For all of you who forgot me, I was here last here with the rest of you low carbing. I lost 50lbs in 5-6months. I dropped from 195 to 145. Right now Im at 170 and I turned vegetarian. I really want to lose 15-20lbs. I think what I am going to be doing isnt healthy at all but I am going to eat 500 or less calories a day. Its not healthy or safe but it will work...Any thoughts?


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Sounds like a plan. Awareness is important. Got your plot picked out?

Hey Bob, long time no hear! How's it going???

500 cal per day huh? Hmmm ... 9 Oreo's have 480 cal. (but only 7 if they're double-stuff). 2 Krispy Kreme chocolate glazed donuts w. chocolate sprinkles are 520 cal. ... it might be ok if you scrape off the sprinkles. And they're vegetarian!



Doreen

I think you are on to something here, Bob. By cutting out all meat, fat, and most calories, your body can consume its own muscle mass. By doing that you will never have to develop shoulders and a chest as most young men do in their early 20's. Also, your new plan is guaranteed to suppress testosterone production. But, hey, that will go nicely with your new girlish figure.

Bob ...

Ask your body what it is going to do once you throw it into starvation mode at 500 cals per day ... then ask it how it's gonna act once you begin to eat normally again ...

To see how low you can go WITHOUT wasting away, figure out what your body's BMR is (basal metabolic rate). That will tell you what your body NEEDS to function.

As a trainer, I have seen what you are about to do backfire too many times. Usually is it with women. Once they starve themselves down to a "magic number" and they eat normally again, their metbolism is so shot that virtually ALL of the weight they gain back was fat.

I have had the not-so-fun task of having to "reset" the metabolisms of some models who were shutting off their appetites by taking Phen-Fen ... FOR 6 YEARS. When the pill was yanked from the market, these girls gained so much weight/fat that it was hard to believe that it was them (seeing the "before" pics and the "now" pics).

Many times I used ALL of the standard "tricks" to restore their metabolisms ... nothing worked. Then I had to dig deeper into some not-so-friendly tricks and got some results.

Restoring your metabolism once you have shut it down takes like 10 times the amount of dedication and determination that it takes to "starve" yourself. Most people do not have what it takes.

Some of the girls made it, many did not.

What I am saying is, going at it the way you are about to will be a losing battle. You will hit your goal no doubt. But, are you willing to eat 500 cals per day for the rest of your life? I see health problems on the horizon.

And at 500 cals per day, besides all of the fun side effects that Nopie listed, you will feel tired/lethargic all the time, as well as being irritable and you sure as hell will not be giving your body enough to repair itself should you happen to get sick/injured.

It's your body, so it's your choice. But really think about what you are about to do. Honestly, it's not worth it.

Why are you so hell bent on killing yourself? Haven't you ever heard of anorexia? That's what you will be doing to yourself and once your body starts eating it's own muscle to survive, just remember that your heart is a muscle. Do you want to die of a heart attack at this age?

I don't know how tall you are, Bob, but 170 isn't much for a young man to weigh. What is your point? Why do you want to look like a stick?

I have a son, and I can bet your mother feels like me. She would hate to lose her son because of some misconstrued ideas as to how you should look.

Forget this plan, Bob. Get a hobby, enjoy life, do things with your friends and feel better about who you are.

A big echo to everything everyone has already said.

Take a look at my journal - somewhere around page 15 or 16 - and you will find my dieting history. That should show you that what you are contemplating will not yield the results you seek. you will end up heavier - or dead (although death has been shown to be a highly successful permanent weight loss plan).

You know that LC works. And you know that it works for YOU. The problem wasn't with LC, it was because you abandonned LC instead of adopting it as a permanent WOL. So go back to what you have already demonstrated works for you and make the commitment to eat properly from that point on.

Good Luck!

Bob...

Please listen to the advice of the others who posted and rethink what you are doing to your body. Is being thin really worth possibly harming your body beyond repair or dying, especially when it's possible to attain that goal without doing all that damage? It IS possible to do both low carb AND vegetarian at the same time, although it's extremely difficult to do and get the nutrition that you need. I'm curious why you suddenly decided to go vegetarian after doing so well eating low carb with an adequate (not high) protein intake. You will most certainly get results with what you are about to do, but I think you will get a lot more on the "results" end than you are bargaining for, most of them not positive or in your best interest. You have your entire life to get yourself "thin" but not if you kill yourself getting there and please don't try to tell yourself "it won't happen to me". There are many people who have died doing what you are about to do who thought the same thing.

Hi Bob,
When a professional (I mean Trainerdan) offers u advice for free, please, do yourself a favour & listen.
What u described there sounded like a plan of "self-destruction". Please do not go down that path. Take care, Bob.
Bebe

Bob....I echo all that has been said too.

You have done so well eating LC...why change all that?

Ok so you have fallen off the wagon a bit, but you can climb back on. I can imagine that with a young persons lifestyle if would be really tempted by the types of things your friends are eating. But doing what you are suggesting won't change that....you would still not be able to eat all of that. Plus you will be hungry and ill. in no time you would succumb to temptation and you weight would pile back on.

Get back to what you know works for you....we are here to help you with that.

LC works!

Lesley

Hey, Bob, did you get the reactions you were looking for?

Nat

From experiance...It is really NOT a good idea! Men normally want muscles, not skin and bones...

I told you guys I knew it wasnt a good idea. If Im not some sort of diet I cant control my bad eating habits. I still have a belly I need to lose. Need to be able to fit into a small. It isnt good news when the suit you bought back in August doesnt fit. I was going for 15lbs and then start eating two meals a day...cutting out soda, sugar and other junk. Right now Im thinking eating something mall for lunch, something small for dinner and drink a lot of water a juices...

You know it's not a good idea.

You know it's a BAD idea.

You want to do something that you KNOW is a BAD idea.

You want OUR thoughts on whether you should do something that you KNOW is a BAD idea and that you know that WE think is a bad idea.

What kind of feedback were you hoping and/or expecting to get?

What advice would you give a friend if they came up to you and said that they wanted your thoughts on whether they should do something that they told you up front that they knew was a bad idea and you agreed that it was a bad idea. Would you really tell them, "Hey, good idea. Go for it."?

Get real.

Did you not learn anything from your LC experience? You should have learned that it works and that it works for you. You should have learned that it is a way of eating that you can stick to - you did it for a half a year. You should have learned that for the results to last that you have to make PERMANENT changes to how you eat. You should have learned that all you had to do was add in some more carbs on the way you were eating and you were there.

Look at it another way. Just what do you expect to accomplish by this diet that you KNOW is a BAD idea? Let's say you lose the weight? What then? You have already claimed that you can't control your bad eating habits unless you are on a diet? So how are you going to control them once you lose the twenty pounds? Magic? Divine inspiration? Or do you not plan to control them and just start playing the yo-yo game or the doing binge/purge routine?

But, it's your life and your body. We each must make our own decisions and accept the consequences of them. We have done our best to advise you of what those consequences are likely to be. If you still choose to travel that path you do it having been duly warned. If you survive to the age of 30, you will almost certainly look back with strong regret for having inflicted unnecessary damage to your body that you will forever have to live with. I know that one of three friends I had in high school and college that had eating disorders feels that way. The other two don't - because the other two didn't survive to see 30.

Bob....what you are proposing doing is not "some sort of diet"...it's a path to self-destruction and will do nothing to deal with the root of your problem, which is controlling your eating habits. If you cut your calories that low, your body will go into starvation mode, shut down your metabolism and then when you get to your goal (assuming you don't give up from hunger and feeling sick or wind up in the hospital first) and go back to eating "normally", the weight will pile back on because you have reset your metabolism to a lower level than before. Trainerdan is right. This will not fix your problem...it will give you a whole NEW set of problems to deal with on top of the one that you already have. You said that you can't control your bad eating habits unless you are on some sort of diet. If that's true, then you didn't learn anything the last time around and starving yourself is not a diet...it's called anorexia. Now is the time to change that. You are treating this as a short term solution to a long term problem. Controlling your eating habits isn't something that you do for a while until you loose the weight that you need to loose and then quit (as you've already discovered, I hope, but maybe not); it's something that you do for LIFE. 170 is not an unreasonable weight for an adult male of average height and body frame. Why the obsession with being a size small? You said you have a gut to loose? Try cruches. Then again...if you're eating 500 calories a day, don't try crunches...you won't be able to build any muscle anyway, so it will just be wasted energy and you won't have a lot to waste eating like that.