Dolly is Genetically Blessed,
but she ALSO WORKS to achieve and keep her figure
by this way of eating:.

1. One, she eats any food she wants; but always eats a very small quantity; having only a bite or two of each food; leaving the rest of it for others to eat or throw away.
   
   
2. Two, she chooses to sometimes taste food without swallowing it.  Specifically, she engages in a practice commonly known as "Chew and Spit".
    

For more information see: The Dolly Diet - A Diet Review.

Eating Behavior is the Problem

Eating Behavior is the Solution

Weight - loss or gain - is a Side-Effect

 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.

  So where did this idea -- that not eating enough calories makes you not lose weight -- come from?

It started with the famous Minnesota starvation study. Some normal-weighted men agreed to live on a compound where their exercise and diet was strictly controlled. For portions of the study, they were on a "starvation diet" which is defined as 50% of the calories your body needs to maintain its body weight.
The Mifflin formula charts say that a “normal” woman of my age, size, and activity level requires 1210 calories per day to maintain her body weight. My own detailed food journal records indicate that for the past several years, my weight has been creeping upward while eating an average of 1020 calories per day.

So, 50% less than that would be:
     for a “normal” woman – 605 calories daily 
          (which would be a 605 daily deficit allegedly causing 1 ¼ pound weekly fat loss )

     for me individually – a bit under 510 calories daily
          (which would be about a 510 daily deficit allegedly causing 1 pound weekly fat loss)

About 25 years ago, weighing about 220 lbs I went on a starvation diet for 6 months – a medically supervised liquid formula only diet of around 300-500 calories per day. I lost down to 145 lbs during that time. A 75 pound loss, averaging about 2 ½ lbs weekly.

About 22 years ago, weighing 270 lbs, I went on a starvation diet for a year plus, as a result of a RNY gastric bypass surgery for weight-loss. I was able to eat only about 300-600 calories per day, and lost down to 160 lbs during that time. A 110 pound loss, averaging about 2 ½ lbs weekly.

So, during my lifetime, I’ve been on at least two long-term starvation diets. Yet I lost weight just fine during those periods -- better than fine, really. Most of the people on The Biggest Loser are also on starvation diets. They might eat a bit more than me but they also exercise strenuously 6-8 hours a day. So they are usually below 50% of their calorie expenditure for the day. They seem to lose weight quite well.

How can this be?!

The answer lies in what actually happened to the Minnesota guys when they were on their starvation diets.

Like most of us on a diet, their metabolisms did slow down. In fact, after they'd been on this diet for a while -- we're talking months, not days here -- their body fat percentage got to a point below what is considered minimal to live on (about 5% for a guy, 6% for a gal). At this point, their metabolism had slowed down as much as 40%. But -- and this is the important point for those of us on a diet -- they continued to lose weight. Even with that big of a slow down in their BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate), they were still operating at a great enough calorie deficit to lose.

If this is true with a 40% slow down, it's even more true when the slow down is somewhere in the 15 - 20% range, which is what happens with normal dieting.

WARNING MATH CONTENT AHEAD:

Take an individual who needs 2,000 calories per day to maintain their current weight. Assuming calorie expenditure remains the same, they will lose (approximately) as follows:

As you can see from the table, once you go below a certain calorie level, you aren't getting the weight loss you'd expect. This is because your BMR will go down more if you eat only 500 calories compared to eating 1500. But, as you can see, you are still losing more than if you were eating 1000 calories.

This is a lot different than the "no" weight loss that the "starvation mode" myth touts.

The other important point to note about this study is that it was performed on normal-weighted men. When starvation studies have been done on the obese, they find that the impact of the starvation diet is much less. Our bodies have fat stores designed to get us through a famine (i.e., a diet) and when we have a famine (i.e., a diet), those fat stores get used. The drastic slowdown of the metabolism doesn't happen until those fat stores are largely gone -- which takes a lot longer for the obese than for those who only have to lose 10-25 pounds.
So why are we told not to go under 1200 calories a day, unless under a doctor's supervision?

First  that recommendation applies to average-to-large, normal-to-obese-size people.  Next, it's primarily because the more you reduce your intake, the harder it is to get the nutritients you need from food. If you are on a very low calorie diet, regular vitamin and mineral supplementation is a must because some deficiencies can kill you.

Another reason not to go below a certain calorie expenditure is that human beings are not machines and, unlike the guys in the Minnesota study, we aren't living on a compound with our activity and food strictly controlled. As a result, when we reduce our calories substantially, there is a tendency to subconsciously (or even consciously) reduce our calorie expenditure.
Exercise makes people feel more hungry, and it also makes them feel more tired. When you combine this with our tendency to under-report what we eat and over-report our exercise, and you can see how this can lead to great inaccuracies.

As an example, even if I choose not to eat more after spending a morning engaging in extensive exercise, my body still insists on resting for the remaining portion of that day which, for me, includes a long afternoon nap. Obviously this causes my day’s calorie expenditure to be lower than if would have been if I exercised without resting or taking a nap.

If I’m eating at a calorie deficit, I’d still lose weight, whether I exercise or not. But if I was only eating 500 calories for months at time, I wouldn’t feel much like exercising to begin with, plus I’d still be taking frequent naps. Less exercise and more napping would impact my weight loss because they would decrease my calorie expenditure.

 Eating more to lose weight is generally an ineffective diet strategy. While eating more over time might allow a “normal” person to exercise more, it simply means that as a result of this exercise, their rate of weight-loss or weight-gain won’t be as much as it otherwise would have been when the number of calories they eat goes up. While this might also cause them to be happier because they are more fit and feel healthier, the Bottom line is: Whatever total calorie number one’s individual body burns as survival energy …. eating LESS calories than that number is the only way anyone can achieve any kind of fat loss.

Long-term weight-loss maintenance involves the same issues, multiplied by infinity. 
  See, Running Down the Up Escalator.  

 For the past 9 ½ years … every day … I have consistently logged all of my food intake into a food journal, using a computer software program. The use of this basic tool has been the foundation of my weight-loss and long term maintenance of that weight-loss.

Here's a recent post by Canadian obesity specialist, Dr. Yoni Freedhoff of WeightyMatters about the benefits of keeping a Food Diary.

"What if I told you that in just two minutes a day you can double your weight loss success? And, rest assured, those two minutes won’t be spent busting out painful sweat while a trainer yells at you, or over a hot stove cooking a gourmet vegan meal.

Instead, spend those two minutes keeping track of what you’re eating by tapping on a smartphone or scribbling in a journal. Studies have shown that the amount of weight you’re liable to lose in a weight-loss program will be double that if you undertook that same effort, but didn’t keep a food diary.

No, food diarizing isn’t exactly sexy, and no, it probably can’t be fairly described as a whole hoot of fun, but it sure is easy these days.

Back in 2004 when I started working with patients on weight management there were no smartphones and diaries were just that – paper diaries that required a person to not only jot down what they were eating, but also to spend real time flipping through other books that provided calorie listings.

Nowadays we’ve got it easy. There’s a wealth of apps that do all the heavy lifting for us and not having missed a day of food diarizing since May 7, 2011, I can tell you, two minutes a day might even be an exaggeration of the actual time and effort required in keeping one.

While food diaries don’t cause you to burn calories directly, they do play three crucial roles:

Firstly food diaries give you some sense of where you’re at. Thinking of calories as the currency of weight (or frankly whatever else you might want to track – points, carbs, etc.,) keeping a careful accounting of your spending will help you with their budgeting. It’s important here to note that it’s not about never spending your calories, but rather using your records to pick and choose which ones are truly worth it. Why waste your calories on foods you don’t adore?

Secondly food diaries become fabulous investigational tools. By tracking patterns of hunger, cravings or food intolerances, patterns can appear and then instead of focusing on trying to deal with the downstream problem of trying to will yourself away from the cookies, you can instead focus on those cookie craving’s upstream cause to nip them in the bud. Giving you an example from my life, I’ve learned that if I have a breakfast without at least 20 grams of protein I have much more difficulty with food cravings at night. By ensuring my breakfasts are well organized I don’t need to battle with my dietary demons at night.

Thirdly food diaries are what habits are made of. Behavior change is difficult and habit formation is lengthy. Forget about that nonsense of three weeks to form a habit, scientific studies would suggest that even the simplest of singular habits can take months or even years to establish. (For instance, one study aimed to measure the time it takes to develop the habit of drinking a daily glass of water which took some participants over eight months to master.)

No doubt improving one’s lifestyle is rarely simple and usually encompasses dozens of small changes. What’s truly required for new behaviors to become new habits is the act of consciously reminding yourself of those behaviors you’re hoping to change, and each and every time you tap a food into your food diary that’s precisely what you’ll be doing.

At the beginning, keeping a food diary might take as many as 10 minutes a day, however as you build up your personal foodscape’s database, the time required shrinks dramatically.

If weight’s your concern – or even if you’re simply looking to improve the healthfulness of your diet – don’t worry about how many hours you’ll need to spend exercising every week. Prioritize the mere moments you’ll need to spend diarizing each day as two minutes of daily effort for double the weight loss – well that’s an exceedingly fair price to pay."