Originally Posted by aikigreg

Doctors should never, ever prescribe diets, nor should they recommend any. Most doctor's knowledge of nutrition comes from 30 year old data that was written by the FDA and USDA (a lobbying organization for crying out loud!). I would love to see doctor's eat that diet for a year and see how they recommend it afterwards. And I'm pretty sure those clinical trials were paid for by WW, not any independant double blind study.

If the numbers you gave were not accurate that may change some things, but the numbers you gave before GUARANTEE metabolism slowdown. That is a *bad* thing for anyone trying to lose weight and keep it off. A sedentary (non exercising) person with a slow metabolism still needs at least 10 calories per pound of bodyweight. That would still likely be enough to cause weight loss. 12 cals/pound is closer to the real baseline.

At the low calories you were mentioning, the person will lose a LOT of weight - unfortunately for them a lot of it will be muscle weight and not as much fat. Their bodies know they're being starved and thus shed themselves of some useles muscle so they can hang onto the fat the body thinks it needs. Once this goes on for long enough, the body adapts and actually puts on fat even at the lower calorie amounts - but it doesn't add back that muscle - because muscle is metabolicaly active.

Take that same person, prescribe the right amount of calories with proper food choice, some light exercise, and have them spread their meals from 3/day to 6/day, and they will lose more FAT than muscle, which should be the real goal. They will still WEIGH more than someone who has done weight watchers, but they will have slimmed down more and can continue to "diet" and lose fat.

The person on your caloric intake will eventually rebound from starvation - I have seen it again and again. They will have ravaged their metabolism and will gain fat more easily. They will be more lethargic from the loss of muscle and less likely to diet again. They will stay fat.

You need to read less propaganda from a company trying to seel something, and more current research info from the last 10 years. Holy crap - you're telling ME I have no clue? You can read BETTER and MORE CORRECT information from a men's health magazine than from whatever source you have learned about nutrition from.