Starvation mode?

I eat about 1200-1300 cals every day.  There are some days that I only eat about 1000 cals.  My diet mostly consists of fruits and veggies for breakfast, lunch and snacks.  For dinner i have some meat, a starch, and veggies.

I am 5'3" 25yo 205lbs trying to lose weight.  It seems the healthier I eat the less calories it is.  I fill up on baby carrots and cherry tomatos but they do not have many calories.

I read alot about peoples bodys going into starvation mode, or people being afraid that they will go into starvation mode.  How can I tell if my body is going to do that?    Because i eat 4-5 times a day and healty foods and i am not hungy am i still at risk?

I would def check what your daily BMR is. I'd bet it's at LEAST 1300 cals a day. So yea, if you are only getting 1000, your body is NOT liking that!

One thing to up the cals easily is peanut butter!!! I like it on rice cakes.....it has a lot protein in it, will add the cals, and is yummy! LOL

Or try protein shakes! I get chocolate whey protein stuff....it's about 150 cals a scoop (dpnding on brand). You can add peanut butter (there it is again), banana's, strawberries, etc to bump up the cals!

With your stats, you are most likely in starvation mode.

Eating healthily doesn't mean you can't eat calorie-dense things like avocados and nuts.  They're very good for you and are easy ways to add calories.  Nut butters are another good way to do this.

1,200 calories is the minimum amount of calories a woman needs and that's just to keep your organs functioning properly.  I, personally, don't think it's advisable for anyone to go below 1,500.

Try slowly upping your calories to at least 1,500 calories daily.  If you continue eating the way you are now, you may start to plateau and the weight will come off much slower.  Also, by not eating enough, your body begins to think it is going through a famine, and thus when you start to eat more, it will store on to everything you eat as fat.

Thank you for your responce.  Is there a place on this site, or could you please give me a link to where I can find out my BMR?

And peanutbutter is a great idea, I did not think of that.  I love to snack on the PB in celery.

If you use the CC tools, entering your stats and setting the activity level to something fair then you'll get a good idea of your maintenance calorie intake.  (Tools.... Allowance... set the goal weight and starting weight the same initially)  If you're completely sedentary ie. bedridden or never leave the sofa then you need 1700 cals a day to maintain your weight.  If you're reasonably active, either with a busy lifestyle/job or if you do a little exercise every day (good idea!) that increases to 2400.

To lose weight, therefore, you should aim for some daily exercise and a food intake of about 1500-1700 per day. 

To get your metabolism boosted and to get your appetite back eat more tomorrow.... about 2200 cals.  Repeat this every 2 - 3 weeks and you shouldn't experience too many plateaus as you go along.  Good luck

The best tool I know of (and it is very popular with people here on CC) is the Pford site:

http://www.phord.com/cc/

Put all the information you can in.  If you have any questions, feel free to post them.

Another one can be found here:

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calc ulator.htm#

 

It's helpful if you want to zig zag your calories so your metabolism doesn't get too use to what you're feeding it