Rapid weight gain with starvation mode

I have a theory about starvation mode:

I lost weight quickly by not eating enough - depression, pneumonia - and never really ate it back. I was maintaining on about 900-1000 calories a day w/o exercising at 5'4 103 pounds, a little too thin. Once I hit college about 2 months ago, I'm now at 125 pounds, eating the same amount, and exercising.

So I'm thinking about the couple times I did eat a normal amount. I went to France for a week - ate, I'm guessing, about 1800 calories a day, but walked ten miles.... I tried to eat 1700 calories for about a week in the summer, but saw how quickly the scale shot up and freaked out. Then about twice so far in college I've eaten about 2,000 calories....

That is where the 20 pounds came from. Mathematically, it doesn't add up, right?

So can somebody tell me if I'm on the right track: because I've been under eating for so long, the days when I took in higher amounts was stored directly as fat?

I'm pretty sure now that I have to eat more for a while in order for me to eventually be able to cut back, right? Do you think I can get to my ideal weight of 110 pounds again?

I've posted about this before, but I've never really clarified my "story" so much. Any input for a lost soul would be gratefully appreciated.

You are currently at a very healthy weight with a BMI of 21.5.  Your goal of 110 lbs would put you at a BMI of 18.9, a rather low BMI that hovers just above underweight.  At 18 years old, believe it or not, you're still growing -- not in height, but in other ways.  A good portion of that weight probably wasn't fat.  Some of it was probably good weight gain like bone density, which doesn't make you bigger and doesn't require a calorie surplus, merely adequate nutrition, something you weren't giving your body before.

And yes, some of the weight probably was fat.  But you have to understand that you don't get to keep your 16 year old figure forever.  Women need fat on their hips and breasts in order to be able to carry babies to term.  I know that this is going to be hard, especially since you've been starving yourself thin for so long, but take a good look at your body objectively, and I'll bet you'll find that you're not even close to being fat.  And before you start, here's one tip: your hip bones aren't supposed to stick out.

you should eat for maintenance and not worry about cutting back AT ALL. you are at a healthy weight, if you're not exercising much I'd assume that maintenance for you would be around 1800-2000 calories daily so eat that amount and don't worry about gaining because you are still growing believe it or not. You're not likely to continue gaining if you are consistent.

I would like to point out that you were on a starvation diet when you were 103 pounds so that weight and caloric intake is irrelevant to what you should be consuming now. Plug your stats into the calculator at phord.com/cc and follow their recommendations for maintenance (calories burned daily). If you try to lose weight I guarantee that you will prolong your body's starvation response and your metabolism won't increase. You were underweight and starving so when you began eating more your body held on to everything you were putting in. So consistency with an appropriate intake will be your best friend right now!!

Are you currently having your period each month? When did it return if so? If you were not having it at your 103 pound weight this is one sign that you were in fact malnourished, but this can be skewed if you are on birth control because it induces menstruation.

Anyhow, I hope this helped. Embrace, love, and appreciate your body. You are at a much healthier weight now and wouldn;t you rather be able to eat a normal amount than to force your body to be smaller than it wants to be??

This is what I figured - and I'm hoping that by eating more consistently my body will just level it out. I was quite a bit heavier when I was younger - about 145-155 pounds, but then lost the weight and never regained it. I don't want to end up there again; on my small frame that is way too much. My weight has never distributed evenly, and my thighs and butt go up in size whle my ribs still show...

I'm going to try and eat more, but I have to eat more to lose eventually.  It seems backwards, but gaining a rapid amount of weight quickly makes no sense either.

Edit: And I had my period at about 107 pounds.

My experience with this wasn't nearly as drastic as yours, but I hope I can make you feel a little better/give you a little encouragement! I used to undereat, except I would binge once/sometimes twice a week which I think ironically enough saved my metabolism some. Anyway, over this past summer, I worked on eating a more normal amount, and the scale did go up a few pounds. But now, months later, I think my metabolism is faster than ever. I'm not bingeing as much b/c I'm trying to stop that habit, but even when it happens sometimes now, I notice that the effects don't seem as bad as they used to (meaning I don't hold on to the food as much as I would when I was undereating). A few things that have helped me getting back into a normal schedule/eating a normal amount of calories:

1. Space your calories out throughout the day. Mathematically it shouldn't matter when/why/how we consume our calories. Although some people say you burn more by eating 5 smaller meals/day (I don't think this is actually scientifically proven though) but I do notice that I feel alot better/lighter eating at least 4 times a day, just smaller amounts.

2. Keep working out, this helps so much.

3. Don't weigh yourself for maybe a month or so if you can help it. I would get all freaked out and want to go back to my old weighs if I weighed 2 lbs more one day rather than realizing that this was ridiculous.

Are you positive you are counting your calories correctly? I mean I could see maybe 5-8 lb gain or something, but 20? I believe in science, and I don't believe 20 lbs can literally come out of nowhere.

Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm accurate - I've been doing this for a while now and have a good grasp since it worked when I was maintaining. I ate very little for a while - probably about 700-900 calories a day as a final total when i worked out. Then around the holiday season I upped it to 1200-1300 and maintained. I tried to cut back to the orignal numbers but my weight stayed the same.

I can go look back at my journal for the two months in college and see that with exercise, I have some days that only totalled to 400 calories. I've been moving a lot and eating the same food - I live in an apartment and cook. I used to eat more at home!

I'm at the point where I am frustrated beyond belief, and feel like since I love to cook for crying out loud I'm just going to eat more and see what happens. I don't seem to follow the natural weight loss laws, so maybe I'm going to see the scale start to tip back down again...

I have the same experience...I think I've been in starvation mode for over a year now...eating 1200-1400 calories (for the most part) while burning 2000-2400 calories per day. The days that I visit my mom, I tend to eat 2000+ calories per day...and when I get home after 2 or 3 days, I am 20 pounds heavier...even if I haven't skipped a workout (which I RARELY skip). I know a lot of it is water weight, but it certainly stops me from upping my calories.

So...how do we break this habit? I've tried cutting back on my cardio, from 2 hrs/day to 1 hr to 1 1/2 hrs...no change. In fact, I haven't lost anything since...I've tried increasing strength training, decreasing it, etc. Nothing seems to work...very frustrating!!!

Any advice??? Thx!