A question on eating more/less and weight loss/gain.

Well, if your argument about not eating enough stalling weight loss were true, anorexics wouldn't look the way they did. I agree that it's not healthy to eat less than about 1200 calories a day, and I'm surprised that WW would advocate not telling someone to eat more healthily.

I think it was more a case of telling someone to eat more food. Maybe if someone isn't eating all they are entitled to and struggling to loose I'd suggest sticking some more healthy food into their day and remind them that if they do eat all their points they will still loose so they don't need to cut back more.

I know sometimes people come along and aren't loosing and they're also not eating all of their points, you tell them to eat all of their points and they come back the next week having lost! Although it could be that they track what they're eating better ?

Everyone has a baseline of calories that they need to just 'live' every day. To be able to walk around, work etc they then need a bit more. If you go on a very low calorie diet your body has to go into ketosis (which isn't very pleasant as you go into it, from what I've heard). I know someone doing Lighter Life and she has 500 calories a day, and she's definitely losing weight!!

I think as far as WW goes when someone stalls our leader always used to look at a food diary to see if there was anythign in there taht might indicate why they'd stalled. We were always told to use our points so as not to go into starvation mode, where your body holds onto food....but obviously it WILL start to burn it off if it has no choice, so if that was happening the stalling wouldn't last long, but the side-effects of feeling lethargic etc may well last longer.

Well, if you are eating a lot less than you should, your BMR does drop significantly - but I think this is unlikely on a "normal" weight loss programme.

When people talk about their weight loss stalling, I think it's normally for two reasons:

1. They're underestimating how much they're eating

2. They haven't adjusted their calorie intake to take into account their weight loss - it's surprising how much your BMR requirement drops as you lose weight, as does the calories you burn during exercise etc. So on WW, if you start weighing 12 stone and eat 20 points a day*, you'll lose weight - but by the time you're down to 11 stone you may stop losing even though you'e eating the same.

* figures sucked out of thumb

This is something that has often puzzled me. I know people of the VLC diets consuming 400/500 cals a day and the weight falls off them (I guess similarly with those with anorexia etc) but taking my H as an example. During the week he has a tendancy to eat nothing during the day but dinner. I had a phase of insisting he at least had lunch and eating lunch teamed with the usual dinner he lost weight... is it the kick starting of your metabolism earlier in the day that does it?

No, it's almost certainly not eating stacks at dinner/not eating mars bars and crisps during the day because you're not having a proper lunch.

Weight loss is very un-mysterious really.

Great thanks all ? It's a minefield really as you don't want to tell people the wrong thing, but sometimes you do want to tell them something to try and give them support!