Some of you may already know, I've been in a looooooooonnng stall. But I'm still working the program.

One of the things that I think hurt me was falling into the idea of 'appropriate' portions. You know, we all see the discussions on the main forum about who eats what, and I'll tell you honestly that I look at what they're eating and think "I'd starve!".

Well of course I would, I weight enough to be two of them!

But that doesn't stop my subconscious from thinking that the 'right' amount for breakfast is 2 eggs and a few pieces of bacon. Or that the restaurant portion of a 6 oz chicken breast is going to hold me all afternoon. Or rather, that it SHOULD.

I've done some poking around, and using some of the calculators online, my resting metabolic rate averages out to about 2400 calories. Just to keep the lights on.

The average person can use a guideline of either 10X their current weight for calories, or 1.5 times their rmr.

That would give me 3600 calories, or 3670 calories, respectively. Theoretically it could give me as many as 4080 calories, since they say if you're more than 50% over weight, you should always consider yourself in the next higher activity level, which would be 2400 X 1.7.

Now obviously these calculations are all extremely general and should only be used as loose guidelines. On the other hand, it certainly suggests that I should try to be no lower than 3000 ish calories per day, which I haven't been any where near most days, FYI.

So I thought I'd bring it up over here, for those who hadn't thought too much about it. We have to ignore 'normal' portions until we are actually a 'normal' size. A psychological landmine.

Any thoughts?

I am just confused by portions or serving size in general! Today I was at the grocery store comparing the labels on two boxes of granola. The store brand thought a serving was 1/2 cup. The other brand thought a serving was 2/3 cup. And you know what? If I poured myself a bowl of cereal it probably would have been a larger helping than either of those sizes!

I feel like I have totally gotten away from eating "naturally." By that I mean serving myself some food and eating it until I am full. Now I eat by the clock, and what ever amount I think is appropriate. And looking at your math makes me feel like that I am moving one more step away from that simple ideal of simply eating to alleviate hunger. I feel like I am thinking about this WAY too much!

I've heard that a minimum calorie consumption to avoid going into starvation mode would be 10 calories per pound. That's considerably more than 3000 for you. Now, is that true for this WOE? Could you be eating too little for your body?

I do struggle with the thought that when I'm "normal sized" I'll have to "eat less" but I hope by then, I am listening to my hunger mechanism & it is reset, so it won't be an effort or unnatural. I also expect to always control carbs for the rest of my life - it's just how I'm built.

I don't worry about portion size at all. If I am hungry I eat, and if not I don't. I eat until I am full, but not stuffed. Some days I can eat less than my skin and bones friends, and other days I eat enough meat to feed ten starving men.

I hadn't heard that. I don't suppose you have a source I could read up on? I've heard 10 times your body weight to maintain, then subtract to lose.


That way is best, but I can't do it. Low carb keeps me from getting appropriate hunger triggers, and to be honest, low carb food is completely boring to me, so I never think about eating until my blood sugar crashes. I'm working very hard on eating by the clock until I come up with something better.

Plus, I have a long history of ED, which equates not eating with virtue. Stupid, but it seems to be hard wired. Every time I think I'm past it, it bonks me over the head again.

While I was never your size, I was at one point 280 pounds.
I can tell you from experience, assuming your metabolism remains constant (that is you are not comparing apples to chicken breasts) you always lose more weight eating less. My metabolic rate starting out must have been around 3k cal. Most days I would barely eat, because frankly I was so ketogenic my body was just shedding fat for energy like crazy, GNG was constant, and I had no need for fuel (diet). Quitting carbs allowed my insulin levels to drop and glucagon to rise enough so that my body was just like "what the HELL are we hording all this fat for? let's eat this, not food!!" which is, probably the first time ever my body could "see" my fat AND wanted to make energy out of it.

As a result, I lost weight like crazy, and was the low 200s within a couple of months. I would have no appetite, eat maybe eggs for breakfast (if I could stomach it), a bit of meat for dinner and lunch, under 1000 cal no doubt... and lose weight very fast.

I did not do any of this "keeping my fat up", with swallowing oil, forcing myself to eat... because I discovered the less I ate, the faster I lost weight, and those people who were obsessed with forcing food and "keeping up fat" by pouring several tablespoons of oil on veggies often did not.

I know metabolism and weight loss is not a simple matter but most of the time a stall is resolved by eating less. Most people who perceive themselves to be eating very low calories yet not losing weight, actually arent. Alternately, they count only some days, "relax" other days, therefore are not consistently making a deficit.
Calorie counting is a skill, it takes a long time to get good at it. Also, under eating to lose weight is something that must always be a priority. One cannot do it one day, then "relax" and expect it to work, because on the "relaxing" days you will eat a lot - the body doesn't like to lose at a rate we want it to.

I know you are taking coconut oil, several tablespoons a day... if I were you I would replace fats that already exist in my diet with the coconut oil (if you MUST take it you should replace fat calories with it, not add them in). See if that helps your stall.

It's hard to overcome the old patterns.

I'm going out on a limb and saying I think the whole "Starvation mode" thing is blown out of proportion. From what I've read on the forum about it, while it seems to be an entrenched notion, there seems to be enough evidence to the contrary to cast a lot of doubt on whether it really exists.

I personally run into a LOT more trouble losing when I overeat than when I stick to smaller portions.

"Starvation mode" as you understand it does not exist. You can not eat so low calorie that you stop losing weight. If this were possible, starvation itself could not occur. Starvation is the act of the body catabolizing tissues at a greater rate than they are synthesized, until homeostasis is compromised somehow and death occurs. When we lose weight, what we are doing is catabolizing body tissues - adipose, fat preferably. This is done by creating a demand for energy that exceeds intake. While it may not be necessary to count calories for this to happen, and I would agree that a plan that is truly healthy should allow obesity to be corrected mainly as a normal process (that is, if you have to force off weight something is wrong with your metabolism or diet)... but it always requires less cals than you are using or storing.

The myth of "starvation mode" is based in a nugget of reality - that is, the body resists restriction by conserving energy. However, this adaptation is not permanent nor will it totally impede weight loss (it can, at best, make it less efficient). "Starvation mode" positive correlates with rapid weight loss; you cannot be in starvation mode if losing very slowly (again, if we assume the person in question is healthy and overfat... underweight or metabolically compromised people are a different story).

If you are still very obese the body might not resist at all, and no "starvation mode" happens even if barely eating. Most metabolic rate decrease seen in dieting can be attributed to the loss of TEF (thermal effect of food) from simply eating less. You don't have to worry about "starvation mode" until you start to get to the normal weight ranges. If you get low enough in weight that your leptin levels start dropping below baseline normal (only happens when you go below set point, thus become underweight for your body), then "starvation mode" can be triggered (by diminished leptin) and the body DOES start conserving energy more vociforously... and the more underweight the worse it gets. But even this situation is not permanent, and once weight is restored the body comes out of "starvation mode".

In short: Do not convince yourself that you must "force" yourself to eat to lose weight. This is counter to reality. While you shouldn't be starving yourself either, eating less is always going to increase the rate your body catabolizes its tissues. The fatter you are, the easier it is to lose weight because when very fat and on LC our body has *tons* of fuel to work with. All signals of the healthy body, upon starting LC, are screaming: DONT EAT! LETS BURN THIS BUTT OFF INSTEAD! Your body WILL preferentially catabolize fat for energy purposes but you have to let it by not eating unless hungry.
A body, if healthy (metabolically balanced), does not want to be obese. A body cannot do what it needs to do (burn off its extra fat) if its owner is afraid of "starvation mode" and is therefore eating even when not hungry, even when the brain is saying "um... I really don't need food, because we have a ton stored in our fat cells from that REALLY long summer feast that just FINALLY ended... "

That was posted by the moderator of my weight loss email group. No reference given. I did check on the web, but there's lots of variation. Goes to show that rumors travel. I'm usually not so off-the-cuff.

Thank you for taking the time to post that.

Having 33 years of dieting under my belt doesn't really help when dealing with this "new" WOE/WOL.

Portion control is quite an issue for me. It's hard to get as many meals a day as Atkins recommends, but it's a goal to shoot for. As I understand it, the goal is to eat 'appropriate' portions at intervals of a few hours. I find I fill up fast on protein, barely managing to get the dark green leafies that I try to get in at each meal. Funny how one can shovel in quantities of starchy carbs but is "too full" to eat more appropriate foods. Funny? Oh, just painful to see how devious my appestat can be. I no sooner tell someone that I'm too full to manage a bite more of protein than some illicit notion crosses my mind and I'm contemplating a heaping bowl might just be nice. So I am writing down all food eaten - as a reality check. Amazing what goes into my maw! -Zer (who finds that two eggs really IS a good start for the day, with a side of greens all wilted and full of calcium and iron and stuff - as long as I plan on eating in a few hours some sort of protein lunch and a few hours later another meal, all of portions that are assimilated as fuel to keep this big ol' body moving)

The rule is to eat 10X body weight to lose at an easy pace. It's only a rule of thumb, but it's generally pretty accurate, and it has the advantage of being relatively foolproof -- there's no room for judgment involved, no multipliers, like the Harris Benedict one above, to make a mistake on and overestimate your calories burned figure, which research shows most people do. Harris Benedict was originated almost a century ago, when people were much more active than they are today, so it should be used very conservatively.

I'd heard the rule is 10X your desired body weight.

For faster weight loss that will do. There are a whole lot of rules out there
Too many, really.

But let's take a 300 pound woman as an example. She wants to lose down to 135. She can eat 1300 calories a day and lose fairly quickly, assuming she is able to stay on track, or she can start out with 3000 calories a day, and adjust that figure downwards as her weight declines -- 2900 at 290 pounds, 2500 at 250 pounds, and so on. It's much slower weightloss, but it also might be a little less stressful -- as long as this person has the patience to stick with it. Which approach is correct depends on the person. If slow weightloss isn't what you're after, 10x current isn't going to be for you, but I personally don't have a lot of confidence in the ability of most people to stick to what amounts to a crash diet for very long.

I'll also admit to being sneaky, here. Very few people can average 3000 calories properly low carbing -- I can't do it, and was once just about the biggest eater I knew. So having 10x as a goal is kind of cheating, because most people just can't do it anyway until they lose weight.

I am a big eater.. I admit it.. I eat a lot more than most ppl I know (not that I know that many!).. I would love to cut back on portion size.. seriously.. I feel like I am starving.. I KNOW I am not starving, and have enough body fat to live for (probably) weeks with out 'dying' of hunger.. but I am miserable with less food.. If I could find a way to overcome that very empty feeling (not to mention the rumble-grumble noises coming from the stomach/intestines area), and the headaches from not eating (whether real or ??), I would love to just be able to give up eating.
(don't jump on me about this) If my body would just not want to eat for a couple of months, before going back into a normal mode. APPARENTLY anorexic isn't the right word.. but.. just not wanting/caring to eat.?? i want it to be something my body does natually..

dianna