My lovely cat, 

      Layla 

 Yesterday, I was encouraged by a statement made by an Obesity Expert, who didn't mean it to be encouraging.  That statement was:

"...there are almost no limits
to short-term weight loss goals 
(anyone can starve themselves thin)... "
                 
There are unlimited ways to starve oneself. I just need to find one that works FOR ME.  Preferably one allowing me to take one or two bites of the piece of cake pictured here.

But, Starving?  Being hungry is bad enough, but what about "Starvation Mode"? 
 
There are a number of nutritional myths within the dieting world. One of the ones that I find most annoying is the Starvation Mode Myth.

It is true that if you don't eat for a long enough period of time, you could starve, meaning die from hunger. Today, starve is also used to describe less severe limitations on food, such as when you tell your friend, "I have to go to lunch now. I'm starving." This is a way of describing discomfort caused by hunger.

The term “starvation diet” is an example of extreme dieting, in which someone tries to cause weight-loss quickly by cutting calories to less than half of what they need. Taking in fewer calories overall typically results in weight loss, which causes the body to do what it can to conserve energy, and a starvation diet takes that concept to the extreme.

The Starvation Mode Myth goes like this:

"If you don't eat enough, you won't lose weight!"

Okay, so all I have to do to lose weight is ... eat more food!   Wow, isn't that awesome? If I stall out at 800 calories, I'll just go up to 1000. And if I stall at 1000, I'll go to 1200. If that doesn't work, how about 1500? 1800? 2000? Oh wait, when I ate 2000 calories, I weighed 270 pounds.
Okay, that's not going to work.

But what if I just don't go below the magic "1200" that "everyone" says "no one" should go below? That must be what they mean by "starvation mode," right? If I stay at 1200, I will lose weight but if I go below that, I won't.

The problem with this idea is that, if it were true, no one would die from starvation and obviously people do. Clearly, even if you eat what is obviously too few calories to be healthy, such as an anorexic does, you will continue to lose weight.

                     
Here's some interesting information.

Managing Weight Loss Expectations
          by Dr. Arya Sharma, M.D. Dr. Sharma's Obesity Notes

While there are almost no limits to short-term weight loss goals (anyone can starve themselves thin) – the reality of long-term weight loss is rather sobering.

While diet and exercise generally provide an average long-term (3-5 years) sustainable weight loss of about 3-5% of initial weight, even bariatric surgery patients tend on average to sustain a weight loss of only 20-30% of their initial weight.

Surgery, although much safer than generally thought, still bears a risk of complications and the question is how much risk patients are willing to assume if they really knew and understood how much weight they are likely to lose with surgery.

This was the subject of a study by Christina Wee and colleagues, published in JAMA Surgery, in which they examined weight loss expectations and willingness to accept risk among patients seeking bariatric surgery.

The researchers interviewed 650 patients interested in bariatric surgery at two bariatric centres in Boston.

On average, patients expected to lose as much as 38% of their weight after surgery and expressed disappointment if they did not lose at least 26%.

In fact, 40% of patients were unwilling to undergo a treatment that would result in only 20% weight loss.

Most patients (85%) accepted some risk of dying to undergo surgery, but the median acceptable risk was only 0.1%.

On the other hand, some patients (20%) appeared more desperate, willing to accept a risk of 10% or greater.

As one may expect, there were important gender differences in these findings: while women were more likely than men to be disappointed with a 20% weight loss, they were also less likely to accept a greater mortality risk.

An important finding for clinicians was that patients with lower quality-of-life scores and those who perceived needing to lose more than 10% and 20% of weight to achieve “any” health benefits were more likely to have unrealistic weight loss expectations.

This study not only shows that most patients seeking bariatric surgery have rather unrealistic weight loss expectations but also that a substantial number may well be be disappointed with their weight loss after surgery.

It is also evident that many patients believe that they need to lose a rather s...

I limit myself to one cat only, but this is tempting.