Broken metabolism after excessive calorie restriction, how do I come back from this??

bloomblythe5

Hi all I’m a little anxious about turning to the forum for help but I’ve never felt so stuck, lost and frustrated through out my weight loss journey as I am now.

I’d be nice if you read the whole thing but basically the TLDR; been on 1400 calories for a while, haven’t lost weight in over 3 months, am slowly increasing calories while still resistance training in the hopes of fixing my metabolism, I’m worried about gaining fat, I’m incredibly bloated after only a week of increasing calories, how do I make sure I’m losing fat and gaining muscle?

END TLDR

I’ll try to keep this short: I’m a 20 year old female, 5’3 weighing about 175 right now. Summer 2019 I was my heaviest yet peaking at 210 so I’m proud for being able to get to 175 but... I’ve been stuck at 175 for 3 months! I spent most of December and January working out almost everyday (resistance training from home but pretty intense stuff) and only consuming 1400 give or take on some days and that is when I noticed something must be wrong.

I came to the conclusion I damaged my metabolism so after a lot of research, now I’m on a path to recovery. I decided exactly a week ago I would bump my calories every 2 weeks by 100 so I’m only at 1600 right now. I’m also trying to just be kind to my body right now so I’m not really staying in the 1600 if anything it’s more like 1800+ and I’m working out only every other day.

Like most people who restricted their calories excessively I’m terrified of the idea of gaining what I worked so hard to lose... plus I’ve been crazy bloated these last few days which is to be expected I guess but it’s just doing horrible things to my mentality and it’s making me want to quit and go back to starving myself because at least I could somewhat look at myself in the mirror.

I hate the idea of gaining weight before I lose more and I honestly already feel like I have. My thighs look bigger to me plus my abdomen with the bloating. The worst part is I am still overweight, I want to be working towards lowering my weight. Especially since I have a big dance performance in two months and I don’t want to be 10 pounds heavier I want to be more like 10-20 pounds lighter!

I guess I’m just curious if anyone has gone through this and can give me some guidance on how to fix my metabolism the right way and stay on a good path to gaining muscle AND losing fat please help I’m so incredibly frustrated ):

PAV8888

@heybales ?

Also: for the purpose of discussion, I suspect it might be more interesting if we just consider "broken metabolism" and "fixing" to be synonyms for diet break / rebounding tanked hormones / taking a mental break and similar as opposed to viewing it as a quest by the OP to fix bio-chemical pathways that have ceased functioning--which probably hasn't happened given they were able to type their OP!

PAV8888

Summer of 2019 is no more than what, 7 months ago? So you lost 35lbs in less than 4 months? Which is a pretty fast weight loss.

How active are you in your every day... other than your weight training? Are you using an established training program? What is your training routine? What do you do on your non training days? Are you more / less hungry on some days than others? Do you average calories over the week or go strictly on a day to day basis never exceeding a certain amount?

JagaSrik

I did increase my calories lately from 1500 to around 2100 to improve my metabolism I did feel little bloated later I planned for more activity usually hitting gym in morning and evening either swimming or playing a sport, walking more often usually after a meal...I did gain weight but it's more on muscle side than fat.. This plan helped me a lot also it depends on food you take.

bloomblythe5

Hi! Thanks for the reply, I’m moderately active I’m a student so I walk every day to get to class in general, roughly 2-3 miles of walking per day. Before I decided to take a break for my body, I was working out basically everyday so long as I had the time. A typical week with not too much homework and stuff would look like: dance 2-4 times a week for 1+ hour, on top of some kind of Pilates/resistance training almost everyday for at least 40 mins to an hour. I was also intermittent fasting and not eating before 12 and not eating after 8. (Also yes I was quite tired all the time)

Now I want to incorporate more weights but I did get fairly strong with body weight alone. But I’m still new to lifting weights so I’m starting off easy and my plan for the next few weeks was going to be 1-2 days of lifting weights for an hour and then 3 day’s of my usually body weight circuits/routines.

Even though I haven’t lost as much weight as I want I can definitely feel a big difference in strength. It is just hard when I feel it but can’t see it.

NovusDies

My theory... you have not broken your metabolism or even damaged it. I believe you have placed yourself into a high degree of physical and mental stress and your lack of recent progress is stress related water retention. You have lost weight at a high rate of speed with intense exercise that you have not fueled properly and you may not be resting enough.

I will leave the mechanics of a diet/deficit break to others that know it better than I do.

Be kinder to yourself.

NovusDies

bloomblythe5 wrote: »

Hi! Thanks for the reply, I’m moderately active I’m a student so I walk every day to get to class in general, roughly 2-3 miles of walking per day. Before I decided to take a break for my body, I was working out basically everyday so long as I had the time. A typical week with not too much homework and stuff would look like: dance 2-4 times a week for 1+ hour, on top of some kind of Pilates/resistance training almost everyday for at least 40 mins to an hour. I was also intermittent fasting and not eating before 12 and not eating after 8. (Also yes I was quite tired all the time)

Now I want to incorporate more weights but I did get fairly strong with body weight alone. But I’m still new to lifting weights so I’m starting off easy and my plan for the next few weeks was going to be 1-2 days of lifting weights for an hour and then 3 day’s of my usually body weight circuits/routines.

Even though I haven’t lost as much weight as I want I can definitely feel a big difference in strength. It is just hard when I feel it but can’t see it.

Weight training will also cause water retention.

This all sounds like a person about to burn themselves out.

Be A LOT kinder to yourself.

bloomblythe5

it could be that I wasn’t restricting calories enough to damage my metabolism but there were two signs that made me decide I might have messed with my metabolism when I was researching. 1) I have been stuck at the same weight for ages 2) for a couple of months my hair had been falling out in abnormal amounts for me. Not to the extent of bald patches but definitely enough that I noticed and got worried. I know hair falls out a lot so I brushed it off for a while but this was seriously adnormal amounts of hair loss. I could run my fingers through my hair for 20 minutes straight and I’d still endlessly pull over 5 strands out with each brush ):

naomi8888

Google "Holly Baxter reverse dieting". She and her husband Dr Layne Norton have published lots of info on this.

NovusDies

bloomblythe5 wrote: »

it could be that I wasn’t restricting calories enough to damage my metabolism but there were two signs that made me decide I might have messed with my metabolism when I was researching. 1) I have been stuck at the same weight for ages 2) for a couple of months my hair had been falling out in abnormal amounts for me. Not to the extent of bald patches but definitely enough that I noticed and got worried. I know hair falls out a lot so I brushed it off for a while but this was seriously adnormal amounts of hair loss. I could run my fingers through my hair for 20 minutes straight and I’d still endlessly pull over 5 strands out with each brush ):

Hair loss is indicative of eating too few calories.

You should probably see a doctor. I am not knowledgeable enough on this subject to offer any advice on how to increase your calories. I have read, not sure if it is true, it could be problematic to raise them too fast. You may also need an extended period at maintenance.

You can be stuck at the same bathroom scale weight for a prolonged period of time and still be losing fat and in your case lbm like muscle. There is no way your BMR dropped low enough for you to be eating 1400 calories and doing all that exercise and be at maintenance level calories.

heybales

I wouldn't even wait 2 weeks to raise by 100 extra daily.

Think of it this way - even if that 100 extra happened to be truly above and beyond your daily burn (on average) it would take you 35 days to slowly gain 1 lb of fat.
Reread that.

Any other weight changes would be mere water weight.

And actually with good resistance training it wouldn't even be all fat.

I'd do it each week, increase by 100 until eating at maintenance. Or best estimate of maintenance.

Your workouts will probably start becoming so much better than you can even realize right now. Because you are in a terrible state for getting a good workout. Oh sure you may be pushing yourself as hard as you can.
For the state you are in. But it's not hard enough to ask the body to actually improve, mere to stay stressed combined with that eating level.

Damaged metabolism - no. Body adapted as best it could for the craziness it was dealing with - sure.

Since you are keeping yourself active, you probably also aren't aware of other ways your body has slowed you down. You are aware of the stop growing hair aspect, perhaps nails too. But other ways.
And you start eating more you'll move in extra ways you may not even notice at first.

I agree too that the 1400 you think you are eating isn't an accurate count. You are eating some amount more from inaccuracy.
But don't be foolish and attempt to start eating an accurate 1400 thinking that is solution.
Yes, if you keep eating less and less eventually you'll start losing again - and not just fat weight.
Body will be so stressed out workouts probably would take a noticeable turn worse - if not the body just breaking in some way to get the recovery it probably wants.

Is this one of the studies you found?
Notice recovery from adapted state can take months. But perhaps your being active with exercise will help.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/heybales/view/reduced-metabolism-tdee-beyond-expected-from-weight-loss-616251

I'd really put off the time based weight loss goal.
Will you be weighed at this dance performance and put into a weight class?
Or are you wanting to appear to be lighter?

Many discover doing a good strength training program they start looking slimmer than their weight would indicate merely from the way they carry themselves, and how stronger muscles and some fat loss improves things. (hate to say it - toning - ugh)

But it sounds like you may take a good program and attempt to add more body weight training circuit or whatever merely to do more.
Ditto's to be kinder to yourself.

Talan79

I was also going to say look up Holly Baxter. She has a YouTube channel & does reverse diets after she competes for bodybuilding. Her calories dip under 1200 and she reverses back into 2000+.

spiriteagle99

With the lack of weight loss, hair loss and lack of energy, it might be a good idea to go to the doctor and get a thyroid panel done. Low thyroid can cause all the above.

kshama2001

bloomblythe5 wrote: »

it could be that I wasn’t restricting calories enough to damage my metabolism but there were two signs that made me decide I might have messed with my metabolism when I was researching. 1) I have been stuck at the same weight for ages 2) for a couple of months my hair had been falling out in abnormal amounts for me. Not to the extent of bald patches but definitely enough that I noticed and got worried. I know hair falls out a lot so I brushed it off for a while but this was seriously adnormal amounts of hair loss. I could run my fingers through my hair for 20 minutes straight and I’d still endlessly pull over 5 strands out with each brush ):

Sounds like when you lost the 35 pounds from last summer to (?) you were undereating, which can cause hair loss a few months later.

It's extremely unlikely that your metabolism is broken, but do see your doctor and get tested for deficiencies such as iron. When my anemia is untreated, I have hair loss and crippling fatigue.

This sounds like a very stressful time for you right now, and stress can increase cortisol, which can lead to water retention.

I myself gained 7 pounds of water weight when I started weight lifting again a few years back, but thanks to this forum I didn't freak out about it, continued what I was doing, and it all, plus more, came off over the next few weeks.

Also, there are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

ElizabethKalmbach

spiriteagle99 wrote: »

With the lack of weight loss, hair loss and lack of energy, it might be a good idea to go to the doctor and get a thyroid panel done. Low thyroid can cause all the above.

Not just thyroid, but also iron. Female athletes tend to wind up with anemia more often than expected, even with a very well balanced diet, and anemia has very similar symptoms to low thyroid... I've had both, and honestly, the persistent anemia headache aside, I couldn't tell the difference without a blood panel.

thescouselander77

What are you doing re your resistance training exactly? I doubt it's going to be that intense if you're working out at home unless you have a full gym available.

I'd recommend checking out Mark Riptoe's Starting Strength program and start doing that at a fully equipped gym. You'll quickly be lifting weights you'd never dreamed of and intensity will have a new meaning. The book is available very cheaply on Kindle and there's loads of videos on YouTube. If you follow the program or something similar without missing anything you might find the problem will be how to eat enough to keep up.