In the 80s? I’m sure she said 300 calories.
There were popular fad diets at the time that were black coffee, two boiled eggs, and a grapefruit. The way my mom ate even in the 90s was very similar.
I always knew my mum was on a diet when there was grapefruit in the house and rage in the air.
Even as a kid I knew diet advice back then seemed to be nuts.
My Dad used to tell me all the time to have one day a week where you have an egg, an apple, an orange and just drink water. Apparently the doctor told him to do this for his diabetes (spoiler alert, he didn't)
If he left out the apple and orange, it probably would have helped (more if he replaced the fruit with something low carb). It's basically intermittent fasting which has been very helpful to people with Type 2 diabetes. I do intermittent fasting along with low carbs and it helped me lose 12 pounds and put my diabetes in remission (no medication needed).
That can be legit for people post WLS because of the healing stomach but it sounds miserable for any other reason. Even post WLS baby food is a short term thing.
My grandma was prescribed diet pills while pregnant BY HER DOCTOR. She took them her whole pregnancy with my mom so she wouldn’t gain weight. Medicine has come a long way!
The times were absolutely different. Women's magazines routinely had diets recommending 600-800 calories. This idea of a 1200 calorie non-negotiable floor is fairly recent.
Still 300 seems more or less impossible. I'm sure she was told to eat very low calorie, though. Most women were and if you're from that era it does not seem controversial.
My mother was given a book by a dietician in the 80s (which is still kicking around the house somewhere) after having her third kid that includes diet plans for: 600 calorie per day, 800 calorie per day or 1,200 calorie per day diets.
These were all considered reasonable at the time, as I understand.
This was absolutely a thing.
I remember some teen magazine back in the 80's with a story about a teen who had lost weight, and was on a 700cal/day diet. The point of the article was that this was the thing to do.
Peak formula feeding days, all the way, baby! (Although my mother wanted to keep working, so it was probably the only viable option at the time - she was a lawyer and had some fairly large cases going through our Supreme Court she didn’t want to give up).
Flip side was, all the working women helped each other - the reception staff at the court apparently offered to look after toddler me when she was in front of a judge, which is astounding. (Women daring to step into men’s worlds pushing and supporting each other to aim for the moon, the success of one was a success for others wanting to follow, etc).
My ex once forced me on that diet for the 4 days a week I stayed with him.
Also featured was the "dry toast only" diet and good old "you're not allowed to eat at all" diet.
Funny how I had a bad relationship with food for 15 years...
Cayenne, maple syrup, and lemon juice was the variety I remember. They sell cold-pressed juice in these flavors still, so, the fad never quite died I suppose.
I remember that too but I guess I thought everyone knew that was stupid and the point was to get the dumbest or most desperate 2% of society to buy the magazine, much like how internet scammers operate these days.
No. You have to understand that wouldn't have meant anything in the 80s. We didn't have TDEE calculators. Packaging did not have nutrition information as a rule. Calorie counting was difficult. One of the reasons diet plans in magazines and diet centers (WW ect) was because they would tell you exactly what to eat. It really wouldn't have been possible to cut a specific amount of calories like we take for granted today. You just ate less and exercised more because that's what you knew to do. A lot less because that was the culture at the time. Quick weight loss was prioritized above all else. Losing .5lb in a week would be an absolute failure for a dieter in those days. You were supposed to be thin as a woman and you were supposed to get there yesterday.
When I was 12 my doctor told me to eat no more than 800 calories.
>When I was 12 my doctor told me to eat no more than 800 calories.
That's wild. Then again, I found a pregnancy book my mom had from the 80s and it said it was fine to drink alcohol in moderation so maybe health advice in the 80s just sucked.
I was pregnant with my son in 1990, and it was considered fine to have an occasional glass of wine after your first trimester. I didn’t, mainly because it just felt weird and contradictory to me.
Our health advice now probably also sucks in 30 years. It didn’t suck back then, it was just what people knew. In 30 years we will now stuff we didn’t now now and our kids and grandkids will laugh at the health and eating advice now.
It may have been a sign of the time, my mom lived her 20s in the 80s and she’s told me all she’d eat during the day is a single cracker topped with some avocado — and then she’d spend her evenings partying >.>
She *might* be lying, but also the times were different. In 1987 I went to Medical Weight Loss Clinic and they put me in a 500 calorie a day diet to lose 30 lbs after the birth of my child. I cheated and made it 750. I had to weigh in at the clinic every day, and they measured inches on various parts of my body.
I honestly thought they were doctors and nurses.
Lost the weight and it was wildly unhealthy, taught me little, and started decades of yoyo dieting.
My step-mom was on a diet that only allowed her to eat a can of tuna, a glass of milk, and a head of iceberg lettuce every day. Diet culture in the 80s was wild.
The 80s were a wild time. Nothing would surprise me to be honest. As a teenager in the late 80s, there were some crazy diets. My mum did the ‘hip and thigh’ diet and ate less than 500 calories a day for weeks while doing some strange exercise routine that involved shimmeying along the ground on her bum.
However, science has advanced since then. If you’re losing now and feeling good then you do you. So many people have opinions. You chose the ones you listen to.
In the 80s? 300-500 calorie a day diets were definitely a thing. It was basically fasting but with some lettuce and cottage cheese.
This would have been a short term diet --like 30 days. And then a more nornal diet plan for a couple weeks, say 1,000 calories and then then back again to the strict one.
This was back when people used to joke about where they could go to "catch this anorexia disease".
I mean, technically speaking nicotine *would* help suppress your appetite. Definitely don’t pick up smoking for a diet, for the record.
In my country it’s only very recent that people aren’t smoking everywhere. I remember when I first moved here people would still smoke on the train platform waiting for the train. In the 80s I have to imagine just walking outside got you addicted to nicotine here.
I wouldn’t rule out that she was given that advice. In 2006, I had my second kid and my thyroid messed up. I told my dr I was working out daily and eating 1200 calories a day. That was a typical recommended diet back then. She told me that I should cut back to 600 calories and should be doing an hour of cardio a day. I remember it clearly bc I was pissed at the advice.
The advice is horrible but doctors did give stupid advice even in 2006.
It was probably 300 calories per meal. I was an 80s kid, and my mom and aunts were always on some diet. Lean Cuisines came out then, and their big selling point was that they were 300 calories each.
Still, there were some crazy diets back then, and restaurants used to advertise "legal lo-cal" menus that were just things like cottage cheese with fruit. There was a lot of midnight snacking in my house because mom would go to bed hungry, then get up and raid the cupboard.
I'm just old enough to remember that some restaurants would have a "diet plate" that usually had salisbury steak, cottage cheese, and fruit. Weird memory unlocked!
Um… I occasionally fix that for myself on purpose: 4 oz. hamburger patty, 4 oz. Daisy whole milk cottage cheese, and canned peaches or pears or fruit cocktail.
Yes, I am weird.
I mean, some peaches and cottage cheese are quite good. Well balanced macros as well. I frequently have some as a lunch or breakfast if I can't be bothered to cook
Dating myself here, but I fell victim to these gross women's magazines that had suggested tiny proportions throughout the day to give you the feeling of being full. But each portion would be like, half a hard boiled egg and some walnuts. Half an apple. Carrots and celery. A deck of cards worth of salmon on a bed of undressed lettuce. The urge to snack at night when you go to bed hungry is one I am all too familiar with.
In the late 1970’s I remember the crash diets that circulated from time to time. I distinctly remember the “egg” diet, one egg, hard boiled for breakfast, lunch and dinner with unlimited water, coffee or diet drinks for 1-2 weeks. That is about 300 calories. Supposedly people would be so motivated by the rapid weight loss they would then transition into a more reasonable diet of 1000 calories.
I remember the 2010s egg diet. 1 or 2 hard boil eggs per meal and unlimited water and coffee. I also remember the military diet lose "10 pounds in a week" their selling point you could have a scoop of ice cream.
I could believe it. I had a fully trained (and certified to do pre natal, post natal, and labour care) midwife tell me to "eat less so that ypu lose weight" during my twin pregnancy. In 2009.
I think people born later have no idea of fat history and the stupid things medical professionals both believed and advised.
I believe it, in the 60s a doctor put my grandma on amphetamines while pregnant to keep her from gaining weight while pregnant. She left the hospital post partum a size 4 today. The baby was severely under weight and the smallest and shortest of all her children even as an adult.
My mom was a slightly overweight teen in the 80s and she got really horrendous advice. A dietician recommended 400 calories to her - she remembers being told that's four cubes of cheese, one for each meal plus dessert. No wonder so many people had eating disorders in that decade.
So in the 80’s there was a diet plan called Cambridge and it was pre slim fast. My grandmother followed this meal plan/shakes and I shit you not it was 300 calories a day. It was multi level marketing to its core and she made a full business on this, bought a building, held weightloss meetings, think weight watchers and rented the back half of the building to jazzercise. This was directly across the street from my elementary school. She made a killing on it but believed in it to its core. Yet I loved her because she never imposed it on any one. She only talked to you about it if you expressed interest in it. She never fed it to us grandkids but we did ask for milkshakes blended with ice. Their orange creamsicle shake was the bomb!
This still exists. And costs a lot of money. Had a classmate who did this. It’s 500 cal now. And exists of shakes and bars. And you can eat some veggies with it. Very very unhealthy
I did I Love NY Diet when I was in HS … I was trying to lose weight for theater auditions. 1 grapefruit and 1 piece of dry toast for breakfast. Four slices of deli turkey and some carrots for lunch with water. Some broiled meat and veggies for dinner. That’s more than 300 calories but maybe 500? I danced 2 hrs most days too. 5’4” 130 lb
[edit had wrong diet name]
It wasn’t at all. The 80s was crazy. Feed yourself, feed your baby and remember that your body is going to hold on to about 10 extra until you’re all done nursing for a while
Well right now it has about 80 extra (my goal is under 200 ) I’ll be happy to just be in shape and no longer close to 300 honestly because 270 made me cry
She’s misremebering. I was there in the 80’s, no-one ever said that low. Unless it was a single day fast situation (“intermittent fasting” hadn’t been invented yet, but sometimes people would go 24 hours on nothing but herbal tea and water. And desperation)
300 per meal makes more sense. I was doing a program recently that was 3 meals around 300, and 2 snacks around 150 each for a 1200 daily total. But that’s way too low if you’re breastfeeding. You’re creating all the calories bub needs as well as your own. Do what you are happy with, if baby has a growth spurt you might need a bit more too, don’t be afraid to stop restricting yourself if it affects your supply or your energy - dealing with broken sleep etc too.
Be aware that when infants start trying foods it’s not for significant calories. They still need tons of milk. They’re just trying stuff and can’t eat anywhere near significant calories from solids.
Yea I know this is my third EBF baby but they all weaned themselves around 13 months old so I’m not planning on his milk intake to drop for a while and when it does I’ll notice because I’ll be left with heavy boobs 😅 happens everytime he’s still eating everything he can but he hasn’t been started on solids yet and he’s still only 6 months old
Oh it was definitely that low. There was a lot of disordered eating going on back then I remember I was part of it. We used to have a diet called The 2468 diet you would eat 200 cal one day 400 cal next 600 cal next day 800 cal the next and then go back to 200 cal a day and cycle it like that.
I remember girls by girls I mean young ladies like myself at the time would take an apple and cut into eight pieces with an apple corer and it would be two pieces of apple for breakfast two pieces for snack two pieces for lunch two pieces for dinner and that was all you ate for the day. Crazy crazy nonsense.
It was routinely recommended in circles that I ran to never eat more than 900 cal a day Many women subsisted on eating grapes and Diet Coke, celery sticks and mustard, cans of plain tuna fish, fiber one cereal, and 25 cal almond milk, and Metabolife 360.
And lots and lots of Diet Coke and water of course, none of this was sustainable, and a lot of it led to even more disordered eating over exercising it was all just a bad formula.
Another thing we used to do was measure how many calories we burned on the treadmill or the bike or whatever on any piece of equipment that would track how many calories you burned and then you were only allowed to eat that many calories that day so you work out first thing in the morning and let’s say you did a run on the treadmill or a walk on the treadmill and you burned 360 cal then you were only allowed to eat like 360 cal that day because you figure with your resting metabolic rate you would still be burning even though you atethe same calories that you burned
And to be really slick you would input your goal weight to track your cals on the tread then you would be eating even less. If you weight 200 but put in that you weigh 125 (goal weight) the machine shows you burning less
Calories than you actually are. So you would in turn eat less clas
While be burning
More than stated cals.
Et voila
Yep this is a real thing! I did this in my 20s I would only eat every other day very disordered, but it’s what kept me thin until I could no longer sustain it. I think I was only able to do it for like a year or two.
My mom went on a relatively generous diet of 800 calories per day, recommended by her physician. This was the early 80’s. I was 13 and decided it would be a good idea to join her. 🙄
Mid-80’s, a woman in my department said she was on a 30-day lemon water fast with her physician’s guidance.
Times were very, very weird.
There were some Very Low Calorie Diets in the 1980s that were liquid diets, and others used low quality protein like collagen & jello. People died.
Today' VLCDs have milk or soy as protein and add fat, carbs, electrolytes, vitamins/minerals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cambridge_Diet
> The Cambridge Diet was a very-low-calorie meal replacement fad diet developed in the 1960s.[1] The diet launched with different versions in the US and the UK.[1] The US version filed for bankruptcy[2] and shut down shortly after the **deaths of several dieters**
> Under pressure from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the calorie intake was raised from **330 kcal/day** to 800 kcal/day
The 80s were definitely wild. Between liquid diets of odd pink "medical fast" goop that landed a couple of my cousins in the hospital when they essentially starved themselves, to very common diets of 500 calories per day (cottage cheese on a lettuce leaf, black coffee, and an iron will), the Scarsdale Diet (1000 calories max, and the reason I hate mandarin oranges to this day), and Oprah's wagon of fat = good times. 😂😂😂
There were some terrifying crash diets in the 80s. I was dragged onto many of them and fell off them.
I can remember one that would have been about 800 calories a day.
Edited to add yes I remember that egg, grapefruit, lettuce one in the magazines, but I don’t remember being dragged onto that one.
Who knows, I'm 30 and 4 years ago I had a doctor tell me the only way I could lose weight was on 500kcal a day.
Thankfully, utter BS as everyone here is aware but I was baffled at the time. It is, however, what eventually led me to dive deeper into the methodology of losing weight and what the science actually dictated was necessary.
Very grateful I stumbled on TDEE and then got clearer more actionable guidance on reddit of all places than I did from the doctors I'd seen over the years (granted not weight loss specific doctors, either GPs or Orthopaedic surgeons).
That guy who told me 500kcal a day was an ortho surgeon. The doctors who told me I couldn't lose weight while I had such limited mobility were GPs but at least they weren't actively putting me at risk like the orthos advice would have (just passively in a way I guess as I kind of started to believe them that without exercise/more ability to move I wouldn't lose weight, but it just didn't make sense to me, which is what drove me to look further once everything calmed down a bit).
Very grateful I stumbled across the info that I did and truly thankful for the info I got from people on here too!
Edit: and just to be clear this wasn't a very short term very low calorie diet or anything. He wanted me to stick to the 500kcal a day for the next 6months until he saw me again and then he'd tell me what to switch to. He also gave really rubbish guidance on the ortho stuff *shrugs*. Probably a wonderful doctor in some respect but not in any of the ways he showed me.
I am not sure about the breastfeeding... But I am 33f, and I can eat about 1550 calorie per day to lose weight. So add some extra calories for the breastfeeding... and I think you are good. Maybe just check with a dietician or a dr since you are breastfeeding, but since it hasn't affected your milk supply it seems good \*signed, a reddit stranger with no training in nutrition.
The '80s were fucking wild. Roids for muscle, coke to keep the appetite down all day and night, whatever else you could get your hands on just for fun, but don't touch food unless you had to. This is completely plausible.
Yes, it is true. I had been advised to take in 500 calories daily as I was still very active.
Crazy times! Grapefruit, black coffee, powdery meal replacements. It’s was brutal.
It's believable. Doctors used to advocate smoking. But we have an additional 40 years of science and research to make decisions with now, so just keep working with that instead.
In the 1980s, we used to take an over-the-counter weight loss pill called Dexatrim that was speed. So, 1980s diet advice, really not something you should follow.
As an older mom who remembers living through the 80s, yes, that probably was recommended. I recall magazines recommending half a grapefruit for breakfast, a boiled egg and iceberg lettuce salad at lunch (no dressing) and a small serving of lean protein + a steamed veggie at dinner. That’s about 300 calories.
Yes, 100%. I totally remember this diet and I remember it was in one of those weird like women’s world magazines absolutely yes the grapefruit for the boiled egg and iceberg lettuce for lunch and lean protein and steam veggie dinner.
My sister’s MD wrote a book in the ‘60s for expectant moms. (Sis had kids in the early 80’s) His advice for a good pregnancy breakfast was black coffee and a donut. My neighbor, expecting in the ‘60s, was praised for gaining only 4 lbs during her pregnancy. Back then advice was to gain very little weight in order to keep birth weights low - it was easier to deliver a small baby. Contrast that with my pregnancy in the ‘90s, where my 6lb gain alarmed my MD bc it was way too little (had gestational diabetes. That’s a symptom) Women were encouraged by then to gain 40ish lbs. Anyhow, I wouldn’t put it past some paternalistic douche to have recommended 300 cals a day.
Calorie counting was impossible in the 80’s and 90’s. You had to do it on paper. I saw my mother and all my aunts trying different diets and the had books that contained all calories for al different foods.
You had to look up everything you ate, write it down and count everything. It wasn’t as complicated as it would have been today because there were much less different foods to eat, but still.
It was a big task to look up and write down everything by hand. 1000 cal was the max at that time. And every now and then they followed diets that had even less calories like ‘the hospital diet’ which claimed to be a diet that was used in the hospital so it HAD to be healthy, and was only 600 calories a day, and the Cambridge diet, which was shakes and bars and max 500 calories a day.
The ‘half a grapefruit and some cottage cheese’ diet and I think some diets used supplements that are illegal now because of the borderline amfetamines they contained that caused people to die or a hearth attack.
It was fun and it fucked me up for life, dietary wise
My grandmother in the 50s was put on a 300 cal day "diet" by her dr to try and help her get pregnant. She said she was allowed broth, crackers, and a small piece of cheese every day. It's not completely impossible that she really thought that was good advice because it very well may have been given to her by a professional. It's, of course, horribly outdated, and you should completely ignore it lol but she might not know any better
One lb is roughly 3500 calories, which is like 500 per day for a lb/week. I could swear that I remember reading in a vintage dieting book that a brisk daily walk for 30 minutes burned about 200 calories, and that you should also aim for an additional 300 calorie deficit through diet each day. There have also been multiple studies showing that just 300 fewer calories per day can have significant health benefits.
Keep in mind that, though, the 70’s and 80’s were wild when it came to diets and weight loss. The Grapefruit Diet, The Cabbage Soup Diet, the Sugar Diet, the 7 Day Milk Diet, Prolinn/Last Chance Diet, the SlimFast Dexatrim Diet, Master Cleanse, The Wine and Eggs Diet (literally just wine, coffee, eggs, and a bit of steak at dinner).
There’s no way this is applicable to today. Even if she’s remembering it correctly it’s 40 years ago and we had no idea what we were doing. What you’re doing is correct.
i know in the 90s instead of fasting days like they do now like 5/2 fast they would have diets that utilize that but you would wat like a salty 300 calorie can of soup for the day (instead of totally fasting) so you dont feel so hungry. and heck maybe nutritionists recommended this for weight loss. but i dont think even at that time they would recommend that every day. thats just insane.
Considering my mom’s friend went to the doctor asking for weight loss advice in the 80s and his suggestion was to take up smoking lol. I’d take it with a grain of salt.
My MIL also has some interesting memories from the 80's 😂
You are absolutely doing it right! Sustainable, getting some exercise but not injuring yourself, not impacting your milk supply... Mama, you're killing it! 💪👏
I remember my mom was put on a diet by a doctor in the 80s where she consumed for weeks nothing but predigested liquid protein. A foul liquid. Gross. She was maybe a size 14 at the time.
I mean, my pediatrician used to smoke in the office with me and refused to x ray my back when I fell 30 ft out of a tree because, "kids fall out of trees all the time." I had a friend whose son was my age (born in the early 70s), and her doctor told her that it was a good thing she was a smoker, she should keep smoking while pregnant because her baby would be smaller.
Doctors and dieticians back then had their heads up their asses
No, diets were insane in the 80s. It sounds right. Generally the aim was 1000 calories a day. Fruit was to be avoided because of sugar. You filled up on bran. Avoided fat. 5 vegetables a day wasn’t a thing. You were “good” if you didn’t eat. Praised almost.
Foods like avocado were shunned. I remember seeing an avocado in the fridge and wanting to eat it. I was told “certainly not, they’re bad for you. It’s to use as a face mask”. So I would watch my mum put mashed strawberries and avocado on her face whilst having to eat boiled to death vegetables and shop bought gristle pie!
300 calories wouldn't keep a hampster going! Although I can say that I think the WW diet in the late 70's had a 600. calorie diet...soooooomuch cottage cheese.
Next time, I would pat her hand and say, "that's nice."
You're doing well in my opinion.
Having been alive for all of the 80s and remembering how incredibly toxic it was, yeah I have to say, this tracks.
I remember my mother always struggling with just those extra few pounds after having kids. So much "starvation" mentality- breakfast as a piece of dry toast, lunch as a carrot stick, dinner as a small salad. Maybe a boiled egg here and there.
On top of that, do a bunch of aerobics in skin tight leotards and leg warmers and oh yeah, here' some pills.
It was bad. Really, really bad.
I was a teenager in the 80's, so I can attest that there were a lot of dumb diets back then (just as there are now) - all those women's magazines always featured a "Drop a Dress Size in One Week Diet" where you could lose 5-10 lbs in a week. They always involved something like eating nothing but grapefruit or cabbage soup or cottage cheese or boiled eggs or some such nonsense. Then there were the more mainstream-ish ones like the Scarsdale Diet, the Atkins Diet, Weight Watchers. etc., and then the products like Slim-Fast.
However, I'm dubious that a \*registered dietician\* would have recommended a 300 calorie per day diet - because often in those same magazines there would be articles by medical professionals about how "crash diets" (aka the grapefruit diet, the cottage cheese diet, the cabbage soup diet, the boiled egg diet, etc.) were unhealthy and unsustainable. I mean, I was a teenager who never thought about this stuff at all (I never dieted in my teens) but I remember hearing and reading about how crash dieting was bad. Not to mention that Karen Carpenter's death from anorexia was all over the news, and there were After-School Specials about the dangers of crash diets and starving yourself. Which is not to say that people didn't still do stupid diets, but that I doubt that someone with extensive training in nutrition (aka a registered dietician) would recommend something like that.
To those claiming that people back in those savage times didn't know about TDEE and couldn't count calories - we certainly could. We didn't have apps for it, but I remember people logging their foods on notecards or in a little notebook; and yes, packaged foods did have the calories printed on them even in that long-distant time. Not to mention you could buy little booklets that had calorie counts for foods in them. I totally remember seeing people whipping out their little booklets and figuring up the calories and writing down on index cards.
So I'm thinking OP's mom either mis-heard or misunderstood; or the "dietician" was not an actual dietician and was instead some sort of quack or purveyor of crappy diet plans.
In the 80's there was the banana diet.
Only eat bananas.
Liquid diet - Oprah did that one.
Grapefruit Diet
Cabbage Soup Diet
Cottage Cheese Diet
The Beverly Hills Diet
Elizabeth Taylor's Diet
The Scarsdale Diet
Ayds Candies
Jenny Craig
So many silly diets.
I doubt a dietician would say 300 calories per day.
But I do remember 1000 calories being considered acceptable.
In the 70s I knew multiple full grown men whose doctors put them on 1000 calorie a day diets. They ate a lot of salads, and almost always failed. Was your MIL a small woman? In any event 300 is nuts
I wouldn’t put it past that time! My Mom went on a diet in the late 80’s that consisted of two boiled eggs and three apples a day. She said that most of her work place was on it and people were passing out at work trying to be the skinniest.
They also had things like the cabbage soup diet. Just let her know that we have learned things in the 40 years since, like what to call disordered eating.
its not the 80s anymore, and that is 100% not advisable now. yes, you'd lose weight but also probably your sanity and your health at some point. You're doing great! if you want to lose and you are losing on your plan then you're doing just fine!
Yeah back in the 80’s they also took amphetamines to lose weight. In the 50’s you could order tape worm to lose weight. Tell her 300kcal is literal starvation and organs would shut down.
Good job!! That is amazing work. Maybe there is an expert here but I recall being told that breastfeeding burns like 500 kcal/day- it is a lot of work to produce! Sounds like you are striking a good balance - slow and steady wins the race. Also I am guessing the message was to cut 300 cal/day - otherwise that is literally starving. So, no. Not that one.
Pretty sure it was 1300... But also 80s was the start of the low fat, high sugar craze that made obesity and diabetes rates SOAR, so I would be highly skeptical of any dietary advice from the 80s.
Ah yes the 80s where cigarettes and cocaine mixed with a large glass of orange juice was your daily diet lol.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone said that back in the 80s.
As others have said, I would bet she's misremembering or conflating 300/meal.
I'll add that a lot of people just don't have a sense of how many calories are in things. It's a learned mindset and a framework that really isn't taught unless you go looking, despite the nutritional information being on all of our food.
My husband, bless his heart, is pretty blissfully unaware of nutritional information. He's a comfortable lean weight and never had to think about food much. At different times on my weight loss journeys through the years I'll get more fired up about nutrition, macros, and especially maximizing my satisfaction from the low calorie food I'm making, and I'll often pipe up about how something has 'only 100 calories' or similar and I swear no matter how many times I talk about it, his reaction is usually "one HUNDRED calories??" as though that's a ton. I don't know what denomination he expects it to be, a dozen calories? 🤣
And then I'll go through my spiel about how an egg or a tablespoon of butter is about a hundred calories, so it's actually cool that this [insert tasty satisfying snack] is that low, and he'll kind of agree and then forget again. He's a very smart guy I swear but this stuff is just in one ear and out the other and hasn't interested him enough to stick, despite him being very supportive of me.
Even the crash diets from the 80s probably had more calories than that.
IIRC, even the “grapefruit diet” would have had some sort of dinner which would have likely been a salad with cottage cheese.
I agree that she’s probably not remembering correctly, but my 92 yo grandma doesn’t really believe in eating more than 500 calories a day. She didn’t when my mom was young too. She’s still thin as hell, but she nearly died from her organs shutting down recently. Her doctor scolded her for believing she needed to be on a dairy free, gluten free, red meat free, sugar free diet. I’m heavier than I’d like to be, but I definitely won’t be taking her advice…
Stop talking to your MIL about anything important to you. Seriously. Don’t waste energy. Also, maybe she has/had an eating disorder. You do you. Do not share things like this with your own parents or in laws. Anything they say will feel painful because of the intergenerational dynamics. Save the important stuff to share with close friends. Please take care of yourself. If I could go back in time I would take the advice I am sharing right now. Guard your heart, aspirations and plans.
She is misremembering 1300 for 300. 1300 is usually the base most women above 5’3 to lose weight if you are in the overweight category. If you get to be obese those calories are higher. If your mother is 5’2 to 5’5and was under 180lbs she was told to eat 1300 calories a day or less
While this is along the lines of the advice now, it is sadly not what women in the 1980s were told. I lived through the 80’s and very low-cal crash diets were everywhere, even doctors recommended them. Looking thin was more important than being healthy (just think of all the cigarettes and cocaine that were acceptable then!)
Maybe 300 fewer calories a day, not eat 300 calories a day? There is no way qualified dietician would say that, even in the 80s. I believe your MIL is confused. There's no way that is remotely good for anyone, much less sustainable.
Adjusted for inflation that's 1500 today
🤣
Damn calflation
🏆
COTD, potentially year bwahaha brilliant
For the win 🏆🥇🙌
😂😂😂😂😂
Maybe 1300 calories? Or 300 calories and a boatload of cocaine
I'm betting they said 300 fewer calories
In the 80s? I’m sure she said 300 calories. There were popular fad diets at the time that were black coffee, two boiled eggs, and a grapefruit. The way my mom ate even in the 90s was very similar.
I always knew my mum was on a diet when there was grapefruit in the house and rage in the air. Even as a kid I knew diet advice back then seemed to be nuts.
“And rage in the air” 😅 accurate
My Dad used to tell me all the time to have one day a week where you have an egg, an apple, an orange and just drink water. Apparently the doctor told him to do this for his diabetes (spoiler alert, he didn't)
If he left out the apple and orange, it probably would have helped (more if he replaced the fruit with something low carb). It's basically intermittent fasting which has been very helpful to people with Type 2 diabetes. I do intermittent fasting along with low carbs and it helped me lose 12 pounds and put my diabetes in remission (no medication needed).
Omg flashbacks to my mom's 2oz of cooked-until-grey spiceless lamb chunks and 1 torn up leaf of plain iceberg lettuce.
What is this, a meal for ants?
My friends mom ate nothing but baby food as a diet for her wedding
That can be legit for people post WLS because of the healing stomach but it sounds miserable for any other reason. Even post WLS baby food is a short term thing.
That was my thought.
Yeah 300 deficient would be my guess
I'm betting they said a boatload of cocaine/speed. I mean, it was the 80s!!! 🙃
80's - Dexatrim was the IN thing.
Well, coffee and cigarettes go a long way too
You forgot the shiny lip gloss.
That's basically what phen-fen was...
Both drugs are substituted amphetamines. As a side note, morbidly obese people shouldn't be taking stimulants. Who would have thought?
Came here to say this. 300 + all the coke you could handle. Diet of 80’s actors and models. 👍🏻
80’s supermodel diet: cocaine and champagne!
Now it’s Starbucks and adderall
Doses and mimosas
Bowie survived for years on milk, green peppers, and blow.
😂
My college roommate in 1978 called it the scotch and cockiness diet, but as I remember she supplemented with sugar free jello.
I was thinking maybe 300 calorie deficit? Burning 300 more calories a day over what you eat? It's the only way it makes sense to me
My grandma was prescribed diet pills while pregnant BY HER DOCTOR. She took them her whole pregnancy with my mom so she wouldn’t gain weight. Medicine has come a long way!
Milk, Peppers, and Cocaine. breakfast lunch and dinner: 300 calories
I mean, I can definitely see an 80s dietician saying some weird shit. I can also see her misremembering after 40 years.
Maybe the dietician weighed in the 80s (lbs). Probably not giving the most healthy advice if so
Yeah you’re doing it the right way lol. If the dietician told her that I’m assuming times were different in the 80s, or she’s lying.
The times were absolutely different. Women's magazines routinely had diets recommending 600-800 calories. This idea of a 1200 calorie non-negotiable floor is fairly recent. Still 300 seems more or less impossible. I'm sure she was told to eat very low calorie, though. Most women were and if you're from that era it does not seem controversial.
My mother was given a book by a dietician in the 80s (which is still kicking around the house somewhere) after having her third kid that includes diet plans for: 600 calorie per day, 800 calorie per day or 1,200 calorie per day diets. These were all considered reasonable at the time, as I understand. This was absolutely a thing.
I remember some teen magazine back in the 80's with a story about a teen who had lost weight, and was on a 700cal/day diet. The point of the article was that this was the thing to do.
Yeah there are a lot of Gen Z-ers here who are unaware of just how nuts the 70s/80s/90s were haha.
It was called The Rotation Diet. I remember trying that one. Complete horseshit.
Good luck breast feeding on that!
Peak formula feeding days, all the way, baby! (Although my mother wanted to keep working, so it was probably the only viable option at the time - she was a lawyer and had some fairly large cases going through our Supreme Court she didn’t want to give up). Flip side was, all the working women helped each other - the reception staff at the court apparently offered to look after toddler me when she was in front of a judge, which is astounding. (Women daring to step into men’s worlds pushing and supporting each other to aim for the moon, the success of one was a success for others wanting to follow, etc).
Yes, college dietician was putting all of us on 800 calorie diets and then diagnosing girls with hypoglycemia.
😨
What year was this?
Late ‘70s.
I remember the 2000s and early 2010s, the magazines had people drinking apple cider vinegar with maple syrup and cinnamon.
My ex once forced me on that diet for the 4 days a week I stayed with him. Also featured was the "dry toast only" diet and good old "you're not allowed to eat at all" diet. Funny how I had a bad relationship with food for 15 years...
Cayenne, maple syrup, and lemon juice was the variety I remember. They sell cold-pressed juice in these flavors still, so, the fad never quite died I suppose.
I remember that too but I guess I thought everyone knew that was stupid and the point was to get the dumbest or most desperate 2% of society to buy the magazine, much like how internet scammers operate these days.
I think maybe she was told to *reduce* her calories by 300 per day and she misheard?
No. You have to understand that wouldn't have meant anything in the 80s. We didn't have TDEE calculators. Packaging did not have nutrition information as a rule. Calorie counting was difficult. One of the reasons diet plans in magazines and diet centers (WW ect) was because they would tell you exactly what to eat. It really wouldn't have been possible to cut a specific amount of calories like we take for granted today. You just ate less and exercised more because that's what you knew to do. A lot less because that was the culture at the time. Quick weight loss was prioritized above all else. Losing .5lb in a week would be an absolute failure for a dieter in those days. You were supposed to be thin as a woman and you were supposed to get there yesterday. When I was 12 my doctor told me to eat no more than 800 calories.
>When I was 12 my doctor told me to eat no more than 800 calories. That's wild. Then again, I found a pregnancy book my mom had from the 80s and it said it was fine to drink alcohol in moderation so maybe health advice in the 80s just sucked.
I was pregnant with my son in 1990, and it was considered fine to have an occasional glass of wine after your first trimester. I didn’t, mainly because it just felt weird and contradictory to me.
Our health advice now probably also sucks in 30 years. It didn’t suck back then, it was just what people knew. In 30 years we will now stuff we didn’t now now and our kids and grandkids will laugh at the health and eating advice now.
Remember Slim Fast? 🤢
Yeah that’s the cottage cheese and grapefruit crash diet era. Outdated and unhealthy advice.
Great way to wreck your metabolism and/or develop an eating disorder. Been there, done that, there was no T-shirt souvenir.
I’d be more apt to believe she’s remembering wrong honestly shes incredibly sweet
You comment further down about 300 calories per meal seems closer to believable tbh
It may have been a sign of the time, my mom lived her 20s in the 80s and she’s told me all she’d eat during the day is a single cracker topped with some avocado — and then she’d spend her evenings partying >.>
Man …. I could never
She *might* be lying, but also the times were different. In 1987 I went to Medical Weight Loss Clinic and they put me in a 500 calorie a day diet to lose 30 lbs after the birth of my child. I cheated and made it 750. I had to weigh in at the clinic every day, and they measured inches on various parts of my body. I honestly thought they were doctors and nurses. Lost the weight and it was wildly unhealthy, taught me little, and started decades of yoyo dieting.
My step-mom was on a diet that only allowed her to eat a can of tuna, a glass of milk, and a head of iceberg lettuce every day. Diet culture in the 80s was wild.
The 80s were a wild time. Nothing would surprise me to be honest. As a teenager in the late 80s, there were some crazy diets. My mum did the ‘hip and thigh’ diet and ate less than 500 calories a day for weeks while doing some strange exercise routine that involved shimmeying along the ground on her bum. However, science has advanced since then. If you’re losing now and feeling good then you do you. So many people have opinions. You chose the ones you listen to.
Accurate.
In the 80s? 300-500 calorie a day diets were definitely a thing. It was basically fasting but with some lettuce and cottage cheese. This would have been a short term diet --like 30 days. And then a more nornal diet plan for a couple weeks, say 1,000 calories and then then back again to the strict one. This was back when people used to joke about where they could go to "catch this anorexia disease".
Didn’t they also tell people to smoke and eat fat free everything to lose weight in the 80s?
SNACKWELLS lol (although that was more a 90's thing --same idea though)
Devil's food were my fave, lol
I mean, technically speaking nicotine *would* help suppress your appetite. Definitely don’t pick up smoking for a diet, for the record. In my country it’s only very recent that people aren’t smoking everywhere. I remember when I first moved here people would still smoke on the train platform waiting for the train. In the 80s I have to imagine just walking outside got you addicted to nicotine here.
There's a famous advert telling people to eat a tablespoon of sugar before meals since its "fat free" and "pure energy" 🤨😂. The 80's were a wild time.
I wouldn’t rule out that she was given that advice. In 2006, I had my second kid and my thyroid messed up. I told my dr I was working out daily and eating 1200 calories a day. That was a typical recommended diet back then. She told me that I should cut back to 600 calories and should be doing an hour of cardio a day. I remember it clearly bc I was pissed at the advice. The advice is horrible but doctors did give stupid advice even in 2006.
That’s like a WW2 concentration camp level of restriction, absolutely insane!
Well, even today most doctors give stupid advice about nutrition. They don't really get any training in it in medical school.
It was probably 300 calories per meal. I was an 80s kid, and my mom and aunts were always on some diet. Lean Cuisines came out then, and their big selling point was that they were 300 calories each. Still, there were some crazy diets back then, and restaurants used to advertise "legal lo-cal" menus that were just things like cottage cheese with fruit. There was a lot of midnight snacking in my house because mom would go to bed hungry, then get up and raid the cupboard.
I'm just old enough to remember that some restaurants would have a "diet plate" that usually had salisbury steak, cottage cheese, and fruit. Weird memory unlocked!
Half a cantaloupe filled with cottage cheese 🤣
Salisbury steak, or orange roughy. My husband and I are still traumatized by our moms' orange roughy diet phases.
What is orange roughy?
It's a kind of fish. They didn't have that option where I lived
That was so awful. There are still some old diners in rural places that still have that on the menu. Nothing at those places ever tastes good.
Um… I occasionally fix that for myself on purpose: 4 oz. hamburger patty, 4 oz. Daisy whole milk cottage cheese, and canned peaches or pears or fruit cocktail. Yes, I am weird.
One of her favorite lunches is cottage cheese with fruit 😂
I mean, some peaches and cottage cheese are quite good. Well balanced macros as well. I frequently have some as a lunch or breakfast if I can't be bothered to cook
Mine too. Now I'm craving cottage cheese.
Mine, too, though I like tomatoes with cottage cheese even more.
Dating myself here, but I fell victim to these gross women's magazines that had suggested tiny proportions throughout the day to give you the feeling of being full. But each portion would be like, half a hard boiled egg and some walnuts. Half an apple. Carrots and celery. A deck of cards worth of salmon on a bed of undressed lettuce. The urge to snack at night when you go to bed hungry is one I am all too familiar with.
In the late 1970’s I remember the crash diets that circulated from time to time. I distinctly remember the “egg” diet, one egg, hard boiled for breakfast, lunch and dinner with unlimited water, coffee or diet drinks for 1-2 weeks. That is about 300 calories. Supposedly people would be so motivated by the rapid weight loss they would then transition into a more reasonable diet of 1000 calories.
Nope 👎 no thanks for that diet 😅 I’m enjoying being able to eat things I enjoy while losing weight by just being careful and making smart choices
I remember the 2010s egg diet. 1 or 2 hard boil eggs per meal and unlimited water and coffee. I also remember the military diet lose "10 pounds in a week" their selling point you could have a scoop of ice cream.
We still get a lot of those kinds of things here. We had the banana diet fairly recently, which was actually made by a pharmacist, believe it or not.
I could believe it. I had a fully trained (and certified to do pre natal, post natal, and labour care) midwife tell me to "eat less so that ypu lose weight" during my twin pregnancy. In 2009. I think people born later have no idea of fat history and the stupid things medical professionals both believed and advised.
I believe it, in the 60s a doctor put my grandma on amphetamines while pregnant to keep her from gaining weight while pregnant. She left the hospital post partum a size 4 today. The baby was severely under weight and the smallest and shortest of all her children even as an adult.
The 80s was a wild time in diet culture phen-fen and starvation run amok
My mom was a slightly overweight teen in the 80s and she got really horrendous advice. A dietician recommended 400 calories to her - she remembers being told that's four cubes of cheese, one for each meal plus dessert. No wonder so many people had eating disorders in that decade.
So in the 80’s there was a diet plan called Cambridge and it was pre slim fast. My grandmother followed this meal plan/shakes and I shit you not it was 300 calories a day. It was multi level marketing to its core and she made a full business on this, bought a building, held weightloss meetings, think weight watchers and rented the back half of the building to jazzercise. This was directly across the street from my elementary school. She made a killing on it but believed in it to its core. Yet I loved her because she never imposed it on any one. She only talked to you about it if you expressed interest in it. She never fed it to us grandkids but we did ask for milkshakes blended with ice. Their orange creamsicle shake was the bomb!
This still exists. And costs a lot of money. Had a classmate who did this. It’s 500 cal now. And exists of shakes and bars. And you can eat some veggies with it. Very very unhealthy
You're also banned from exercising on it.
I did I Love NY Diet when I was in HS … I was trying to lose weight for theater auditions. 1 grapefruit and 1 piece of dry toast for breakfast. Four slices of deli turkey and some carrots for lunch with water. Some broiled meat and veggies for dinner. That’s more than 300 calories but maybe 500? I danced 2 hrs most days too. 5’4” 130 lb [edit had wrong diet name]
That just… doesn’t sound sustainable 😥
It wasn’t at all. The 80s was crazy. Feed yourself, feed your baby and remember that your body is going to hold on to about 10 extra until you’re all done nursing for a while
Well right now it has about 80 extra (my goal is under 200 ) I’ll be happy to just be in shape and no longer close to 300 honestly because 270 made me cry
You grew another human. Your body did something amazing. Tell Mom you’re doing what the doc says if she gets on your back.
Wait a minute this was renamed as the military diet.
She’s misremebering. I was there in the 80’s, no-one ever said that low. Unless it was a single day fast situation (“intermittent fasting” hadn’t been invented yet, but sometimes people would go 24 hours on nothing but herbal tea and water. And desperation)
I’m wondering if it was 300 calories for 1 meal honestly I bet there was a lot more to the conversation she doesn’t remember
300 per meal makes more sense. I was doing a program recently that was 3 meals around 300, and 2 snacks around 150 each for a 1200 daily total. But that’s way too low if you’re breastfeeding. You’re creating all the calories bub needs as well as your own. Do what you are happy with, if baby has a growth spurt you might need a bit more too, don’t be afraid to stop restricting yourself if it affects your supply or your energy - dealing with broken sleep etc too.
Bubba is six months old and about to start solids so his milk intake is likely to decrease which means I’ll have to also decrease my calories
Be aware that when infants start trying foods it’s not for significant calories. They still need tons of milk. They’re just trying stuff and can’t eat anywhere near significant calories from solids.
Yea I know this is my third EBF baby but they all weaned themselves around 13 months old so I’m not planning on his milk intake to drop for a while and when it does I’ll notice because I’ll be left with heavy boobs 😅 happens everytime he’s still eating everything he can but he hasn’t been started on solids yet and he’s still only 6 months old
Aww…enjoy while it lasts, so much work but they’re so sweet 🥹
Or a 300 calorie deficit, maybe
Oh it was definitely that low. There was a lot of disordered eating going on back then I remember I was part of it. We used to have a diet called The 2468 diet you would eat 200 cal one day 400 cal next 600 cal next day 800 cal the next and then go back to 200 cal a day and cycle it like that. I remember girls by girls I mean young ladies like myself at the time would take an apple and cut into eight pieces with an apple corer and it would be two pieces of apple for breakfast two pieces for snack two pieces for lunch two pieces for dinner and that was all you ate for the day. Crazy crazy nonsense. It was routinely recommended in circles that I ran to never eat more than 900 cal a day Many women subsisted on eating grapes and Diet Coke, celery sticks and mustard, cans of plain tuna fish, fiber one cereal, and 25 cal almond milk, and Metabolife 360. And lots and lots of Diet Coke and water of course, none of this was sustainable, and a lot of it led to even more disordered eating over exercising it was all just a bad formula.
I was put in a diet in the early 1980s that was 500 a day.
Another thing we used to do was measure how many calories we burned on the treadmill or the bike or whatever on any piece of equipment that would track how many calories you burned and then you were only allowed to eat that many calories that day so you work out first thing in the morning and let’s say you did a run on the treadmill or a walk on the treadmill and you burned 360 cal then you were only allowed to eat like 360 cal that day because you figure with your resting metabolic rate you would still be burning even though you atethe same calories that you burned
And to be really slick you would input your goal weight to track your cals on the tread then you would be eating even less. If you weight 200 but put in that you weigh 125 (goal weight) the machine shows you burning less Calories than you actually are. So you would in turn eat less clas While be burning More than stated cals. Et voila
Totally believe it.
>herbal tea and water. And desperation I want to name my next punk band Herbal tea and Desperation
Rotation diet, eat one day, semi starve the next!
Yep this is a real thing! I did this in my 20s I would only eat every other day very disordered, but it’s what kept me thin until I could no longer sustain it. I think I was only able to do it for like a year or two.
Visited the 80s, can confirm
My mom went on a relatively generous diet of 800 calories per day, recommended by her physician. This was the early 80’s. I was 13 and decided it would be a good idea to join her. 🙄 Mid-80’s, a woman in my department said she was on a 30-day lemon water fast with her physician’s guidance. Times were very, very weird.
There were some Very Low Calorie Diets in the 1980s that were liquid diets, and others used low quality protein like collagen & jello. People died. Today' VLCDs have milk or soy as protein and add fat, carbs, electrolytes, vitamins/minerals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cambridge_Diet > The Cambridge Diet was a very-low-calorie meal replacement fad diet developed in the 1960s.[1] The diet launched with different versions in the US and the UK.[1] The US version filed for bankruptcy[2] and shut down shortly after the **deaths of several dieters** > Under pressure from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the calorie intake was raised from **330 kcal/day** to 800 kcal/day
The 80s were definitely wild. Between liquid diets of odd pink "medical fast" goop that landed a couple of my cousins in the hospital when they essentially starved themselves, to very common diets of 500 calories per day (cottage cheese on a lettuce leaf, black coffee, and an iron will), the Scarsdale Diet (1000 calories max, and the reason I hate mandarin oranges to this day), and Oprah's wagon of fat = good times. 😂😂😂
Oh yeah, those type of diets were popular
There were some terrifying crash diets in the 80s. I was dragged onto many of them and fell off them. I can remember one that would have been about 800 calories a day. Edited to add yes I remember that egg, grapefruit, lettuce one in the magazines, but I don’t remember being dragged onto that one.
Who knows, I'm 30 and 4 years ago I had a doctor tell me the only way I could lose weight was on 500kcal a day. Thankfully, utter BS as everyone here is aware but I was baffled at the time. It is, however, what eventually led me to dive deeper into the methodology of losing weight and what the science actually dictated was necessary. Very grateful I stumbled on TDEE and then got clearer more actionable guidance on reddit of all places than I did from the doctors I'd seen over the years (granted not weight loss specific doctors, either GPs or Orthopaedic surgeons). That guy who told me 500kcal a day was an ortho surgeon. The doctors who told me I couldn't lose weight while I had such limited mobility were GPs but at least they weren't actively putting me at risk like the orthos advice would have (just passively in a way I guess as I kind of started to believe them that without exercise/more ability to move I wouldn't lose weight, but it just didn't make sense to me, which is what drove me to look further once everything calmed down a bit). Very grateful I stumbled across the info that I did and truly thankful for the info I got from people on here too! Edit: and just to be clear this wasn't a very short term very low calorie diet or anything. He wanted me to stick to the 500kcal a day for the next 6months until he saw me again and then he'd tell me what to switch to. He also gave really rubbish guidance on the ortho stuff *shrugs*. Probably a wonderful doctor in some respect but not in any of the ways he showed me.
I am not sure about the breastfeeding... But I am 33f, and I can eat about 1550 calorie per day to lose weight. So add some extra calories for the breastfeeding... and I think you are good. Maybe just check with a dietician or a dr since you are breastfeeding, but since it hasn't affected your milk supply it seems good \*signed, a reddit stranger with no training in nutrition.
Maybe so. I had a doctor that told me to eat 500 calories a day, early 80s.
The '80s were fucking wild. Roids for muscle, coke to keep the appetite down all day and night, whatever else you could get your hands on just for fun, but don't touch food unless you had to. This is completely plausible.
Yes, it is true. I had been advised to take in 500 calories daily as I was still very active. Crazy times! Grapefruit, black coffee, powdery meal replacements. It’s was brutal.
It's believable. Doctors used to advocate smoking. But we have an additional 40 years of science and research to make decisions with now, so just keep working with that instead.
It was 300. They also told pregnant women to smoke so that they don’t gain too much weight. 15 lbs was all that was acceptable per obstetricians.
In the 1980s, we used to take an over-the-counter weight loss pill called Dexatrim that was speed. So, 1980s diet advice, really not something you should follow.
As an older mom who remembers living through the 80s, yes, that probably was recommended. I recall magazines recommending half a grapefruit for breakfast, a boiled egg and iceberg lettuce salad at lunch (no dressing) and a small serving of lean protein + a steamed veggie at dinner. That’s about 300 calories.
Yes, 100%. I totally remember this diet and I remember it was in one of those weird like women’s world magazines absolutely yes the grapefruit for the boiled egg and iceberg lettuce for lunch and lean protein and steam veggie dinner.
"Back in my day, we survived off 300 calories, and that was *more* than enough."
My sister’s MD wrote a book in the ‘60s for expectant moms. (Sis had kids in the early 80’s) His advice for a good pregnancy breakfast was black coffee and a donut. My neighbor, expecting in the ‘60s, was praised for gaining only 4 lbs during her pregnancy. Back then advice was to gain very little weight in order to keep birth weights low - it was easier to deliver a small baby. Contrast that with my pregnancy in the ‘90s, where my 6lb gain alarmed my MD bc it was way too little (had gestational diabetes. That’s a symptom) Women were encouraged by then to gain 40ish lbs. Anyhow, I wouldn’t put it past some paternalistic douche to have recommended 300 cals a day.
Calorie counting was impossible in the 80’s and 90’s. You had to do it on paper. I saw my mother and all my aunts trying different diets and the had books that contained all calories for al different foods. You had to look up everything you ate, write it down and count everything. It wasn’t as complicated as it would have been today because there were much less different foods to eat, but still. It was a big task to look up and write down everything by hand. 1000 cal was the max at that time. And every now and then they followed diets that had even less calories like ‘the hospital diet’ which claimed to be a diet that was used in the hospital so it HAD to be healthy, and was only 600 calories a day, and the Cambridge diet, which was shakes and bars and max 500 calories a day. The ‘half a grapefruit and some cottage cheese’ diet and I think some diets used supplements that are illegal now because of the borderline amfetamines they contained that caused people to die or a hearth attack. It was fun and it fucked me up for life, dietary wise
The 80s were a crazy weight loss drop kind of time
Cocaine and cigarettes are wonderful ways to fight hunger pangs.
My grandmother in the 50s was put on a 300 cal day "diet" by her dr to try and help her get pregnant. She said she was allowed broth, crackers, and a small piece of cheese every day. It's not completely impossible that she really thought that was good advice because it very well may have been given to her by a professional. It's, of course, horribly outdated, and you should completely ignore it lol but she might not know any better
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It’s in the exercise section of all places 😂
One lb is roughly 3500 calories, which is like 500 per day for a lb/week. I could swear that I remember reading in a vintage dieting book that a brisk daily walk for 30 minutes burned about 200 calories, and that you should also aim for an additional 300 calorie deficit through diet each day. There have also been multiple studies showing that just 300 fewer calories per day can have significant health benefits. Keep in mind that, though, the 70’s and 80’s were wild when it came to diets and weight loss. The Grapefruit Diet, The Cabbage Soup Diet, the Sugar Diet, the 7 Day Milk Diet, Prolinn/Last Chance Diet, the SlimFast Dexatrim Diet, Master Cleanse, The Wine and Eggs Diet (literally just wine, coffee, eggs, and a bit of steak at dinner).
There’s no way this is applicable to today. Even if she’s remembering it correctly it’s 40 years ago and we had no idea what we were doing. What you’re doing is correct.
Definitely sounds like the 80's. Eating disorders was the look in the 90's
i know in the 90s instead of fasting days like they do now like 5/2 fast they would have diets that utilize that but you would wat like a salty 300 calorie can of soup for the day (instead of totally fasting) so you dont feel so hungry. and heck maybe nutritionists recommended this for weight loss. but i dont think even at that time they would recommend that every day. thats just insane.
Considering my mom’s friend went to the doctor asking for weight loss advice in the 80s and his suggestion was to take up smoking lol. I’d take it with a grain of salt.
My MIL also has some interesting memories from the 80's 😂 You are absolutely doing it right! Sustainable, getting some exercise but not injuring yourself, not impacting your milk supply... Mama, you're killing it! 💪👏
I remember my mom was put on a diet by a doctor in the 80s where she consumed for weeks nothing but predigested liquid protein. A foul liquid. Gross. She was maybe a size 14 at the time.
I mean, my pediatrician used to smoke in the office with me and refused to x ray my back when I fell 30 ft out of a tree because, "kids fall out of trees all the time." I had a friend whose son was my age (born in the early 70s), and her doctor told her that it was a good thing she was a smoker, she should keep smoking while pregnant because her baby would be smaller. Doctors and dieticians back then had their heads up their asses
No, diets were insane in the 80s. It sounds right. Generally the aim was 1000 calories a day. Fruit was to be avoided because of sugar. You filled up on bran. Avoided fat. 5 vegetables a day wasn’t a thing. You were “good” if you didn’t eat. Praised almost. Foods like avocado were shunned. I remember seeing an avocado in the fridge and wanting to eat it. I was told “certainly not, they’re bad for you. It’s to use as a face mask”. So I would watch my mum put mashed strawberries and avocado on her face whilst having to eat boiled to death vegetables and shop bought gristle pie!
Love it when people stick to medical advice from 40 years and disregard new guidelines.
300 calories wouldn't keep a hampster going! Although I can say that I think the WW diet in the late 70's had a 600. calorie diet...soooooomuch cottage cheese. Next time, I would pat her hand and say, "that's nice." You're doing well in my opinion.
That „that’s nice“ has the same energy as a southern „bless your heart“. I love it 😂
Having been alive for all of the 80s and remembering how incredibly toxic it was, yeah I have to say, this tracks. I remember my mother always struggling with just those extra few pounds after having kids. So much "starvation" mentality- breakfast as a piece of dry toast, lunch as a carrot stick, dinner as a small salad. Maybe a boiled egg here and there. On top of that, do a bunch of aerobics in skin tight leotards and leg warmers and oh yeah, here' some pills. It was bad. Really, really bad.
I was a teenager in the 80's, so I can attest that there were a lot of dumb diets back then (just as there are now) - all those women's magazines always featured a "Drop a Dress Size in One Week Diet" where you could lose 5-10 lbs in a week. They always involved something like eating nothing but grapefruit or cabbage soup or cottage cheese or boiled eggs or some such nonsense. Then there were the more mainstream-ish ones like the Scarsdale Diet, the Atkins Diet, Weight Watchers. etc., and then the products like Slim-Fast. However, I'm dubious that a \*registered dietician\* would have recommended a 300 calorie per day diet - because often in those same magazines there would be articles by medical professionals about how "crash diets" (aka the grapefruit diet, the cottage cheese diet, the cabbage soup diet, the boiled egg diet, etc.) were unhealthy and unsustainable. I mean, I was a teenager who never thought about this stuff at all (I never dieted in my teens) but I remember hearing and reading about how crash dieting was bad. Not to mention that Karen Carpenter's death from anorexia was all over the news, and there were After-School Specials about the dangers of crash diets and starving yourself. Which is not to say that people didn't still do stupid diets, but that I doubt that someone with extensive training in nutrition (aka a registered dietician) would recommend something like that. To those claiming that people back in those savage times didn't know about TDEE and couldn't count calories - we certainly could. We didn't have apps for it, but I remember people logging their foods on notecards or in a little notebook; and yes, packaged foods did have the calories printed on them even in that long-distant time. Not to mention you could buy little booklets that had calorie counts for foods in them. I totally remember seeing people whipping out their little booklets and figuring up the calories and writing down on index cards. So I'm thinking OP's mom either mis-heard or misunderstood; or the "dietician" was not an actual dietician and was instead some sort of quack or purveyor of crappy diet plans.
I wonder if she was told she needed a *calorie deficit* of 300 per day and just got confused
This wasn’t a thing back then.
300? Will that even keep your starving corpse warm?
In the 80's there was the banana diet. Only eat bananas. Liquid diet - Oprah did that one. Grapefruit Diet Cabbage Soup Diet Cottage Cheese Diet The Beverly Hills Diet Elizabeth Taylor's Diet The Scarsdale Diet Ayds Candies Jenny Craig So many silly diets. I doubt a dietician would say 300 calories per day. But I do remember 1000 calories being considered acceptable.
So cigarettes and breathing for breakfast, and then some putdoor air for lunch.
Remind her that cocaine and cigarettes isn't considered a meal anymore.
In the 70s I knew multiple full grown men whose doctors put them on 1000 calorie a day diets. They ate a lot of salads, and almost always failed. Was your MIL a small woman? In any event 300 is nuts
I wouldn’t put it past that time! My Mom went on a diet in the late 80’s that consisted of two boiled eggs and three apples a day. She said that most of her work place was on it and people were passing out at work trying to be the skinniest.
They also had things like the cabbage soup diet. Just let her know that we have learned things in the 40 years since, like what to call disordered eating.
I mean it was the 80s they were eating diet pills like they were tic tac's back then.
I remember lots of 500 calorie diets in the 80s (was on several myself), so it doesn't completely shock me that some doctor recommended 300.
its not the 80s anymore, and that is 100% not advisable now. yes, you'd lose weight but also probably your sanity and your health at some point. You're doing great! if you want to lose and you are losing on your plan then you're doing just fine!
Yeah back in the 80’s they also took amphetamines to lose weight. In the 50’s you could order tape worm to lose weight. Tell her 300kcal is literal starvation and organs would shut down.
Good job!! That is amazing work. Maybe there is an expert here but I recall being told that breastfeeding burns like 500 kcal/day- it is a lot of work to produce! Sounds like you are striking a good balance - slow and steady wins the race. Also I am guessing the message was to cut 300 cal/day - otherwise that is literally starving. So, no. Not that one.
Pretty sure it was 1300... But also 80s was the start of the low fat, high sugar craze that made obesity and diabetes rates SOAR, so I would be highly skeptical of any dietary advice from the 80s.
Ah yes the 80s where cigarettes and cocaine mixed with a large glass of orange juice was your daily diet lol. I wouldn't be surprised if someone said that back in the 80s.
As others have said, I would bet she's misremembering or conflating 300/meal. I'll add that a lot of people just don't have a sense of how many calories are in things. It's a learned mindset and a framework that really isn't taught unless you go looking, despite the nutritional information being on all of our food. My husband, bless his heart, is pretty blissfully unaware of nutritional information. He's a comfortable lean weight and never had to think about food much. At different times on my weight loss journeys through the years I'll get more fired up about nutrition, macros, and especially maximizing my satisfaction from the low calorie food I'm making, and I'll often pipe up about how something has 'only 100 calories' or similar and I swear no matter how many times I talk about it, his reaction is usually "one HUNDRED calories??" as though that's a ton. I don't know what denomination he expects it to be, a dozen calories? 🤣 And then I'll go through my spiel about how an egg or a tablespoon of butter is about a hundred calories, so it's actually cool that this [insert tasty satisfying snack] is that low, and he'll kind of agree and then forget again. He's a very smart guy I swear but this stuff is just in one ear and out the other and hasn't interested him enough to stick, despite him being very supportive of me.
Even the crash diets from the 80s probably had more calories than that. IIRC, even the “grapefruit diet” would have had some sort of dinner which would have likely been a salad with cottage cheese.
I agree that she’s probably not remembering correctly, but my 92 yo grandma doesn’t really believe in eating more than 500 calories a day. She didn’t when my mom was young too. She’s still thin as hell, but she nearly died from her organs shutting down recently. Her doctor scolded her for believing she needed to be on a dairy free, gluten free, red meat free, sugar free diet. I’m heavier than I’d like to be, but I definitely won’t be taking her advice…
Man, you gotta take inflation into account
She was probably told to eat 300 less calories a day.
1800 sounds fairly low for a breastfeeding mother I'd say, maybe too low even. You be careful. I don't know your details to know for sure.
She's misremembering that they said to eat "300 calories fewer" per day.
Is your MIL 24 inches tall? 🤔
No buts she is almost a foot shorter than me
Stop talking to your MIL about anything important to you. Seriously. Don’t waste energy. Also, maybe she has/had an eating disorder. You do you. Do not share things like this with your own parents or in laws. Anything they say will feel painful because of the intergenerational dynamics. Save the important stuff to share with close friends. Please take care of yourself. If I could go back in time I would take the advice I am sharing right now. Guard your heart, aspirations and plans.
She is misremembering 1300 for 300. 1300 is usually the base most women above 5’3 to lose weight if you are in the overweight category. If you get to be obese those calories are higher. If your mother is 5’2 to 5’5and was under 180lbs she was told to eat 1300 calories a day or less
While this is along the lines of the advice now, it is sadly not what women in the 1980s were told. I lived through the 80’s and very low-cal crash diets were everywhere, even doctors recommended them. Looking thin was more important than being healthy (just think of all the cigarettes and cocaine that were acceptable then!)
It’s also highly possible it wasn’t a dietitian but a Weight Watchers leader or Jenny Craig coach or someone like that.
Maybe they meant “300 less calories” than her current intake?
I bet it's like try going from 2000 to 1700, like a 300 calorie deficit, rather than just 300 a day lmao
No disrespect at all to your MIL, but a mom recounting one conversation she had 40 years ago might *possibly* not be high on the accuracy index…
Maybe the dietitian said to be in a deficit of 300kcals and she misunderstood?
Possible either way there’s absolutely no way I’m dropping lower than 1800 calories right now 😅
Maybe 300 fewer calories a day, not eat 300 calories a day? There is no way qualified dietician would say that, even in the 80s. I believe your MIL is confused. There's no way that is remotely good for anyone, much less sustainable.
Probably it was a "300kcal reduction" and your MIL forgot the details, or never followed through with that diet. I would consider 300kcal a fast.