Calorie intake

alison8656

I exercise quite a lot and am given extra calories for it but sometimes I can be very calorie deficient as I can't eat that much as I intermittent fast and don't eat breakfast. If I am quite short on calories each day will this effect my metabolism or have a negative impact in any way?

sollyn23l2

Maybe if you do it long term. But it would also pick back up when you start eating more again.

Lietchi

How calorie deficient? Undereating can lead to muscle loss, hair loss, gallbladder issues and other health risks,... But without knowing anything about you (personal stats, activity level, calorie intake, goals, weight trend, etc.) we can't really give any specific answers.

cwolfman13

How much are you deficient and how often. Long term undereating can have pretty nasty consequences...loss of menstrual cycle, hair loss, brittle nails, etc. But again, how deficient are you? How accurate are your exercise calorie estimates. Also, maybe you shouldn't exercise so much if you can't eat to support it.

AnnPT77

If you lose weight too fast, and do that more than very briefly, you increase risks of negative health consequences (as described above), weakness/fatigue that will reduce your daily life calorie expenditure (from dragging through your day, basically - though possibly in somewhat subtle ways), and reduced athletic performance vs. what you could achieve if properly fueled.

"Too fast" varies individually. Loosely, losing more than 0.5-1% of current weight per week would be too fast, with a bias toward the lower end of that range unless under close medical supervision for deficiencies or complications.

Are bad things guaranteed to happen? Of course not. It's a question of how much risk to your health and well-being you're willing to tolerate to get thinner, faster. Personally, I'm not a fan of betting my health.