maintaining after starvation..

hi, i'm new here.

i have this big issue.

i starved myself (700 calories a day) for a while, almost half a year, lost more than 30 pounds doing it. now i want to maintain.

after i stopped the diet, started slowly increasing my calories, i gained about 10 back. when that happened, i got scared and decreased my calories again and now i'm only eating 1000 a day.

but now i want to maintain, how do i go about that? all this stuff about people gaining back the weight after crash diets scare the hell out of me, and i don't want it to happen to me. i want to start eating healthy now, eat normal amounts, but i don't know if i can do it without gaining back my weight since my metabolism is so shot right now.

any advice? thanks!

 

edit: forgot my stats: 5'2" and 116.

Damn... 700 is insanely low.

I'd say increase your calories slowly again, you might just be gaining water weight and your metabolism will need awhile to readjust itself. 

The only real reason people gain back their weight is because they figure they can eat whatever the hell they want since they lost all their weight, and they'd do it without exercising.

I'm afraid it's something you have to go through.  When the metabolism is depressed by chronic undereating and when the carbohydrate stores are completely dry the body will store any extra food as fat and fluid quite rapidly.  That's why crash dieting is such a bad idea.  

However, eating 1000 cals a day is a recipe for poor health.  You're not getting enough nutrition or energy.  Your body is under stress and you risk the side-effects of malnutrition... lowered immune system, depression, hair-loss, dental problems, muscle wastage.

So - for the sake of your health -you'll have to steadily increase your intake to a more normal level... say 1800 or 1900... and accept that there will be some initial weight-gain but that, if you stick with it, things should stabilise.   Best of luck

well like i said, i already gained 10 pounds back. is it possible that this is not all of the weight gain i will experience? 10 pounds is a monster, and anything above that would be devastating. is there any way at all i can get healthy again and increase my calories without weight gain?

Maybe you should try eating 1200-1300 calories a day for a week, and see if you have gained/lost any weight. And add or decrease your intake depending on the results.

garnet, the same thing happened to me.  Im a 18 y.o. male 5'10, and was around 235 at age 17.  I started excersizing like crazy and was only eating around 1000 calories per day and I lost 65 pounds.  I went to college, still ate healthy but decided after reading a lot of articles that my calories were way to low so i figured I would up my calories a lot.  I just ate more healthy things probably ate around 2000 calories per day, and went from 170-185 still while doing heavy weight lifting and light cardio.  I got so scared of gaining the weight back I went to restrict my calories again and hurt my metabolism again.  About 3 weeks ago ive decided to just eat more and forget about the weight gain just see what happens.  I think it helps if i take pictures rather than look at the scale. But hopefully i can fix this.

"well like i said, i already gained 10 pounds back. is it possible that this is not all of the weight gain i will experience? 10 pounds is a monster, and anything above that would be devastating. is there any way at all i can get healthy again and increase my calories without weight gain?"

You have to get your body back to a healthy state first.  It's the first couple of weeks when you see the biggest gain but, as you stick with it, any gain will tail off and you may even start losing.  The more you eat, the  more lively your metabolism and the more your body burns fat. If you combine increased food intake with a little more exercise that would also boost your metabolism.  Nothing drastic is needed, just a short walk each day.  Take your intake from 1000 to 1500 for a week and then to 1800 ongoing.  Most people your size can lose weight on 1500 and maintain on 1800.   

If you then decide you need to lose weight, reduce your intake to 1400-1500, keep up with the exercise and take it from there.