Throwing some ideas around...

Lorjon1

Many speak of EatmoreToWeighLess as a way to restore one’s metabolism. For some that means crash dieters (like me) who are trying to maintain--but they are maintaining at such a low caloric intake that it’s impossible to continue on that way. For others it means they aren’t losing any more weight at a low caloric intake and are also hoping to reset their metabolism so they can continue losing weight.

Anyways, I’ve been connecting anorexia to extreme-calorie restriction. Someone that has gone on a crash diet or restricted their caloric intake might experience several anorexia symptoms (fatigue, dizziness, low sex drive, hunger) and a lowered metabolism,but the psychology behind the anorexia is lacking. During the anorexia recovery (correct me if I am wrong), but the patients, who are at a unhealthy body weight (usually), have to overeat (eat A LOT higher than their TDEE) to gain back their weight and stabilize their metabolism. They end up gaining weight at a very high rate, yet their weight and metabolism stabilizes at a healthy weight. After recovery, they are eating at a normal level and at a healthy body weight (ie. they don’t become obese during their recovery, but settle at a target weight). In addition, I was reading about obese patients who became anorexic and then underweight. After they recovered from anorexia, they stayed at a healthy body weight, much lower than their previous, before-anorexia weight. http://www.today.com/health/200-pound-anorexic-obese-teens-risk-disorder-its-often-unrecognized-4B11216388

This can be compared to EMTWL and eating at TDEE (or more than TDEE), since in both instances, people wish to reset their metabolism so that it works normally and isn’t in starvation mode (which happens in anorexia AND in dieters). The difference is, it is people with anorexia’s goal to GAIN weight, but for people like us it is our GOAL to maintain our weight. Either way, it seems that eating above TDEE is scientifically proven to stabilize one’s metabolism eventually (seen in anorexia studies and in people like you). The downside, on the other hand, is that it is also proven to make one gain weight. People with anorexia can afford to gain that weight because they are underweight. We however, don’t wish to gain that weight. Perhaps then (at least for maintainers like me) we should seek to go under our target weight (not too much so) so that during a eating at TDEE phase (for stabilizing the metabolism), we gain but end up not much over our target weight when our metabolism is fixed.

The only problem is, we’d need to find out more about the recovery for anorexia patients. How long should we eat at TDEE (or more), according to people who have experience stabilizing anorexia patients’ weight and metabolism?

alodiaa

I suffered with anorexia and bulimia on and off for 2 years when I was younger, and have only now had it officially recognised. This is because at higher and even normal weights doctors feel there is no need to act even with a patient who is starving themself, as they cannot (at least here) be diagnosed without being underweight.

The problems I encountered (being at the time of my recovery around 138lbs) were that any food I was putting in my body made me gain weight, and whilst I did end up at a stable weight that weight was where I am now, ~162lbs. Eating disorder patients can gain anything from a little to a lot in my own experience, and I would not recommend trying the aforementioned method unless you are willing to work hard to get the pounds off again should you end up above your GW.

That's not to say it couldn't work, but I feel you would have to know your body and your own limits very, very well.

heybales

Merely eating at maintenance can start the metabolism recovery part of it.
And that's even suppressed maintenance.
Eventually have to eat more.
But it's very slow.

Many speed it up by eating slightly more than current maintenance, but still less than what potential maintenance could be.
But that just addresses the metabolism aspect.

The difference with anorexia is usually a bunch of vital organs are in a bad state too.
And just like the only way to gain muscle mass is actually eating in surplus - the only way for those organs to repair fast is having an excess to work with.
In those states, the body needs to see an normal expected amount of fat before it feels the need to spend energy repairing what is there which will then require more energy to maintain.

Here's a recent study showing the increase in metabolism in just 3 months eating at maintenance. Now, this was lab measured maintenance, not RMR, not guesses - so advantage to those resources.

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