Is it possible to eat too little?

yasminara
yasminara Posts: 247 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hey! So I know starving yourself is obviously bad, but on this site it tells me to eat 1330 calories a day, fat and so on to lose 1 lb a week. Does this mean if I'm am constantly under this number my body will start to starve and I won't lose weight anymore? I'm eating healthy and wholesome and just naturally hitting 1100-1200 a day--and when I train it reads that I only ate like 900-1100 calories. I just want to lose the weight and do it right! Thanks for the help!

Replies

  • bynonmurrayc
    bynonmurrayc Posts: 37 Member
    From my experience, no.

    Especially if you're making a deficit out of exercise, which it appears you are. Your body will go into "starvation mode" if you starve yourself significantly, or if you don't eat at the right times (e.g always eat breakfast even if it's just a couple almonds!). To be honest, I've gone through stages when I've eaten very few calories, and i never notice an adverse affect... I think the whole "starvation mode" concept really relates to people who consistently eat very, very little. The consistency is what sends a message to your body to go into starvation mode.

    In fact, one of my girlfriends whose overweight asked her doctor about how to effectively loose weight and she said that you can essentially "trick" your body by eating very few calories one day, then a normal amount the next day, then very little the next day, and so on and so forth.

    I would say try to stay around 1000 before taking into account your exercise and if you go drastically low one day, try to up your intake the next. As long as you don't make it a pattern, your body's metabolic rate shouldn't change.

    Hope this helps! :)
  • yasminara
    yasminara Posts: 247 Member
    This does help! Thank you!! :D
  • phlower
    phlower Posts: 103
    Good advice! Also, if you do need extra cals, some easy ways to add healthy ones include snacking on a handful of almonds, eating 1/4 avocado, drizzling 1tbsp of olive oil on your salad, etc. They have your monounsaturated fats and add significant calories in very small portions.
  • nadinab
    nadinab Posts: 124 Member
    My gf and I had this very same discussion today as I have been exercising quiet heavily on the weekend [fun exercise - I burned quiet a lot and really dropped below my net calories].. and we came to pretty much the same conclusion! Eat more when you have had drastic exercise but otherwise you should be okay. ;X
  • geekyjock76
    geekyjock76 Posts: 2,720 Member
    This is the threshold at which you ladies need to be concerned about if you chronically plan to assume a substantially large deficit (a large deficit is defined as anything greater than 25% below TDEE):

    30 kcal x kg of lean body mass x 5 days

    Example:
    130 lbs
    20% body fat
    47.27 kg of lean body mass

    30 kcal x 47.27 kg x 5 days = 7090 calories over 5 days

    This is the threshold at which this woman may not experience a disruption in LH pulsatility and ovarian function. If your net, or energy availability goes below this number, you do run the risk, however.

    1)Plug your numbers in and get an answer to the threshold formula above.
    2)Compare the answer with your net calories over a 5 day period.

    http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/88/1/297.full
  • elyelyse
    elyelyse Posts: 1,454 Member
    Your body will go into "starvation mode" if you starve yourself significantly, or if you don't eat at the right times (e.g always eat breakfast even if it's just a couple almonds!).

    that's a myth. there is no need to eat breakfast if you aren't hungry in the morning. you don't need to "kick start" your metabolism. many people, including myself, even experience increased hunger earlier in the day if we eat early.

    edited to add: the reason breakfast is recommended, is that for SOME people, if they don't eat breakfast, then by the time they do eat they are so hungry that they eat way too much, or the wrong foods.
  • elyelyse
    elyelyse Posts: 1,454 Member
    oops didn't mean to quote myself.
  • yasminara
    yasminara Posts: 247 Member
    Thank you! This is very helpful! I'll watch myself over the week and try not to over-obess :D
  • jenneal89
    jenneal89 Posts: 243
    Your body will go into "starvation mode" if you starve yourself significantly, or if you don't eat at the right times (e.g always eat breakfast even if it's just a couple almonds!).

    that's a myth. there is no need to eat breakfast if you aren't hungry in the morning. you don't need to "kick start" your metabolism. many people, including myself, even experience increased hunger earlier in the day if we eat early.

    edited to add: the reason breakfast is recommended, is that for SOME people, if they don't eat breakfast, then by the time they do eat they are so hungry that they eat way too much, or the wrong foods.

    But doesn't that kind of prove your point a. You eat breakfast which gets your metabolism going therefore making you hungry sooner after that. I never used to eat breakfast but since I started about 8 months ago I've felt more energetic, make better food choices throughout the day, and have lost weight. I eat a small meal every 2hrs to keep me from getting hungry and to keep blood sugar etc from dipping. That way I'm not hungry and wanting to snack as well
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    But doesn't that kind of prove your point a. You eat breakfast which gets your metabolism going therefore making you hungry sooner after that.
    If you survived the night then your metabolism is doing just fine before breakfast - that's when it would be measured in a lab .

    Eating breakfast will use a bit more energy to digest the food.

    The "hungry soon after that" thing is probably down to eating a high carb breakfast, blood sugar going up, insulin responding then blood sugar dropping low and triggering a hunger response. It's the chinese takeaway syndrome.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    2)Compare the answer with your net calories over a 5 day period.
    http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/88/1/297.full

    The emphasis being on the NET calories ie food - exercise.

    The ladies in the study expended nearly 700 calories a day of additional energy (over RMR) by doing nearly 2 hours a day of cardio at 70% of VO2max (85% HRmax).

    The TDEE of the groups was the same at about 2660 cals/day - so no "starvation mode" LOL - and they ate 1120, 1520, 2020 and 2670 cals/day to get deficits of 1500, 1100, 600 and 0 (control) respectively.

    The two groups with higher deficit showed disruption to various parameters, the 600 calorie restriction group (22.5% deficit) didn't.

    "The restricted energy availability treatments at 10, 20, and
    30 kcal/kg LBM/d reduced body weight by 2.0 +/- 0.3 kg (3.4%
    of body weight), 1.1 +/- 0.2 kg (1.8% of body weight), and 1.3 +/-
    0.3 kg (2.1% of body weight), respectively"

    So the biggest deficit produced the biggest weight loss, but the 1100 calorie deficit was no better than the 600.

    The authors conclude that typically if you eat the same you can run for 8 miles a day without affecting the menstrual cycle, but dieting and adding that amount of exercise would be disruptive.

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