Is 700 calories Sufficient???

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  • Roszepoo
    Roszepoo Posts: 46
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    Clarification-the question you asked was if 700 cals was enough. I did not see a question about how to incorporate more cals. Most people addressed your actual question. Beacuse we care.
  • gailosborne
    gailosborne Posts: 435
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    Hello :-)
    Try juicing some of your vegetables - you will be able to consume more that way. I would also go with adding avocado, olives, seeds and and some nuts. I like sprouting seeds sprinkled on salads too, as well a home made hummus. X
  • Katone86
    Katone86 Posts: 15
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    To add more nutrition and calories to your diet eat more nuts,bananas,mangos,chia seeds,avocados,squashs,zuchini. Its good that youre trying to keep track of what you're putting into your body but at this point you need to put more into your body especially if you're exercising allot. and I know its very hard so im not going to critisize you or try and make you feel bad. You need to encorporate the higher calorie veggies/natural foods into your diet...try to set a goal to at least getting 1000 calories to start with. I am a raw vegan and I love cashews and chia seeds...I highly recommend the chia seeds they are high in omega 3,protien,fiber,vitamins. etc and you dont have to eat a tremendous amount of them to add some healthy calories in there.
  • suzycreamcheese
    suzycreamcheese Posts: 1,766 Member
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    Starvation mode is not an opinion-it is a medical fact. I did not understand this until I took anatomy and physiology as a college course. Under 1200 is starvation mode. Look it up. This is in reply to the person who said that starvation mode was stretching things for this young lady. Medically, she is in starvation mode.

    err no it isnt. Its half your recommended daily intake, which for most women would actually be around 1000, maybe slightly less.
    Itd be 1200 for the average man, but where starvation mode actually happens, would vary from person to person, and if someone is eating healthy foods regularly, isnt hungry, has lots of energy and is feeling no ill effects, then shes probably not starving herself, and is certainly more healthy and probably knowledgable about health than the majority of people who are here because they ate too many mars bars and cake. People get WAY too cross with skinny people and think its their duty to stick their nose in, but in actual fact, eating sparingly has been proven to aid longevity.
    The MFP is a good weightloss aid when youre big to start with, but it ISNT exact science. It gives you 1200 as your base whether youre a 4ft 11 or 6 ft. Her metabolic rate is probably lower than yours for sure from eating like that her whole life, but thats only going to be a problem if she starts eating a much larger amount, and she specifically mentioned that she didnt want to gain weight, which is her prerogative. If she was actually not eating and not attempting to nourish herself thats one thing, but i really dont see that being the case here. Could probably do with putting on a few pounds, but thats not my choice to make, and a lot of people do actually like the slightly underweight look, and noone goes mental at people if theyre happy with being a few pounds overweight do they?

    this is one of the things that pisses me off about this forum. Its one thing giving support to people who feel theyve got an ED and want help and support, but its another to attack people and insist theyre mentally ill or something when theyre happy and healthy, just a bit thin. And of course, im not saying she shouldnt eat more, because i personally think she should, but there are ways and means of saying thngs,.
  • Katone86
    Katone86 Posts: 15
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    Please be kind to her...she came on here for advice obviously so if your advice is that she needs more calories advise her on how to get more calories on a raw vegan diet. If not then leave her alone :(
  • Roszepoo
    Roszepoo Posts: 46
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    Starvation mode is not an opinion-it is a medical fact. I did not understand this until I took anatomy and physiology as a college course. Under 1200 is starvation mode. Look it up. This is in reply to the person who said that starvation mode was stretching things for this young lady. Medically, she is in starvation mode.

    err no it isnt. Its half your recommended daily intake, which for most women would actually be around 1000, maybe slightly less.
    Itd be 1200 for the average man, but where starvation mode actually happens, would vary from person to person, and if someone is eating healthy foods regularly, isnt hungry, has lots of energy and is feeling no ill effects, then shes probably not starving herself, and is certainly more healthy and probably knowledgable about health than the majority of people who are here because they ate too many mars bars and cake. People get WAY too cross with skinny people and think its their duty to stick their nose in, but in actual fact, eating sparingly has been proven to aid longevity.
    The MFP is a good weightloss aid when youre big to start with, but it ISNT exact science. It gives you 1200 as your base whether youre a 4ft 11 or 6 ft. Her metabolic rate is probably lower than yours for sure from eating like that her whole life, but thats only going to be a problem if she starts eating a much larger amount, and she specifically mentioned that she didnt want to gain weight, which is her prerogative. If she was actually not eating and not attempting to nourish herself thats one thing, but i really dont see that being the case here. Could probably do with putting on a few pounds, but thats not my choice to make, and a lot of people do actually like the slightly underweight look, and noone goes mental at people if theyre happy with being a few pounds overweight do they?

    this is one of the things that pisses me off about this forum. Its one thing giving support to people who feel theyve got an ED and want help and support, but its another to attack people and insist theyre mentally ill or something when theyre happy and healthy, just a bit thin. And of course, im not saying she shouldnt eat more, because i personally think she should, but there are ways and means of saying thngs,.

    Can you cite your sources?
  • warren75
    warren75 Posts: 4
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    I know that everyone has their own opinion. I also know that criticism is most of the time hard to accept, but you asked for it. So my advice to you is, stop being so defensive....think about what has been said. Say thank you and go on with your life. We should never ever get to a place in our minds where nothing can get through. Be open-minded!

    In asking for a response you will receive things you want to hear, don't want to hear, and things that hurt you to your core; but in the end you will actually be the one who decides your own fate. We always give our children the information we think will be best for them, and yet we as adults fail to accept what is given to us for our good.

    If your mind is so set that you are right, then 9 out of 10 you're wrong. It won't hurt you to try my dear and if you don't like it or decide its not for you try something else. Don't get stuck in that one mind-set!
  • kdiamond
    kdiamond Posts: 3,329 Member
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    I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to say your body is in starvation mode, but it's likely that your metabolism has slowed down quite a bit to compensate for your low calorie intake. If you were to up your calorie count now, you'd obviously gain weight, but over time your metabolism would pick up and regulate so your weight would go back down again. I'd imagine with the amount of calories you're eating now it would be difficult to gain/tone muscles. o:

    Exactly this. I wrecked my body for a time by eating low calories. It took a year to come out of it and get healthy, so please take the right steps in making yourself healthy! I thought I liked myself thin (I was 100 pounds at one point) but I think I look so much better at 110 with muscle. Plus you can't build muscle without eating so if you would like to build some you need to eat over maintenance. :)
  • kapeluza
    kapeluza Posts: 3,434 Member
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    On a daily basis i only eat around 700 calories a day, I dont eat meat and try and stick with soy products.
    I dont feel that my body needs to eat anymore than this, i feel full throughout the day and im not lacking in energy. I spend most of my day sitting down at a desk and then i do 30 mins of high intensity cardio or wieghts every night and pilates on a weekend.. I also do not eat back the calories i have burnt.

    On weekends i probably eat abit more than this, maybe around 800-1000 cals

    After reading through alot of posts the whole idea of my body going into 'stavation mode' and everyone preaching about never eating under 1200 calories has freaked me out.
    I dont want to eat anymore than this as im scared of gaining weight.
    But is this a suffcient amount of food to eat?

    I weigh 46 kgs and im 5'5
    thank you
    :)


    Is this a joke?
  • LorinaLynn
    LorinaLynn Posts: 13,247 Member
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    Most of my MEALS are about 700 calories. I can't imagine eating that little in one day.

    Here's the thing about anorexia. And I'm not talking the mental part of it, the physical part of it. The less you eat, the less your brain thinks you need to eat. It even happens in dogs and cats, and they're certainly not concerned about their weight. They go off their food for whatever reason - maybe an abscessed tooth, or an upset stomach from a virus or parasite, or sometimes dementia - and they will literally starve themselves because the switch in their brain that tells them they're hungry stops working.

    To be honest, it happened to my Mom, and it's hard to talk about. She had some health problems, including mild diabetes. And those, and the medications for those, caused a lack of appetite. She wasn't trying to lose weight. She just wasn't hungry. She lost 40 pounds in a few month's time, and with it, became mentally unstable. We're not really sure what the timetable was on any of it, but she ended up with vasculitis, sepsis, MRSA, aspergilosis, heart failure, kidney failure, blood infections, a collapsed lung... you name it. After four months of hospitalization, we had to make the decision to take her off life support.

    She was 73 years old, but prior to this, she was strong as an ox. And stubborn as one. She would walk the dog for miles. Put in heavy window air conditioning units herself, or shovel the sidewalks, because she was afraid that it would bother my father's heart problems.

    And I can't help but think if we caught her disordered eating on time... if she was physically stronger from better nutrients... she would have been able to fight off those infections.

    Don't make someone else in your life have to make the choice we had to make. You're not eating enough. You're hurting yourself.
  • lovejoydavid
    lovejoydavid Posts: 395 Member
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    If you stand by your stance that you need 1200 JUST for brain function......can I ask how many you consume in a day? How many calories do you have to add to that 1200 to support your circulatory system? Your muscles? Your endocrine system? Your digestive system?..................seems like if we go by your stance, humans would need thousands and thousands a day.

    While I'm a little confused as to why I'm the one being interrogated here, I'll humour this.

    The human body evolved so that the body itself does NOT need too many calories to function unless there is a sincere increase in muscle, in which case, THAT needs more calories as well. For example, as a college student, I only need between 1400-1600 cals per day. My fiance, on the other hand, is a fitness buff and needs to be physically fit for his job...but he only needs about 2000 per day. This is only a 500 calorie difference in total, which goes to show what the body alone can cope with.

    We evolved to be runners - running a ridiculous amount to catch prey, but at the same time, that prey would have been large, such as gazelle-ish creatures. When the brain got to the size it is now, our ancestors had to start farming animals or start hunting LARGE predators to feed their families. They needed larger animals to support the larger amount of calories that it needed to use the brain.

    Here's another way of looking at it - a chimpanzee can survive on very little protein (termites or other chimpanzees from rival groups) and they mostly live on plants. Their brains are 1/4 of what ours is, which means that they only need 1/4 of the calories. Meanwhile, look at how much they move. About as much as, say, I would on a daily basis. Which isn't much. Maybe running once in a while to catch something, or to migrate, but they really don't eat much because their brains aren't demanding it of them.

    (You can believe in evolution or not, this is just a comparison between similar creatures to prove a point)

    Humans NEED the calories for their brains, but not much for the rest of the body to function. It's a beautiful system, really. Most of our calories go to our brains, where the rest is divided up between all of the systems you mentioned, and more (like the sodium/potassium synapse or the movement of calcium in and out of our bones depending on what the body requires) It's very efficient, if given the proper nutrients.

    At the same time, it depends on the activity level of the person. If there is a lot of muscle on someone, they need more calories just to feed that muscle.

    Summary - if we realize and accept the premise that the body requires a minimum of 1200 calories per day (personally, I say 1500, but that's just my personal opinion) and that it requires nutrients such as carbohydrates and protein, then this active female SHOULD be eating a MINIMUM of 1500 per day. MINIMUM. Again, my personal opinion is that it should be up somewhere around the 2000 mark, but that's for her nutritionist and doctor to decide.
    I think, perhaps, that people felt that you were stating that the metabolic needs of the brain alone were 1200 kcal, rather than the body needing 1200 kcal to support the metabolic demands of the brain. Imaging studies indicate that the brain uptakes approximately 20% of the bodies oxygen, and as kcal use is directly proportional to oxygen consumption (RMR testing is based on oxygen uptake) that is about what the brain uses as a percentage of our calories. This is mostly in straight glucose, though the brain does have an unknown amount of glycogen stores.
  • exercisarah
    exercisarah Posts: 37
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    i used to be just like you. it's so unhealthy, and yes, you may feel full, but that's only because your metabolism has slowed wayyyy down. You probably don't think you're in starvation mode, but chance are that you are. Once you start eating a healthy amount, to answer your question, YES, you'll gain the weight back, and you'll gain it back fast because your body will be scared you're not going to feed it that much again. continuing to eat that way is very hard to do, and after a while, I just stopped losing weight and even started gaining eating that little. I don't know how, but it happened to me. It's not worth it. You're better off to increase your calories back to at least 1200, accept the fact that you'll gain the weight back, but keep exercising. I gained the weight back, but I still fit into the same clothes i did at my low weight because I remained doing strength training and cardio. This won't be an easy journey in ANY way. your mind is going to continue playing tricks on you, but it's not worth it. I've been there & done that
  • Schwiggity
    Schwiggity Posts: 1,449 Member
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    As said before a healthy way to gain weight is by eating calorically and nutritionally dense foods. Often good fats help such as nuts/olive oil/avocados can help with this. If you're not eating meat because of health or personal/moral reasons, then that's fine, but if you don't have anything against eating meat, it would be a good way of incorporating more protein into your diet.
  • crdav13
    crdav13 Posts: 53 Member
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    My comment is not really on what your consuming or anything, but I think it does need to be said. In society most ppl would never be so rude as to comment on a person's weight saying you a fat *kitten*, hippo, or anything equally as inappropriate - its mean, and it hurts people's feelings. As someone who *used to* have a crazy metabolism and eat everything in sight but was 5'7 and 115 pounds I never quite understood why people thought it was ok to comment on my weight in a negative manner and assume I had an eating disorder. As I have gotten older my metabolism has slowed and I do need to reevaluate my eating habits and learn how to eat healthy instead of shoving pizza in my face at 3 am like I did when I was a college student. But one thing I learned even as a child is if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. Its just as bad to be mean to someone for being overweight as it is to be mean to someone who is underweight.
  • Thriceshy
    Thriceshy Posts: 707 Member
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    My comment is not really on what your consuming or anything, but I think it does need to be said. In society most ppl would never be so rude as to comment on a person's weight saying you a fat *kitten*, hippo, or anything equally as inappropriate - its mean, and it hurts people's feelings. As someone who *used to* have a crazy metabolism and eat everything in sight but was 5'7 and 115 pounds I never quite understood why people thought it was ok to comment on my weight in a negative manner and assume I had an eating disorder. As I have gotten older my metabolism has slowed and I do need to reevaluate my eating habits and learn how to eat healthy instead of shoving pizza in my face at 3 am like I did when I was a college student. But one thing I learned even as a child is if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. Its just as bad to be mean to someone for being overweight as it is to be mean to someone who is underweight.

    Have to disagree, strongly. I don't think anyone said anything "mean," and I know that intentions were not bad. Unless I missed something, folks weren't here to taunt, torture, or otherwise ridicule or punish for appearance. People are concerned for the OP's health, and rightfully so--someone eating 700 (or 500) calories a day is a far cry from the personal situation you describe. This isn't a case of a "crazy metabolism," this is a case of near-starvation. Even more importantly, none of this was a case of people pouncing on a stranger and making disparaging comments about appearance for amusement's sake or for the joy of being rude. The OP put this out there on a public message forum, soliciting feedback. BIG difference. You know what they say--if you don't want to hear honest answers, don't ask the question. I'm glad she did ask the question, and I hope she seeks help to find a way to eat in a more healthy manner.

    Her eating is unhealthy, she asked for feedback on a public forum, and she got replies. Do have to say that, almost invariably, admonishing folks to keep quiet if they don't have anything nice to say is not nice.

    Kris
  • Mybetterme
    Mybetterme Posts: 80 Member
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    I would discuss this with your MD. Sounds like a professional should be assisting you. If this is healthy for you I would discuss it with a DR. and or some other professional with the proper credentials to make sure you get enough vitamins because it has to be hard on 700 calories even raw. If you want to live a long healthy life consult a Dr. If you can find a DR that says different please have them post some scientific evidence for all of us. So that we can understand.
  • i_love_vinegar
    i_love_vinegar Posts: 2,092 Member
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    geeze, a lot of rude comments. I think you are really pretty, and a perfect weight for your height! :smile:

    I suggest just upping your calories a bit more per day overtime...because 700 calories is for someone who is losing weight...Generally speaking, 1,200 calories or less per day is for diets to get to the double digits (even then, only goes as low as 1,000 calories...like if reaching a goal of 82 pounds, 1000 calories per day is what you need to get there...to maintain at ~100 pounds would be 1,500 calories per day).

    I hope this helps!!!
  • hyenagirl
    hyenagirl Posts: 206 Member
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    I'd eat some protein shakes (hemp to stay with in your raw food parameters) and nuts (again, raw foods). You'd get more protein and not too many evil carbs. Your body doesn't need carbs to stay alive if you eat plenty of meat and animal fat. Your brain is perfectly capable of running off nutrients that your mitochondria processed from fat and proteins. I would suggest eating meat though, start with fish and slowly work up to red. Meat contains glutamate which is what you brain REALLY needs to function. Increased glutamate means increased folds in your brain, more memory storage and faster processing. This is not to be confused with mono-sodium glutamate which is toxic to the brain.

    I always try to stay under 1200 calories a day, but I have PLENTY of fat left on my body. Go look at my embarrassing pictures, plenty o' gold left. If a person 5'5" would eat more than 1200 calories on vegetables, they'd need quite a few pounds a day. Who can eat that much? I'm a large girl but my stomach would actually explode if I ate that much (your stomach does explode if you eat over 4 liters in volume). If people feel great eating 700 calories a day from fruits and vegetables, then let them eat cake :)

    My two favorite carbs to eat though are Basmati rice and Sweet Potatoes. Sweet Potatoes (under broccoli) is the best vegetable you can eat for brain development. Walnuts come in third. You can privately message me and I'll gladly procure my sources for information.
  • LauraMarie37
    LauraMarie37 Posts: 283 Member
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    geeze, a lot of rude comments. I think you are really pretty, and a perfect weight for your height! :smile:

    I suggest just upping your calories a bit more per day overtime...because 700 calories is for someone who is losing weight...Generally speaking, 1,200 calories or less per day is for diets to get to the double digits (even then, only goes as low as 1,000 calories...like if reaching a goal of 82 pounds, 1000 calories per day is what you need to get there...to maintain at ~100 pounds would be 1,500 calories per day).

    I hope this helps!!!

    I_love_vinegar, your sig says you are trying to have a final weight of 85-90 pounds. Unless you are REALLY short (like 4'9" or 4'10"), I think many people here would also see that as a sign of having an unhealthy body image and would also suggest similar things to you as they have to the OP. I don't think anyone is trying to be rude. I think instead (1) many people take the "community" aspect of MFP very seriously and really do care about the health of other posters and (2) a good number of people on MFP are recovering from eating disorders, and posts like this serve as negative triggers unless they are countered with responses based more on mental, nutritional, and physical health.

    Hyenagirl, I think it's very possible that you are eating less than 1200 and still have fat on your body - maybe aren't even losing weight. Many of us were in the same position until we started eating MORE - which got us out of starvation mode and into a healthy deficit. Then we magically started losing weight much more quickly!
  • Schwiggity
    Schwiggity Posts: 1,449 Member
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    geeze, a lot of rude comments. I think you are really pretty, and a perfect weight for your height! :smile:

    I suggest just upping your calories a bit more per day overtime...because 700 calories is for someone who is losing weight...Generally speaking, 1,200 calories or less per day is for diets to get to the double digits (even then, only goes as low as 1,000 calories...like if reaching a goal of 82 pounds, 1000 calories per day is what you need to get there...to maintain at ~100 pounds would be 1,500 calories per day).

    I hope this helps!!!

    I_love_vinegar, your sig says you are trying to have a final weight of 85-90 pounds. Unless you are REALLY short (like 4'9" or 4'10"), I think many people here would also see that as a sign of having an unhealthy body image and would also suggest similar things to you as they have to the OP.

    Yeah she is....

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