Starvation mode help

I don't know if this is the right forum but here I go.

I'm so sorry to be laying yet another starvation mode post on you guys but I'm having a little breakdown and I don't know how else to get help.

I've been lurking on these forums for months now but haven't posted. Before coming here I had no idea that I was going to hurt myself by not eating. My sister had gastric bypass which left her eating tiny amounts of calories every day so my thinking was why can't I do that without having the surgery? Well it worked, I lost 150 lbs. eating waaaay too few calories. After starting to read these forums I realized what I was doing was wrong so I started upping my calories. I went from aiming for 500 calories a day to where I am now aiming for just under 1100 a day.

Until recently I was still losing on that number (roughly 1075 a day) and my hair was growing back. I haven't had a period in 4 or 5 months though and these past couple weeks no matter what I do I can't lose any more weight. In fact, I seem to be very slowly gaining a bit of weight. I would love to lose 10 more lbs though I technically don't need to since I'm at a "healthy weight" but I know I'm not healthy.

I am 6'2", female, currently weigh 180 lbs. I exercise 6 days a week. I try to do enough cardio to burn 500-800 calories a day and then I weight train 2 days a week. I'd like to up it to 3 days a week.

Here are my questions- should I increase my calories all at once or do it gradually? I'm so terrified of gaining weight that I am literally crying at the idea of eating more and seeing a gain, even if I lose it all again in the long run. I saw a post on here last week where someone asked how much they would gain from recovering from starvation mode and someone answered that they would probably gain back everything they lost. That scared me enough to not try it.

Second question- while fixing my metabolism should I continue to kick my butt with exercise? Should I be doing more or less caridio and weight training?

Thank you for your help, I really appreciate your reading this long post and putting up with my ignorance which then turned into stupidity.

Oh and my other question was how much to raise my calories to. Should I be going up to what my BMR should be, what my maintenence should be, or what I should be losing on?

Hi there

dont worry about posting up your worries...its ok to ask for help..its actually great that you noticed that u were doing something wrong, and you are now trying to fix it.

Right now you are severely undereating STILL...We would need to know your age as well but  if you were around 30 years old, with your height and weight you burn just 1,600 by just being alive....meaning....you'd have to consume this much even if you were in bed all day not moving at all...

you need 2,800 calories just to MAINTAIN your weight...to lose weight you need 2,300 calories...so you are way off, plus causing a lot of damage to your body.

i've been through starvation mode, and I know what it is...right now you gotta up your intake....if you switch right away you will see a small gain, depending on how long you have been starving...right now you need to focus on your health...if you are not healthy being slimmer is not worth it, believe me. The initigal gain is only water...which will flush out in a week or so....after that you might experience a gain but it wotn be as much as 150 pounds...your body is very wise..it knows it wasnt happy at such a high weight...so it wont go all the way up to that weight...you will be able to go down in the long run...you do not need to worry about that at all. You just have to know that gaining a bit now is worth it, if it means you'll get your period back again, and you'll be able to lose the weight you gained AND keep it off for good..then its all worth it!

Actually some girls who eat their maintenance cals for a while even lose some weight in the process. Eating more can only work FOR you....eating as little as you are can only work agaisnt you

build up the courage and also seek counseling..you will need it to face any gains (if there is any) and live your life again.

good luck

you shouldnt eat just 1,600 btw...thats what your organs need to keep functioning...so eating 1,600 also undereating in your case....I would suggest upping right away to at leat 2,000 calories...then slowly upping all the way to 2,800..focus on getting healthy first, and maintaining your current weight...then you could lose the extra pounds you need off, and going down again to 2,300.

hope this helps!

Bah OK, you answered this question in your second posting.

I am indeed 30 years old.

Thank you so much for your help and support. I'm absolutely terrified to start this process after getting so close to my ultimate goal but I can't think of any other way to go about becoming a normal person again. I think that upping my calories is going to be much much more difficult on me mentally than lowering my calories ever was.

Any suggestions on my exercise routine?

you are welcome! :)

yeah the typical binge-starve cycle..that can really take a toll on your body...

well I went about my own recovery with upping slowly which only made the weight creep slowly and I kept on holding it back with restricting (bad idea!)...girls who have eating their maintenance cals or more, have even lost some of the weight and gained slowly a bit but then are able to maintain...but since oyu are not underweight, gaining so much weight is not somethign you need to aim for which is great! so eating maintenance cals will do your metabolism really good...thats why i suggested on eating 2,000 as soon as you could and try staying away from the scales for a while because there will be an initial gain....but that shouldnt concern you...what should is getting your health back and your metabolism working again..after this up your calories slowly to 2,800 and stay there for a long while until you finaly see your weight stabilize....try finding professionals that will help you with this too..therapists if it gets too challenging emotionaly, and nutritionists...those can relaly be of a big help for you...just keep a well balanced diet, doing the amount of excercise you do, eating more than 2,000 calories (never go below that number, I think it can really do you harm to do so)....and I bet you'll be fine...

EDIT: about the exercise, Im not sure if you should decrease the exercise, but I think its fine...since you are not underweight I think its fine to keep it up...as long as its not over the top 2+ hours in the gym.Weight training is great for you, because dieting the way you did must have caused a lot harm to your muscles, and building them back up while eating more will help to slowly build up your strength again...dont worry, you are in good weight...just focus on eating more, and you should be fine

I was actually checking your activity and I think you could easily get away with as much as 3,000 calories and maintain your current weight..so make 2,800-3,000 calories your intake for maintenance because of your level of activity.

-xo

I posted a few posts a couple months ago. I was so far into starvation mode, I had to go to the doctor and I may have messed up my eyes for life.  Take a look at my profile and look down and you can find my old posts. I got some good help here. I know how you feel, now that I am trying to maintain, I still have a hard time dealing with the increased weight, but it comes and goes and I have been keeping around the same weight for about a month now. I did find out at one point, that if I ate more, I lost more. I found a good ebook and followed the advice and now I eat 5 times a day, every time protein and carbs. and I lost weight doing it. I am lifting allot more weight now and increasing my muscle mass, and slowly loosing fat while gaining muscle. I did not loose as much as you, only about 60 pounds but I did it in a few months, way too fast, not smart, not healthy and very bad for my body. It will be very hard to move up to the numbers that people are suggesting, it will take time, but you will have alot more energy. I have found if I consume allot at breakfast, it helps me have much more energy all day and I can eat more also. I consume at least 600 for breakfast, lots of protein, egg whites, fried, poached or in a shake, I make egg sandwiches to take to work ( seven grain bread, tomatoes and lettuce) and have a yogurt to wash it down for my morning snack. I eat every 3 hours and I loose weight doing it. If you are not eating, that does not mean your body is not eating, it eats your muscle, and there is no vitamins in muscle, so you loose all the muscle you are working so hard to gain and you deplete your body of vitamins, that is why you feel tired even though you are working out. I was seeing floating black spots and flashing lights because my body was eating the inside of my eyes.. yuck...

Was that something about burning the fat and feeding the muscle? I was reading about that today though I stopped short of buying it. I was going to ask about it on the forums here first.

The foods that I have been eating are very healthy and I've been focused mainly on getting lots and lots of lean protein because someone told  me that my hair was falling out because I lacked protein. Since I had been aiming for 80-95 grams of protein a day the hair did start coming back in but I had also doubled my calorie intake, though clearly it was still too low and at that point I knew it and didn't do anything about it for fear of gaining weight. I go through egg whites at a rapid fire pace but now that I'm looking at doubling my intake yet again I may throw a yolk or two in there too, I'm lacking a lot of fat in my diet.I know that I could physically eat that much by just adding some olive oil and peanut butter into my diet but I've been at this a year and I've conditioned myself to be so afraid of calories I'm having a hard time MENTALLY letting myself eat enough.

I'm a "suck it up and just do it" kind of girl. It's the attitude that got me into this mess and it's the attitude that will have to get me out of it too.

Thank you.

yes that is the book, great stuff, I learned allot. I bought some flax seed and put them in a food processor to break the hull. If you don't do that, you will not get any benefit, I add a tablespoon to protein shake or put it in yogurt or over cereal. It has lots of good fats without the calories. I use the analysis every day to make sure I am balancing my fats, carbs and proteins. I need to reread the book, I have put allot of it into use, but I know I need to go through it again now that I am using some of the info on a daily basis and pick up the stuff I did not get first time around. After a very short time, you will be hungry every three hours, I was never hungry when I was in starvation mode, thought I could never eat 1900 or 2000 cal a day. Now I have to keep an eye out or I will get 2500 before my dinner and I am still maintaining my weight at 190. I am 6.1

I know you REALLY don't want to hear this, but I've gone through what you are. I lost 80 pounds on eating 600-700 calories a day. Started losing my hair and all that other stuff you mentioned. At first, I upped my calories to 900 (total mind spin for SURE because I seriously didn't want to gain weight) and then to 1000 when I felt a little more comfortable, then 1050 (I know, I'm mental) then 1100 and finally 1200. I wasn't exercising, so I had no need to add back in extra calories.

Anyway what I wanted to say is YES I did gain weight, Yes i wanted to stop eating that number of calories, and YES after I stuck to my new plan I started losing on that number again.

SO hang in there and up your calories as you feel comfortable. Either gradually gain the weight back, or do it all in one big hit. Either way, your body wants to keep those calories and will store more than you'd like. There's no proper way to be pulled out of starvation. The reason I did it in pieces is because to do it in one big hit made my stomach so stuffed I couldn't handle myself.

And if you need anyone to talk to (because I know what a mental mess this can be) feel free to PM me.

Im seriously on the verge of a mental breakdown and/or facial water works for the SAME reason.

Ive wanted to make a topic about it but I feel like Id get more ridicule and less support/advice for it.

I agree with everything bananee has said so I dont have much to add. But know that youre not alone.
You can do this :)

I was afraid too decempt but I haven't received anything but good solid advice and support so far. Sort of restores the faith in the humanity.

I think Ill continue to hold off on asking for awhile and continue just reading those that are already posted haha.
Im glad your faith was boosted.

How are you doing with everything?

I hope its going okay so far :)
Keep us updated.

Thank you so much for asking. It's going OK so far. The first couple days were horrible, I felt like there was a rock in my stomach and that nothing was moving but I had to just keep adding to it. I had all sorts of digestive system problems. That only lasted a few days though and now things seem to be fairly OK, no more pain or gas or bloating. Yesterday I was serving at a party I was helping to host and I spent most of my time running around getting people things instead of sitting down to my food and somewhere along the way I noticed I was hungry and my stomach was growling. I'm encouraged by the fact that I can already see progress.