Maximum weight loss...?

Hi there

Ok, here goes... I know I'm going to get a lot of criticism for this but anyway...

I recently underwent an awful personal crisis in my life, and lost the appetite to eat. I've decided that I want to get my life back on track - this includes getting in contro of my body + wieght. I am currently on the upper limit of having a "healthy wiehgt" (i.e. I am slmost overweight).

Basically, I want to know - if I do not eat anything and starve myself, what is the maximum weight I can lose in, say, two weeks?

Thank you for your help/answers.

(PS - can I request that people do not reply with hundreds of strands saying "don't be anorexic etc.)

you Will loose few pounds in 2 weeks..not too much though cause your body need few days to release you are in starvation mode !

But what is the use of doing this???? for how long can you starve your self?? if you say for ever..ill see OK GOOD!!(although you will be died like in few months if you keep your self starving!)after you get out of strvation mode..you will get all the pound you lost in few days !!

my advice go on a strickt diet balance one..better than shutting down your metabolism !

I am currently on the upper limit of having a "healthy wiehgt"

If you are a "healthy weight".... aren't you already healthy? Why crash diet? thats unhealthy!!!!????

If you eat nothing at all then what you'd probably find is that you lost 4, 5 or 7lbs in the first week as your body rattled through its short-term energy stores.  Then you'd probably lose nothing at all because your body would go into a kind of energy-conservation 'shock'...

HOWEVER.... weight-loss or lack of weight-loss is largely immaterial.  When you eat nothing you are depriving your body and brain of nourishment.  This can have all kinds of nasty consequences.   Short-term (within a few hours) blood-sugars plummet and that will leave you fatigued, irritable and probably feeling nauseous with terrible headaches and dizzy spells.  You could black out completely.  The acids in your stomach would carry on working away regardless and that's pretty nasty.  After a few days your digestion would grind to a halt because there was nothing going in to work on.  After a week your vitamin and mineral stores would be at a very low ebb.... you're then looking at a weakened immune system and a host of malnutrition issues.  Anxiety, depression and other behavioural problems & neuroses would surface.   Usually, bodies (which are often smarter than their owners) will demand food before you get to this stage.... self-preservation is a very strong instinct.

All in all, it's a pretty stupid idea.  But it sounds like you knew that when you posted the original thread.   If you're desperate to lose weight, do it sensibly.  The amount you can lose in 2 weeks by starving (let's assume you've got some big event coming up) won't make all that much difference to your appearance. But you can seriously mess up your health and mental state in that time.

gi-jane paints a pretty accurate picture.  This isn't worst case scenario...it's realistic.  The physiological things she describes WILL happen.  The psychological events (depression, anxiety, etc) are typical.

Another bad thing happens when you starve yourself too.  Once you are in starvation mode as she described, you burn fewer and fewer calories, thus your weight loss will come to a virtual stop at some point.  Guess what happens when you start eating again?  Your body is still not used to burning calories so those calories get stored as fat for the first week or so until your metabolism breaks out of its funk.  This means you will, most likely, gain everything back that you lost.  And it is not uncommon to gain EVEN MORE weight than what you started at.  I'm guessing that's not what you want.

Starving yourself is just not worth it.  Lose weight the smart way and it's proven to be much, much more likely to be permanant.

Two questions need to be answered first

1.  Do you want to temporarily lose the weight or do you want to lose it and keep it off?

2.  Why are you contemplating doing this to yourself?  Is it a kind of self punishment? 

Once you have those two answers, you'll find your way.

do NOT do this. trust me i've done something close and it's going to backfire. if you make it the 2 weeks, you will lose some but eventually you are going to gorge. and gorge. and gorge some more until you gain back the weight you "lost" or maybe even a few extra lbs. this just doesn't work i'm not kidding. if you want to look good for something in 2 weeks, eat well, avoid foods that will make you bloat, exercise daily, and go out and buy a new outfit that fits you well.

When you starve for a while, your mind will be overcome with an unstoppable urge to binge.  Guaranteed

Original Post by jenny_k_r:

(PS - can I request that people do not reply with hundreds of strands saying "don't be anorexic etc.)

 

You can make this request but know that no one here will condone your actions if you follow through. 

Don't do that.  For one, I doubt you could and secondly, it's just a really bad idea.  Not to mention that this post violate the forum rules I'm sure.  With all that being said, here's my post.

From my own experience...I was in a situation (military training) where I wasn't allowed to eat for about 5 or 6 days.  I lost 10 lbs. Here's what happened to me.

For the first day or two, I was a little bit hungry.  After that, I wasn't hungry at all for the rest of the time.

After about 3 days, I was very tired most of the time.  It seemed to take a lot of effort to move quickly or to have very precise motor skills.

Also, after about 3 days, the world moved very slowly.  What I mean by this is that when I turned my head, it seemed like it took a couple seconds for my vision to catch up with me.

And worst of all, everyone was yelling.  Conversations in what would usually be a normal tone and volume seemed like yelling.

I gained it all back within a couple of days of eating again. (I didn't try to keep it off)  I was surprised, but immediately afterwards I ate some very rich, high calorie food and didn't get sick.

Don't go without food. If you are trying to go this route, though, I suggest you just eat minimally. Less than 1,000 calories. Eat vegetables, fruits, and complex carbohydrates. But unless you change you're food intake behavior after your few weeks of minimal eating the suffering involved will have been futile - you will gain the weight back.