Starving Yourself Isn't the Way!

You sounds just like me I have been struggling to realize this same thing for months.. its either an overeat, or starvation problem I suffer from.. when I was younger I too had an eating disorder.. and it has taken its toll now that I am older..

Good luck on your endevour!

YEP this is me! This is the first time in my life when I eat a solid three meals a day..and it is stange and scarey. Eating less that 500 cals a day always worked! but my 28 year old body is no longer playing along. Im attempting to repair my metabolisim, all the while being scared ****less that Ill blow up like a balloon.

You're right. Starving yourself isn't the way. But you should be eating way more than a 1200 calorie minimum - at least 1600, but very likely quite a bit more than that, being that you're a male and claiming to be 18 years old.

For the record, I'm 31, 5'11"... 230-233lbs (down 100+), and I've eaten 2400+ (currently aiming for 2700) every day.

You're right. Starving yourself isn't the way. But you should be eating way more than a 1200 calorie minimum - at least 1600, but very likely quite a bit more than that, being that you're a male and claiming to be 18 years old.

For the record, I'm 31, 5'11"... 230-233lbs (down 100+), and I've eaten 2400+ (currently aiming for 2700) every day.

I agree, but I'd say bare minimum 1800, because you are still growing. At the same time, I know even 1200 is progress for you, but do work up to a higher goal please.

BaconMD - Embarrassingly enough, I guess MFP had me set as a female when I joined so it had me at 1200 calories to lose 2lbs a week. OOPS! Now it's up to 1390 now that I changed it in my profile settings.

Even if I'm not that active, (I exercise on my elliptical 30 minutes a day on average which burns 200 cal) I should be eating 1600 calories per day? It seems like a lot, but it DOES make sense! I'm technically still developing at 18 years old so I guess I would need to feed my body more.

By the way, awesome job with your weight loss, 100lbs is insanely inspiring!

suzely0530 - Thank you! I hope this will make some "all or nothing" people like me realize they need fuel to lose weight!

The MFP way is to take a deficit from your normal daily activity, NOT counting exercise - which you are expected to log AND eat back (but nobody ever does because they "don't think it makes sense").

I go a different route, and use my TDEE. Go here: http://www.iifym.com/tdee-calculator and fill in all the information HONESTLY. It'll spit out a number like 2500 or 3000 or something. That's your TDEE. You want to subtract 10-20% from that, and that's how much you eat every day (and you don't log and eat back exercise calories using this method).

Like I said, I'm at 2700 calories. I am NOT very active... I don't even work out every day! MAYBE every-other-day if I'm lucky. Even so, 2700 calories is really not a lot of food. I used to eat that in one meal at Wendy's... Several times a day sometimes.

Don't be afraid of food! Try to understand how it all works, so you can take control of your health and life.

EDIT: I see Athena posted a different TDEE calculator link - either one is good - you could even check both of them out. There are many others too.

Thats good your learning about yourself and you needs. Start giving yourself good wholesome nutrition and love. Your body will follow.

Besides the body was designed to eat.

Based on that, I would start at like 2100-2200 and give it at least a month. Not a few days, not a week or two, but a good month, even two months, and see what happens.

Don't even step on a scale for as long as possible, and if you gain at all, don't panic. If you've been undereating, your body might not react as you'd expect immediately, so you need to give it some time.

Myself, I didn't severely undereat, but when I first tried eating back my exercise calories I was afraid, and I gained weight for a couple weeks, but after that it fell off again and then some.

Good luck!

LittleMissLisa- I completely agree. I'm so nervous to eat because I feel like even a few calories will make me gain weight. I'm overweight now at 190lbs at 5'10, but I used to be 110lbs at 5'10 when I was completely anorexic (I'm a male so that was a really low weight). It's hard because even though I'm overweight I still have those "anorexic thoughts" that make me not want to eat. We just gotta realize that we did screw up our metabolism and when we repair it the weight will fly off!

DanaDark - I love that analogy! It is a super fine line when losing weight, you want to get as close to the line as possible as you said, but if you go over it's not a good thing for your body either!

I think I have been to where you are and so I'll give you some feedback from my experience.
Dont focus on loosing weight, focus on lifting more, running longer or some other goal ( for me, chasing an 'ideal' number on a scale becomes an obsession that has nothing to do with HEALTH).

Work on loving your body for more for what it does-moves, allows you to achieve goals, provides freedom-not for what it looks like ( even when I reached 106 @ 5'6 I wasnt happy)

Be careful of the scale. For me, it can send me to a low place if I allow it.

EAT healthy foods often!!! I used to be controlled by my cravings for suger. I realize now, years later, that when I eat NORMAL, I dont have insain cravings.

There is still a lot of work in progress for me. I still feel guilty when I eat breakfast. I obsess over other women and how thin they look, I miss my hip bones, I miss the feeling of pride that comes from a day of not eating.I have a hard time accepting that this 'healthy' thing takes time! BUT I am sick of letting a scale control my self worth. I want happiness more that my protruding hip bones.
This is your health, you have years of bad habits that will take time to reverse. Be patient with yourself. Good Luck

That is EXACTLY how it is with me! I'm a very "all or nothing" type of person. It's either I'm overeating or undereating. It's a struggle to realize that I have to feed my body to lose weight when it just seems the easiest thing to do is starve myself. I'll continue the struggle by gradually upping my calories which will be a chore but I can do it! Thank you for your encouragement. Your weight loss is amazing and inspiring, 42lbs is a huge accomplishment!

Thank you! I have gained some back.. cus well.. you know^ we just discussed the above.. lol.. and I am afraid its always going to be an 'all or nothing' kind of thing....

sometimes theres a big stretch of ALLL... and then there might be a big stretch of NOTHINGGG.... I too hope to someday reach that happy median... even though I tell myself I want to fuel my body.. it feels like every bite I take makes me gain another pound.. so I just prefer to not listen to the 'NEED TO BE' healthier side of my brain..

Good luck and I really do wish you wonderful things in your progress.

Prior to me starting MFP I was eating 850 - 950 calories a day, all clean eating broken down in 5 - 6 meals per day. I was losing weight like crazy. After a couple of months, I started doing more exercise but wasn't losing hardly any weight. I started feeling dizzy, sometimes like I was going to pass out. I started getting heart palpitations. This all scared me and caused me to have anxiety. I went to the doctor - he wanted to put me on antidepressants, I refused. So I went to another doctor who thought I might be having heart problems. She sent me to a cardiologist who then sent me to a rheumatologist. ( I know crazy!) By this time I started having blood pressure issues - my bp would go high every time I would stand, but would go back to being normal once I laid down. The doctor put me on bp pills, but told me that i could possibly pass out if my bp got too low, but not to worry i would come back alert within a few minutes. i thought she was crazy. Well I ended up going to another doctor because no one seemed to be figuring anything out. He thought it might be my kidneys (your kidneys help regulate you bp). Anyway, it was not that. He sent me to a nephrologist, one who specializes in bp issues. He put me on a water pill, but that made the heart palpitations worse. He took me off of those. I saw him for a couple of months, but even he couldn't figure it out. So really, I just gave up on trying to figure it out. I did a lot of praying and went back to eating whatever and all my symptoms went away, but the bad thing was, I gained all my weight back to. This time around, I'm trying to lose the weight in a healthier way. I do want this extra weight off ASAP, but I do not want to go through all the medical problems I experienced before. I started off with 1200 calories and have upped them to 1400. I've only lost 5 lbs. in a month but I think it's because my body has to get use to more calories. I wanted to share my experience with lower calories so maybe it could help others see that lower calories can cause all sorts of problems, at least it did for me.