On Thu, 3 Oct 2002 01:17:54 EDT, Elizabeth Miller <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I personally have failed to lose weight on as little as 800 calories a day
>while nursing an infant.

Btw (in an other context) I've heared several warnings not to eat such less
energy while breastfeeding a child.
The 800 kcal are hardly enough to meet your own mandatory *carbohydrate*
requirements of 500 kcal (take half, when in ketosis).
Where should the necessary carbohydrates for the baby's brain come from?

>Yet on double that amount I didn't gain either
>during that period of my life.

That's still 1600 kcal and a reduction diet if you consider that the normal
energy requirements of a normal sized woman are around 2000 kcal.

When she's not in energy storage mode (which cold feet, slow growing hair,
and the like)...

>My child's pediatrician wasn't surprized --
>hormones he said. Whatever relationship there exists between caloric intake
>and my weight certainly isn't linear.

Still whereever your setpoint is (Todd wrote about),
each additional gram of fat above it, will go into an additional gram of
bodyfat.
Like each additional two grams of carbs or protein.

>Just this past year, I have put on 20 pounds while eating a low carb diet
>usually not exceeding 1500 calories and often as low as 1000 calories. I was
>on Hormone replacement (bioidentical hormones) though.

That's astonishing low -1500 kcal for gaining weight.
Your hormones must have sent you into storage-gain-mode and
energy-preserving mode at the same time.
Not unlikely that such a thing exists.

Alone the human heating system takes some 1700 kcal every day, just to keep
your body temperature constant.
A quite big potential to spare on energy and cause non-linearity in the
calorie intake to weight gain relation.

Still a gram more fat is a gram more fat.

The real trick would be - I think - to feel satisfied and not hungry
at an intake close to your personal setpoint. Whereever it may be.

Cheers

Amadeus