eating too few calories

I'm pretty new to this and actually never paid attention to dieting. I currently am about 134 lbs and would be ok with my weight but I seem to have lost all of my muscle tone (used to play sports). I am a vegetarian and really eat only two meals sometimes even one, substituting coffee for a meal, because of my busy schedule. I sleep maybe 6 hours if I'm lucky and I can not understand why I seem to feel bloated,large, and just fluffy (dough like). People often look at me saying I should have been skin and bones by now the way I have been eating in the past two years. But nope, I only lost my muscle tone but maintained the same size and even look larger than 133 lbs. Why is that? I recently started counting my calorie intake and it has been lower than 1000. Since I started monitoring it on this homepage I have been forcing myself to eat more calories a day to maintain an intake of 1200 to 1800.

Is anyone experiencing similar issues or do I just have an odd body?:)

What's happening to you is quite typical of low-level malnutrition.  Chronic undereating and a very poor diet can leave someone with poor muscle-tone but a lot of retained fluids. 'Flabby' if you like.  Some call it 'skinny fat'.  The body adapts to accommodate the amount of food available so you will lose weight eventually, just quite slowly.  It's very easy to get an inadequate/poor diet when you're vegetarian. Skipping meals and living on coffee isn't helping.  And so it pays to make a conscious effort to improve it, get a better balance and - in your case - significantly increase the calorie intake.

Rather than guessing how many calories you need & getting it as badly wrong as you are doing try using the CC calculator, entering your stats, age and a rough idea of your activity level (tip... most people qualify as 'light').  Typically an adult female needs about 2000 cals a day and an adult male should start at 2500.

Give food and mealtimes priority.  Use the CC food log analysis function to make sure you're getting a good balance.  Good luck

It is more than logical that your body needs enough food and nutrition to survive, but even more if you want to build muscle as muscles consumer more 'food' if you like.

Babies and children need a lot more calories in relation to adults as they are still growing (bones, muscle etc.) that's why children that are mal-nutritioned (third world countries) don't develop properly, die younger and become ill easier.

If you eat so little, how can you logically expect to gain muscle? Your body thinks it is starving and will only provide the nutriens to vital organs to survive and neglect everything else i.e. nutrition for healthy skin (hence your skin might look grey or you look older that you are), healthy hair, nails, muscle tone, growth etc)

Get some food to be beautiful!!!

B.

   Also, since you are vegetarian it is very likely that you are low on protein, which is needed to build muscle.  You might want to start taking iron supplements, since that is bound to be low as well.  The extra iron will also help give you more energy.

Thanks for the advise. I actually recently started taking multivitamin and iron.  My energy level has increased a lot since.

You are so right...I have been complaining to my friends about why my skin looks grayish and pale