not enough calories
Well, it was a long conversation, and I recommended Tom Venuto’s e-book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle (see a description under the heading Books for the buff in the left frame), as I’ve so often done. My friend and I talked about the importance of setting goals, how to carve out gym time, how often to eat, the importance of protein, the necessity of healthy carbs for people who exercise, how to cultivate satiety (see Barbara Rolls’s book Volumetrics, also briefly described in my book list), and so on.
My friend knows more or less what she needs to do; she just needs a little help in getting started again.
When we talked about calories, I was horrified to hear what she thought a low-calorie daily intake should be: about 700 calories. That’s terrific if your goal is to reduce your metabolism, slow your weight loss, burn off muscle tissue, and guarantee that the rebound weight gain that follows leaves you fatter than ever, with less lean body mass (and thus a reduced ability to burn calories).
Never, never, never reduce calories more than 20 to 25 percent from normal unless you’re doing a medically supervised fast.
Okay, I’m off the soapbox now.
August 24th, 2005 at 3:11 pm
It’s very difficult to change your thinking, though, when you’ve been raised on that 700- calories-a-day garbage. It seems to go against reason. That’s how it was with me until I got fed up with every other diet routine. Reading Tom Venuto’s book, but more importantly, seeing the success achieved by a good friend, was what pushed me into an entirely different lifestyle. When I tell people I eat all day, they look at me as though I’m crazy. I love it!
August 24th, 2005 at 8:14 pm
Once you realize how well it works, you become a disciple for sensible non-starvation!
Here’s a story from 20 years ago, when I was preparing for a bodybuilding competition and trying to lose 10 to 12 pounds. Those were the days when we bought the fat-free myth–so my diet was as close to fat-free as I could make it except for an occasional whole egg.
I ate literally *all day long*–for one thing, because I was hungry literally all day long. At lunchtime I’d go to the employees’ cafeteria and order a plain baked potato, a grilled chicken breast, a large dry salad, and a big glass of skim milk. Then I’d consume every last bite. After a few weeks of this, the (obese) cafe manager said to me, “I’ve never seen anybody eat as much as you do.” And she said it in a very snotty, judgmental way. I just stared at her, thinking something along the lines of “who are *you* to talk about someone else’s food intake?”
By that time I’d gone from a lean 125 to an even leaner 115 or so and couldn’t believe someone was going to give me a hard time about eating “too much.”
What I wanted to say was “Obviously I’m not taking in more than my body needs.”
Lots of women have been indoctrinated with the idea that eating tiny quantities is “feminine”–or something.
I also remember one of my (obese) aunts saying to me, “Oh, I can’t eat a whole yogurt for lunch. It’s just too filling.”
We’re talking a 6 or 8 ounce serving. I’m thinking “Riiiiiight.”
August 24th, 2005 at 8:24 pm
It’s taken me years to eat a baked potato. Can you believe it? Naturally, I don’t load on butter, sour cream, bacon and all that stuff, but to eat a baked potato and not feel my hips balloon out is remarkable. I have a friend who is as tiny as they come. We’ve had lunch together and while I would starve myself on a couple of steamed veggies, she was shoving in a huge hamburger with a baked potato on the side. She ate every last bit of it, too! But she works out every day, hard, and eats the right things at the right times. Again, I love it. I can’t say enough about sensible eating.