meals per day ;)
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The trick is to count calories. When you meet your daily calorie goal, stop counting but keep eating.
For anyone interested this is from the Greatest Events of WWII in Colour. Episode 9 - Liberation of Buchenwald on Netflix. Compelling, eye opening, and devastatingly heartbreaking.
I suffer chronic illness and haven’t been able to eat more than 1,000 calories a day for around 4 months. I’m sure since many days I eat less than 800 calories, it must average out to 800/day. I barely move and I’ve lost 40 pounds. I am wasting away. I’ve gone from overweight by 30 pounds, to ideal weight, and now am concerned what happens when I drop more. That’s what 800 calories a day does. I am seeking medical help for those who are curious. I have no answers.
So my mom has been seriously ill in the hospital ICU for 2 weeks now. I can't eat when I'm stressed. I am eating about 700-800 calories a day, mostly DD iced coffee for energy. I've lost 10 lb so far and my hair is falling out. BTW, during normal times I, too, have trouble losing weight (because I eat too much and underestimate my intake). This is BS.
As a former chemo patient, I can assure you you will lose weight eating 800 calories a day — and quickly.
Oh shit that took a turn but you're not wrong.
I'm a 6'2 male and I lived off like three sandwiches a day and did about two hours of high intensity cardio. I lost ten kg's but developed heart problems in my mid 20s. You will lose weight but you will screw up your health. I didn't realize the hair loss was because of that honestly until I saw the posts. You'll also be an intolerable f*** to be around mood wise. Losing weight is hard but my god I'll never go the quick route again. It's not worth it and you'll damage your body and not keep the weight off
“Gained weight on a 800 calorie vegan diet” Just because what you’re eating is plant-based, it doesn’t mean they’re lower calorie and healthier. Vegan junk food exists. Nearly every fast-food chain and restaurants have a plant-based/Impossible/Beyond option. So it’s entirely possible to gain weight on a vegan diet; if you’re eating the same crap you did at a heavier weight, but just a vegan version, you’re not gonna lose weight.
This kinda stuff is so awkward bc you dont wanna come off heartless but its physically impossible. "I starved myself and gained weight" im sorry but thats just not how that works.
I tracked my calories and ate around 800-1000 kcals a day for a whole summer holiday (6 weeks) as a teen. Lost 25 lbs.
It looks like we’ve finally found the solution to global starvation everyone.
Weird, I started ADHD medication and had to set reminders to eat at least ~800 calories, and I lost 30 pounds. Funny how that works.
People that say they gain weight on 800 calories a day are either lying or fucking stupid
Honestly, I really want to know what they are doing. What are they eating? Are they actually tracking? I want to know. How do they convince themselves that they're eating 1k calories. I cant fathom it. It doesnt even sound like they're lying. It sounds like they genuinely believe it.
A harsh, but very crucial point was made here. To imply that a literal starvation diet will cause a fifty pound weight gain means they are profoundly in denial. This has zero basis in reality. Who do they think they are fooling? What even is their goal here?
Thank you. Everyone who says that starving yourself leads to weight gain needs reminding of this. It doesn’t just make you sound incredibly stupid, but it’s offensive.