Hiya I'm new here, and looking for support and I have a few

1080 is too low for anyone and 500 is really bad for you....you're really malnutritioned at that....try to keep some snacks with you...100 calorie single serving bags of almonds, bananas, apples, protein shakes...just some ideas. Good luck

that is WAY to low... here's a great website to use to calculate what your calorie intake should be, it's really easy to use. Tells you what to eat to get to the weight you want.

http://nutrition.about.com/library/bl_nutrition_guide.htm

When you eat anything less than 1200 calories you're in danger of doing major damage to your body. On top of the danger, you're just sending you body into shock and its holding onto all 500-1080 calories you are feeding it, so you're doing the opposite of what you're wanting. You have to eat frequently to loose weight. 5-6 meals a day.

And STAY AWAY from all PROCESSED food! make your own healthy snacks. Nuts, apples, I always carry these in my purse with a bottle of water!

Those amounts are very low. Your body needs around 1200 calories a day just to keep going. So if you're only taking in about 1000 and burning off even more than that, your metabolism must be quite slow. Your body will go into 'starvation mode' and start storing all the calories it can, which is why you can eat very little and experience weight gain.

My advice would be to take a look at the canada food guide and get some well balanced meals into you! I've been to university, so I know what cafeteria food (particularly bad in my case) and the busy schedule is like. If you can pre-make some dinners, and have snacks such as vegetables on hand (a baggie of carrot sticks or grapes fits well in any purse or bookbag), it will really help to keep your meals organized. Ziplock containers (or the like) will be your best friend.

Ok feel free to ignore me here, just giving you some unsolicited advice. These are the basics, most doctors and nutritionists will tell you the same thing;

In order to get started effectively, you're going to need to bring your metabolism back up. Try eating six small meals a day (Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, supper, snack). This means you're eating more often, so keep your meals smaller than usual to avoid over eating. It might even be difficult at first because it's more food when you're so used to eating very little, but I promise it works. As I said, snacks are easy to do - a baggie of veggies or fruits, or a yogurt and 1/2 banana or the like. Very portable things. If six meals is too much to handle, try eating at least every four hours. This should help your metabolism as well.

At first you're going to feel pretty full, and probably retain water, as you haven't been eating enough, but drinking lots of water (not sugary juice!) will help eliminate this in a week or so. Within a week you should start feeling more energy and more balanced.

A personal tip: I find that eating a banana or drinking tea (chamomile is a good one) helps with most cravings, should they arise.