Update

I am back.... Sorta. I haven't been feeling like blogging. I am excited. I am on the road and since I couldn't work out I went and walked about 3.5 miles today. I mean it is cold as heck here and I did it.....

I thought this was a good article:

Reasons Very Low Cal Diets are Bad for Weight LossUnless there is some medical reason that has been advised by your doctor, aim for at least 1500 calories when using a calorie controlled diet. The larger your body frame and training needs the more calories your body requires. Example of a reasonable calorie intake: A female who weighs around 125, is 5'6" tall, around 30 years old and performs light exercise 1-3 days per week should be consuming around 1800 low fat calories per day. This same woman's basic caloric needs, just to keep her body running (without the exercise) is around 1300! Weight loss resulting from a fast or severe calorie restriction is always temporary – after all, more than half of the promised weight loss is from water and muscle, NOT fat. Here are the NEGATIVE consequences of very low cal dieting: A Decrease in Metabolism. During fasting, your body goes into starvation mode, resulting in a decrease in metabolism, body temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and breathing rate. Your body is now trying to conserve energy and will begin to store fat reserves away any way it can. Once you start to eat adequate calories again, all of these processes, including your metabolic rate, will return to normal unless the fast is for an extended period of time (1 -2 weeks) in which case the effects may be longer lasting, even permanent. Bluntly put: By altering your metabolism, fasting can ironically ruin your body's ability to lose weight! Muscle Loss. A percentage of muscle loss is an inevitable result of any weight loss program; however, this loss is accelerated when weight loss is very rapid as it is with fasting. On crash diets, each pound of weight loss contains more lean tissue and less body fat than a diet that produces weight loss of 1-1/2 to 2 pounds a week. Muscle weighs two and half times more than fat!
Low-calorie dieting stimulates the activity of lypogenic enzymes (fat-conserving) and depresses lypolytic enzymes activity (fat-burning). You\'ll need fewer calories just to maintain your weight. When muscle tissue loss occurs, glucose storage in the muscles is reduced, augmenting tendencies toward diabetes. The more glucose you have in your blood needing to be stored, the higher the amount of insulin released to lower it. Low-calorie diets are not balanced. The brain demands blood glucose far in excess than that supplied by a diet under 1000 cals a day. The result is that the liver converts most of the protein in the diet to glucose. Therefore, not only are there not enough cals to support nutrient needs, but the liver wastes the given nutrients by converting them to glucose. The liver, which normally produces HDL cholesterol (the good stuff), shifts to the production of LDL (the bad stuff) during a fast or radical low-calorie diet. Hormones When calories are severely restricted, serotonin (the "feel-good" brain chemical) drops, and that can lead to feelings of depression, anxiety and low self-esteem--all triggers for emotional overeating. In addition, the body\'s levels of leptin (a hormone that suppresses appetite and revs up metabolism) drops, while it\'s levels of ghrelin (a hormone that stimulates food intake) rise. So, a restrictive diet can leave you with an uncontrollable desire to eat. What is severely restricting? It\'s more than 500 calories per day. It\'s avoiding carbs. It\'s telling yourself you can\'t eat this-or-that. Eating a variety of foods is not just a good idea for our health--providing several forms of fats, fibers, proteins, phytochemicals, flavenoids, etc.--eating a variety of foods also helps keep our waistline trim (unless we overeat). How? Besides the balance of the brain-chemicals mentioned above, another reason is that without restrictions there is no reason to feel guilt. We all ",1]
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Low-calorie dieting stimulates the activity of lypogenic enzymes (fat-conserving) and depresses lypolytic enzymes activity (fat-burning). You'll need fewer calories just to maintain your weight. When muscle tissue loss occurs, glucose storage in the muscles is reduced, augmenting tendencies toward diabetes. The more glucose you have in your blood needing to be stored, the higher the amount of insulin released to lower it. Low-calorie diets are not balanced. The brain demands blood glucose far in excess than that supplied by a diet under 1000 cals a day. The result is that the liver converts most of the protein in the diet to glucose. Therefore, not only are there not enough cals to support nutrient needs, but the liver wastes the given nutrients by converting them to glucose. The liver, which normally produces HDL cholesterol (the good stuff), shifts to the production of LDL (the bad stuff) during a fast or radical low-calorie diet. Hormones When calories are severely restricted, serotonin (the "feel-good" brain chemical) drops, and that can lead to feelings of depression, anxiety and low self-esteem--all triggers for emotional overeating. In addition, the body's levels of leptin (a hormone that suppresses appetite and revs up metabolism) drops, while it's levels of ghrelin (a hormone that stimulates food intake) rise. So, a restrictive diet can leave you with an uncontrollable desire to eat. What is severely restricting? It's more than 500 calories per day. It's avoiding carbs. It's telling yourself you can't eat this-or-that. Eating a variety of foods is not just a good idea for our health--providing several forms of fats, fibers, proteins, phytochemicals, flavenoids, etc.--eating a variety of foods also helps keep our waistline trim (unless we overeat). How? Besides the balance of the brain-chemicals mentioned above, another reason is that without restrictions there is no reason to feel guilt. We all
know where guilt leads to. So the goal becomes finding a balance: Eating enough, but not too much. We all have different personality traits, but there is one weapon in common: Knowing where our calories are coming from. I cannot tell you the number of times a client will come to me, shocked, exclaiming that they\'ve just found out their favorite lunch burrito is nearly 2000 calories! Or that they\'ve been consuming 800 calories a day in specialty coffee drinks, etc. You don\'t have to be a calorie counter, but you should learn proper portion sizes, limit visible fats (cheese, mayo, butter) and choose high fiber foods to keep your waistline from expanding and for good health. In a nutshell, enjoy your food, but have a good idea of where your calories are coming from.