1000 calories or less a day

Thank you for writing this. It is the truth. I had a similar experience, I lost about 40lb by starving myself. Yes the pounds on the scales go down so you feel great about your "success". Everyone congratulates you. Your starvation is reinforced, you ignore your hunger, or even start to enjoy it.

When I was finished losing weight, I was left with an eating disorder, a horrible metabolism, and a distorted body image. My therapist isn't cheap, either.

It's such a slippery slope to become obsessed with measurements - calories, pounds, inches. I hope people will read your post and understand that obsession is a sign of illness, it's not success. Please be very careful, your mental health is just as important.

Perhaps. It's also a cold hard fact that the majority of people, even with measuring underestimate their calories by approximately 20%. Look it up. I'm sure you'll find it somewhere.

I ate junk in highschool, but I kept my calorie count low....800 calories approximately, per day. I was also on Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers and followed their diets for several months to a "t' and gained. So who's right?

Hey there.

Wanna know why you gained on 800 calories a day? Why you gain every time you eat a normal diet of 1500 calories?

Read this:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/3047-700-calories-a-day-and-not-losing

I didn't gain on 800. On 800 calories a day (approx) I lost weight. I lost well over 30 lbs.

Unfortunately, you also lost a lot of precious muscle that is very difficult to rebuild. If you had lost at higher calories, even if it had taken you longer to lose, you would have maintained a lot more muscle and lost a lot more actual fat. I hope you read through some of the stories in this discussion so that the awful ramifications of very low calorie eating sinks in. There are people reporting that they developed eating disorders, body image problems, damaged metabolisms and other problems that typically accompany prolonged eating at that level. Best wishes.

Thank you, just thank you xx

"Everyone congratulates you. Your starvation is reinforced, you ignore your hunger, or even start to enjoy it." EXACTLY. That was a big part of the problem.

And I'm being careful. This is my second day of over 1100 (felt a bit grumpy drinking my milk to push it up a bit, but actually I liked it). Got some goals together, going to slowly increase it. People have been so supportive, it's really helped a lot

I agree the worst thing you can do is reinforce those eatting habbits thats what turned me to annorexia, and I was getting praised for it, only my bf said It wasnt good.

bump

unfortunatly its not how you feel today on a 900 cal a day diet but how you feel in ten years. They affects are not seen for many years. If you truely feel you cannot eat more than 900 cals go to a doctor and a nutritionist, make sure what you are doing is healthy. An extra 10 lbs isnt the end sompared to what can happen to your body if its under nurished (took me 15 yeaars to learn and believe this). I am not judging your saying what your doing IS wrong just asking you make sure it is in deed healthy

I can see why a lot of people are getting defensive on both sides, but heres the thing, plugging your ears and yelling "LALALA IM RIGHT YOU"RE WRONG END OF STORY!" isn't going to help anyone. I was 16 when I started a VLC diet, well I shouldn't say diet, I just didnt want to eat. Even when I started out at 140lbs my family (all overweight besides my mother) insisted I should eat more and more and more and that I was too skinny. Guess what, it didnt make me what to eat more, it pissed me off and I went on a VLC diet because I didn't want to end up fat like them. I ate maybe 800-900 calories a day, 1000-1100 calories if I was forced to eat a fatty dinner with the family. I was dizzy constantly, my vision was constantly blacking out around the edges and I could have cared less because I was going to prove I could eat way less that my family and still be okay.

Well I did, I lost weight till I was about 105lbs, eventually I ended up going to school, eating horribly unhealthy and greasy lunch, going home, doing my homework eating 1-2 100 cal snack packs and then sleeping the rest of the day. I spent a total of 9 hours awake a day. I felt okay, my vision slowly returned to normal, I stopped getting dizzy, and then all of a sudden when I was expected to get a job I crashed. I literally passed out walking down the street to a job interview, my vision was constantly black around the edges and my mother was begging me to eat more again. Which I have to be incredibly thankful about. I could have killed myself being stubborn and not caring about my health. My point is, it wasn't until my mother stopped telling me to eat more and nagging me and yelling at me and started telling me how worried she was about me, how sick I looked, how scared she was that I listened. You can yell and say these diets are terrible and you are stupid for doing them, it wont help. You need support and people who care about you to help you out of unhealthy habits.
My fiance of two years keeps my weight at a generally acceptable level. Even now when I eat normally, I still weight about 110-115lbs max, I dont feel sick anymore but I do have to be careful and rely a lot on my fiance to know whats best for me because I honestly cant tell hunger anymore. I eat about 1500 calories to roughly 2000 calories on days when we buy chips and soda I still havent even gained a pound.
So for all the people here putting others down regardless of whos side your on, just stop, it doesnt help anyone and just makes you look like a jerk.

I remember reading an interview with a supermodel, sorry cant remember her name, she is still alive, was big during the reign of Naomi cambell, Linda evangelist, when George micheal did his freedom video. Anyway she lived off some insanely low calorie "diet" for many years of her career. Then after retireing she started eating a little more, and suffered I think 3 heart attacks. Didn't even know she had had the 1st one till a few days later too. Well come to find out her diet for so long had caused horrible damage to her heart. So many years later her bad lifestyle choices were literally killing her.

When I was 18 I went through a bout of ocd and started restricting my calories to about 800 cal a day. I wanted so bad to be thin and thought that food was the enemy. I was 275lbs then and I lost weight quick! I felt fine and I was never hungry, I even worked out 7 days a week. I did this for 3 years and ended up in the hospital. I looked sick, my hair was thinning, my blood sugar all messed up and come to find out I had done permanent damage to my heart, the funny thing is I never felt sick I just all of sudden started having this weird tightness in my chest when I worked out. I was on heart meds for 2 years, but I was completely motivated to get healthy the right way. I have been able to turn my health around even to my doctors surprise. I am only on a bp med now and at the lowest dose hopefully I will get to the point I can control it with diet and exercise alone. I will always have a higher risk for heart attacks and a list of other heart conditions all because I fooled myself into believing science didn't apply to me. I thought I was fooling my body....

ETA: I also still don't ever really feel hungry and i think hunger is a bad measure of the bodies need for food. I have also worked my way up to maintenance calories and since my husband keeps a close eye on my food intake I haven't fell of the wagon yet.

Great post!

My own story is so much like this. I love that you have the courage to share on here, because it's sometimes hard to talk about honestly and calmly, at least for me.

My mom always drummed into me, don't go over a thousand, right from the time I was 3 or 4. Her adoptive mother bullied her for being fat (I just last month saw my first ever photo of mom as a kid - she's very slim) so she grew up terrified of eating too much, and passed that onto me. I've been on one diet or another since I was five. Within a year of starting the first diet I was overweight and it's continued ever since. In school I seesawed between keeping my calories in the 800-1000 range, and eating what I wanted. Most of the time I'd be "good" - I was an obedient kid; had to be with a sick, sad mom - but I'd go through rebellious phases that lasted from a few weeks to a month, where I'd eat the same as my friends at school - which still probably only made it 1500 a day - and during each of these phases I gained between 5 and 10lbs, which then wouldn't come off once I started eating "good" food again.

Sometimes you get an idea stuck in your head and even when you're faced with tons of information that indicates it's incorrect, you can't seem to shake it. It's like that with me and calories now. I'm eating the amount that MFP tells me to eat (well, usually with a deficit of around 500 a day, although I have had days when my deficit is 1000 or more) but the guilt is tremendous. Everything inside me says that this is wrong. I do seem to have more energy, although I won't know if I'm losing (or gaining!) weight until I buy a set of scales.

I guess sometimes you need to listen to your head, because your instincts mislead you. Usually I advocate going with your gut, but in the case of eating disorders, if you listen to your instincts you don't get better.

I wish you all the luck and strength in the world. It's so wonderful to see you sharing your story here.

thanks for sharing!

I've been trying to consume 1000 calories thinking I'd lose weight far quicker. After reading your post and the replies, I'm going to up my calories in hopes of reaching a long term healthy weight. Thanks so much!

Thanks for that post; it's a good reminder not to go crazy with this. I've lost almost 20 pounds in the last two months without a crash diet.

hi thanks for telling your story. i read it all and i figure if you help jus one person it was worth your time posting. sometimes not very often but sometimes ive been tempted to lower calories to an unsafe level but after reading your story it really makes you think and i know to do it the right way and stick to that. thankyou and good luck take it one day at a time

Been there, I'm you! Except my issue was 1200 calories. I exercised at LEAST an hour EVERY SINGLE DAY (all while working 80 hrs a week) usually aiming to burn around 1,000 calories. Never "ate back" calories. Anyone who tried to explain the science behind what was wrong with that couldn't get through. You couldn't argue with my facts- I lost about 100 pounds. I figured, we're all different, and this is what worked for me. Except, it didn't. Eventually, I binged. When the scale didn't move for a few weeks (body holding ont fat because you aren't nourishing it properly = "plateau" I'd binge which would cause massive and swift weight gain (metabolism was damaged and trying to overcompensate) and the vicious cycle would go on....

In addition to being down 100+ pounds I had low muscle tone, deflated boobs and loose skin.

I'm not going to try to change anybody's mind about how many calories they should eat but I sure am glad that I can see where I went wrong and that now I am eating 400-800 MORE calories a day and STILL losing WHILE maintaining AND building muscle that was never there before. I'm glad that the number on the scale doesn't determine my progress as my body is changing regardless of what it says as long as I am true to my goals. It's so nice to be able to have a night of Chinese food and birthday cake and not gain weight. It's great to feel strong, full when I need to be and in control of this journey of mine.

I hope everyone finds their way here.