Great job! Keep it up!

Hi everyone,



Just one thing: please be careful when using that "multiply by 10" rule, as it's not all that accurate. (i.e. a 130 lb person needs more than 1300 calories per day).



Your body is a lot more complicated than this.



If you really want to know how many calories your body needs to maintain itself, you need to find out your resting metabolic rate (aka, your Basal Metabolic Rate - BMR), and then add the amount of calories you burn during your daily activities.



To calculate your BMR, you need to factor in your gender, weight, height and age. Here's a free calculator for this:



http://health.discovery.com/tools/calculators/basa l/basal.html



or



http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/calrmr.htm



The result you get from this calculator is the amount of calories you would burn if you stayed in bed all day. This figure alone is probably more than the "multiply by ten" rule.



Next, add the amount of calories you burn based on your lifestyle. For example, if you sit at a desk all day, you can add about 200 calories to your BMR to get an approximation of your true daily metabolism.



Here's a simple calculator that combines the BMR with activity level to give you a better picture:



http://www.webmd.com/content/tools/1/calc_metaboli sm.htm





...Sorry about shooting down the x10 rule, but I really didn't want people to start using that as a guide. Mainly because if someone were to try to lose weight based on the weight * 10 figure (i.e. by reducing calories), they'd probably get close to the 1200 calorie danger zone fairly quickly.



Besides, even if you wouldn't be getting close to that 1200 calories per day, drastically reducing your calorie intake would probably make it harder to stay on the diet. Assuming that your body needs less than it actually does is one way to severely underestimate how many calories you should have during your diet.



I hope this helps...



Ciao,

Michael

K M,



Actually, it's completely true: your internal organs need 1200 calories per day to function; a Google search brings up tons of results for this.



It's known that doctor's may put patients on a restricted calorie diet in order to jump-start weight loss, but that type of diet cannot be sustained for long periods of time without expecting some loss of organ mass.



The other thing you should note is that, without various types of body scans, you cannot tell if you've incurred such damage to your internal organs -- not until the damage has become severe enough for you to feel it.



The damage may be occurring at this very moment, you just cant feel it.



Anyway, as long as it's doctor supervised, then I guess 850 calories per day is alright. But I highly doubt that your doctor is planning on keeping you on this diet for a long time. If he/she is, you should talk to them about potential side-effects.



Just be careful please.



I hope this helps,

Michael

By the way, you need to be *extremely* careful if you're only eating 1200 calories per day. 1200 cals is actually the minimal amount of calories your body needs to avoid eating away at your internal organs for energy. Any less and your body will go after your brain, among other things, to keep your body going.



You're trying to lose fat, not make your internal organs lighter. You can actually burn much more fat eating more than you would starving yourself. Plus, you'll feel better.





Anyway, something that may give you some insight as to why you're not loosing weight at 1200 calories per day...



[Disclaimer: this is just a theory I read. I have no idea if there's any scientific evidence to back it up, but it sounds like it could be possible.]



You know that your body is quite sophisticated, and that it adjusts itself based on your food intake, or lack thereof. The theory says that if your daily food intake doesn't vary by much (e.g. if you eat exactly 1200 calories per day), that your body will adjust itself and become extremely efficient at burning exactly 1200 calories per day and will even accomodate for the amount of exercise that you do. It will know that it can expect 1200 calories tomorrow, and will take that into account when deciding what to store for energy with each of your meals, as well as how much food energy to burn off and at what rate.



The main idea is that you should vary your calorie intake on a day-by-day basis to keep your body "on it's toes"... don't give your body a chance to adjust to a routine. It's a similar theory for working out: when you stall, change-up your excercises.



More info on this can be found at: http://www.stormpc.com/ww/wendie_plan.htm



But yeah, it sounds like your body may be in starvation mode.



I hope this helps,

Mike



P.S. I'm at work, so sorry if this didn't make much sense.

You may want to give Jamaican Calalloo a try. It's a green, leafy vegetable that looks kind of like spinach. It doesn't taste the same, of course, but depending on how you prepare it can taste great!



From what I recall, it's even more nutritious than spinach.



Look up some recipes on how to prepare it.



~Mike

Wow! Great job Stephanie! Keep it up!

True, people with insulin resistance should definitely be careful of their caffeine intake. But, from what I recall, the undesired insulin surge only occurs if:



1) You drink a lot of caffeine in a short amount of time, and

2) You have a lot of carbs within an hour or so after having the caffeine/coffee. Though this may only be true in the case of eating a lot of simple carbs (i.e. donuts, muffins, etc).



Actually, here's a link: http://www.webmd.com/content/article/91/101102.htm ?lastselectedguid=%7B5FE84E90-BC77-4056-A91C-95317 13CA348%7D



I hope this helps.



Michael