Anorexics (starvation and weight loss versus starvation mode)

They say that if you dont eat you actually gain weight or something like that, but how come anorexic people are so thin?

Is it true that if you dont eat you will gain weight? Or will you lose weight?

*lets not

i am also a battling anorexic. it is truly difficult. i sympathize with everyone out there who is in the same situation.

Listen guys, not eating will make you loose weight. But eats your muscles and just makes you feel god forsaken shitty all the time. I almost took my own life twice becuase of the depression that came with it. And developed a pill addiction, niccotine addition and obsessive compulsive addiction from it.

 

Eat, live and be merry.

You only live once.

Is it just me, or did this question get turned on it's head? 

It seems to me that Virgogirl could easily have worded the question to inquire why people on chemo will get rail thin if starvation mode stops us from losing weight.   This question isn't about anorexia, but rather an inquiry as to whether or not starvation mode really exists considering some very visible evidence that it does not.   

No expert here, just paraphrasing other information - but I see starvation mode as a temporary slow down in weight loss as your body screams for help in other ways;  you get tired, fuzzy headed, weakened immune system, etc.  When your body realizes that you are not responding to these cues with more fuel, it returns to using your body for fuel.  Which is what it does when you are losing weight whether you are doing so with a healthy 500c daily deficit, or a suicidal 2000c deficit. 

This is why exercise is so important in a healthy weight loss plan.  Fat is the easiest fuel for the body to use, but not the only fuel available.  So to prevent bone and muscle loss, we need to add exercise to our healthy eating plans. 

I am anorexic, in recovery, and it IS A MYTH that if/when anorexics eat normal they will be "fat." I have a nutritionist, doctor, and Eating Disorder Specialist and my own experiance testifying that IT IS NOT TRUE!!! A MYTH THAT SCARES PEOPLE WITH ANOREXIC TYPES OF MENTALL ILLNESS. RECOVERY FROM ANOREXIA WONT MAKE YOU"FAT." IT will recover your health, your beauty, your mind, your body, strength!! So worth it!!! This for all here who have disordered eating and fear recovery. ANorexia has the highest death rate of all mental illnesses. People, please don't post mis-information, fueling unhealthy veiw regarding healthy nutritional in-take.

Remember, the slow increase of calories with MILD exercise brings the metabolism back to normal. Just like it adapted to starving yourself, it adapts to healthy eating habits. I eat 6 small meals a day and am slowely working up to a healthy caloric intake under professional supervisoin. Actually still losing, but I will soon get to healthy place. It's a process that involves your mind and your body.

BEST OF LUCK!!

Ugh. I agree, saha_hah. It's pretty much a total lie or at least a huge exaggeration to say a recovering anorexic will "balloon up" or is bound to get fat.

When an anorexic beings to recover, it is true that their metabolism will be a little slower due to a loss in muscle mass during their starvation (because muscles require more energy than fat to maintain). However, with a little weight training, they will build muscle and their metabolism will become normal.

There are even some recoverees that require many more calories than an average person to gain weight. This is what quite a few people refer to as "hypermetabolism".

I'm guessing people are referring to my old post. I said that anorexics balloon up in later years because I've seen it happen to 3 adults I know.
They were once size 1 and now they're 250+ pounds.

I'm not saying that a RECOVERING anorexic will balloon up.. I'm saying that a dumbass one who just starts binging from starving themselves so long are the ones that get fat. There's a HUGE difference between an anorexic that recognizes how to help themselves and an anorexic that goes food crazy from starvation.

Well said Jackattack! Yes, I too think that if someone goes "food crazy" and makes it a new longterm habit replacing the starvation, they very well could become overweight.

I would expand on that also by saying that irrelavant to one's previous eating habits, continuos binging is just another manifestation of an underlying issue/pain. Any form of disordered eating or an obsessive issue isn't really just about food or whatever the focal point is, right? It's a symptom. Unaddressed, the underlying problems could just as easily lead one to yet another unhealthy lifestyle, coping stratagy, and abuse of thier bodies. I think uprooting the causes, the underlying drive behind ANY unhealthy habit, addictive, or obsessive behaviour is THE KEY to true recovery. That junk needs to be pulled up by the roots. Otherwise one could merely remedy thier behaviour only to find the destructivness or inner conflict shift and mask itself in somthing else.... -obsessive shopping, overeating, controling people in thier lives, a work-aholic lifestyle, or any number of things.

For me, this self-contempt and turmoil has been spread over several areas. Since it was spread over many areas, diluted, it went under the radar for years, until it bottlenecked into this one furicious issue of eating or rather not eating.

"I'm saying that a dumbass one who just starts binging from starving themselves so long are the ones that get fat."

Well thanks for calling me a dumbass! I appreciate that a lot.

Going from starving to binging only means one thing...the person has not actually recovered from their eating disorder. It just switched forms.

At my low weight, I was 53 lbs (I'm 4'11"). Size 00 pants fell off me. I had to wear drawstring children xxxs clothes. I tried recovery. I got to 70 lbs and then I couldn't deal with what was going on in my head, so I turned to stuffing my face. I ended up hitting 140 lbs before I managed to grab ahold of myself and fix the situation. I'm currently 97 lbs. Not fat anymore...and not underweight either. At the moment my weight is stable...although I sadly cannot say the same for my health.

Anyway, as to why anorectics are underweight and some emaciated - they consistently undereat.  Whether they restrict on a day to day basis, fast periodically, eat "normally" and over-exercise, or binge and purge, their net caloric intake is low enough on a regular basis to cause a constant deficit.

I don't know about you, but I have no problem calling myself a dumbass for my old terrible eating habits. I recognize what a stupid mistake it was.

There's a difference between terrible eating habits and an eating disorder. It's called binge eating disorder and it exists. People who suffer from it are not idiots.  Just like anorectics aren't either. Anybody with an eating disorder is very, very sick.

Okay, to all people saying anorexics are looked down upon for being weak and just needing attention and all that crap, you really do not have a right to jugde anybody like that. Infact that is terribly insensitive and rude. Don't act like you have any clue what it is like to have an eating disorder, you cannot comment on something that you completely do not understand.