Messed up metabolism due to excessive dieting..

I have been hardcore dieting for the past few months by greatly restricting my calorie intake. I am pretty sure that I've messed up my metabolism because I feel like I gain weight a lot more easily now and that I basically have to starve myself in order to lose more weight. I was just wondering if I have ruined my metabolism for good or if I can somehow get it back to normal? I want to be able to eat normally and not gain weight and without having to excercise in excessive amounts. If anyone has any insight or advice on my situation it would be greatly appreciated.

i would love to know an answer to this as well because i have done the same..

I would suggest taking Digestive Enzimes. I recked my metabolism before and i found i couldnt really digest food well (especially veggies which are so good for you) and i was eating allot of bad carbs that i could digest but that weren't the best for me. It should help a bit if your metabolism is slow. Not so much as to speed it up, but it can pick up a bit of the slack while you begin to eat about 1200 cal again (in heathy food). It seemed to help me. i can now eat a salad without feeling like my stomach is going to die. Also, the harder the food is to digest, the more your body works to break it down so high fiber foods and raw veggies might be good if you dont want to gain that much weight in the process without that much exercise. So about the digestive enzimes, you can take one before or during every meal for a while and then see how your body acts without the extra help. eventually it will correct itself.

hope this helps 

One sure fire way to bring your metabolism back up is to start exercising and slowly raising your caloric intake. Actually, you might want to slowly raise your caloric intake before starting an exercise regime. It sounds like your body is in starvation mode, which means it has slowed its metabolism to the absolute minimum and utilizes every chance it gets to put gain fat.

By slowly increasing your caloric intake over the course of 2 to 3 or 4 weeks, you are avoiding the sudden shock your body would experience if you immediately upped your intake (which would lead to rapid weight gain). Once your metabolism has sped up a bit and you are out of starvation mode, exercising should help boost your metabolism. The exercise doesn't have to be "excessive" so long as your "normal" eating habits don't include fast food for every meal, etc.

I was in the same fix.  I consulted a nutritionist and she had me on a 2000 calorie, high nutrition regimen.  She warned me that I'd gain weight and I did, 8 pounds.  It took 3 months for my weight to level off.  Once it was the same for 2 weeks, she began cutting calories until I started losing again.  Now I can lose a pound a week on 1500 calories.  I used to lose less than half a pound a week on 1000 to 1200!

It takes time and patience, but it can be done.

Thanks for the information!

I just read about this problem and am freaked out by it.  I suffer from anorexia which totally complicates things too.

This is what I gleaned from my reading: 

The human body is designed to respond quickly when faced with "starvation".  It burns fewer calories in an attempt to preserve as many as it can.  Which in turn slows down its metabolic rate in response to food deprivation regardless of the kinds of foods eaten (following a high pro, low fat diet, for example).  To the body, a calorie is a calorie whether it comes from a chicken breast or a bite of a cookie - it all gets metabolized the same way.  That's not to say we should eat cookies all the time, because then we would eventually be lacking in a lot of nutrients.  Nutrients and calories are two totally separate topics!  Our bodies cannot distinguish whether a sudden change in the amount of food it receives is the result of a famine or diet - it slows down no matter what the cause.  The freaky part is that hunger is designed to protect us from famine.  When food becomes available after famine we typically consume more than "normal" to make up for the recent deprivation, aka bingeing.  However, the metabolism does not speed up right away because it doesn't trust that the "famine" (or diet) is over and wants to protect itself by remaining at a slower metabolic rate in case the amount of food provided is decreased again.  This leads into a disastrous pattern of restricting, bingeing, restricting, etc. and never allowing the metabolism to recover.

I do not binge, just restrict, but bingeing is my worst fear, worse than anything I think.   I fear eating a morsel more than I did the day before because g-d forbid the scale goes up!  And I'm supposed to gain weight, but I just can't, I'm too afraid.  So, I'm really in a fix.  I'm stuck eating a ridiculously reduced amount of calories because I am unwilling to gain the weight recommended and afraid to eat more.

Clarielaine gave some really good advice, similar to how my nutrition was handled while in the hospital for anorexia.  My calories were slowly increased until they found a level I was gaining an appropriate amount of weight at (required close to 4000 calories a day).  Once I got to my target weight the amount of calories I was fed was gradually reduced.

Everyone has given great advice so far.

The only suggestion I have to add is strength training. Muscles burn calories throughout the day. So the more muscle you have, the more calories you can eat without gaining weight (or, your "basal metabolic rate" rises). This is why athletes with a lot of muscle can eat like a horse but still have low body fat.

When you lose weight, you don't just burn fat, but muscle, too. The less muscle you have, the easier it is to gain weight. I suggest you start strength training at your local gym, or even at home with free weights. Remember to start at a weight you can handle, then increase as the weight becomes easy. :)

Details:  It took 3 months on a 2000 calorie diet and I gained back 8 pounds.  However, at the end of 3 months, my gain stopped.  I was then able to drop 100 cal a day each week until I started losing again.

I had plateaued after eating 1200 and sometimes a less for 10 months.  The plateau lasted 6 months.  After the correction, I can now lose on 1500. 

Here's an explanation from the CC+ Library

In order to get the daily food servings you need for a balanced diet, it takes about 1200 calories a day. With careful planning, you could have a balanced diet on 1000 calories, but the restrictiveness of a very low calorie level can lead to binging and weight cycling, which will take you further from your weight loss goal. What's more, very low calorie diets can cause excessive muscle breakdown and metabolic adaptations, which can drive down your calorie requirements. In the end, you'll need fewer calories to maintain a higher weight.