Eating too little? can't lose weight!!

My eating disorder is very unstable, and you are completely right, i'm not recovered.
I'm glad to hear you are recovering Quasita!! How have you overcome your weight plateau?

*In recovery* Like I said, it stays like any addiction. You will always have problems with the temptations and hurdles that come with eating disorders. I didn't get diagnosed with clinical starvation until I had been undereating for about 5 years. By then, my thyroid just plain didn't work if I didn't eat. There are blood tests that can be done to determine if you have a normal functioning thyroid, but are in starvation mode. They do this through a simple fasting/fed test. I had it done only after I spent 3 months working with a trainer, eating a "low calorie" 1600 calorie diet and working out 3 times a week, and GAINED 12 pounds instead of losing anything. It was concluded that if I didn't eat, my thyroid literally stopped producing hormones, which caused me to have digestive issues, fatigue, depression... I had to go on hormone therapy to regulate it.

Anyway, when I first started on MFP, I was 485 pounds. I struggled with undereating then I would binge, which was causing me to keep gaining. So I decided to take my therapy to the next level, and keep record.. of... EVERYTHING.
I thought I was doing well at first. Then I plateaued after my first 13 pounds. People kept saying I was so big, I could eat a large deficit and be fine, but THAT IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE.

How did I break it?
I got a BodyMedia Fit Link to measure my 24/7 TDEE, instead of using a calculator.
I adjusted my MFP to match the BMFL numbers.
I ate back ALL of my exercise calories.
Let me tell you, it was hard. My TDEE at the time was 3600 calories. With exercise, I was shooting up to 5-6k burns a day. But I made myself eat... and eat... and eat...
And you know what? After about 3 days... My body realized we were eating, for real... and it became ravenous. Like clockwork, every hour and a half, I'd be hungry, I'd eat some almonds. I'd have meals. I'd have to wake up in the night to feed myself. I felt gross but I was so hungry and no amount of water would make it go away.

Then, a miraculous thing happened... I started losing.
I began losing 3-6 pounds a week, by eating over 4k calories a day most days and staying active.
I had to stop because I burned so much fat off so fast, that the release of estrogen caused me some serious health problems, and only recently did I get that resolved... and I'm on my way back to what I was doing.

So basically what I'm saying is...
If you're self-diagnosing ED, don't. See a professional.
You have to get a physician and a therapist, STAT. If you're out of control, you can't handle this alone. Don't try to convince yourself otherwise. You are likely deficient in vitamins and minerals.
Make sure you're getting accurate TDEE as well as exercise burns, and eat back your exercise calories.

Less is not always better. Recent studies show that the old adage of "one pound equals 3500 calories burned" is simply not as cut and dry as people want to think it is. Our bodies don't work like that.
There is such a thing as cutting too much.
Even if you think oh no biggie... Remember... People with eating disorders develop things like osteoporosis earlier and more severely because they do not supply their body the way it needs to be supplied. VLCDs only work for short term goals, and while tempting for those of us with eating disorders, they are a very, very bad idea.

Get some help, please.

Eating too little CAN and WILL make you gain weight. Your body goes into starvation mode and slows metabolism as a natural defence mechanism during times of famine. Counting calories is both a silly and brutal way to live. Just stop eating all those tasty substances which are not food and eat food instead. There is nothing difficult or complicated about losing weight.

(edit) Never mind. Very interesting.

Eating too little CAN and WILL make you gain weight. Your body goes into starvation mode and slows metabolism as a natural defence mechanism during times of famine. Counting calories is both a silly and brutal way to live. Just stop eating all those tasty substances which are not food and eat food instead. There is nothing difficult or complicated about losing weight.

Do a search on this forum for "Starvation Mode".

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/761810-the-starvation-mode-myth-again

One of MANY. Eating too little is a bad thing. It can do all kinds of bad things to you. Really bad things over time. But it really can't make you gain weight.

The classic example, if you're interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experiment

Their metabolisms slowed way down. All kinds of bad things happened to them. But they kept losing weight until their percentage of fat became incredibly low. Again, because I can't say this enough, eating way too little is a very bad thing. I do not advocate it for anyone. But it won't make you gain weight.

I hate it when people post this as a proper response to someone that is developing clinical starvation mode as opposed to the "myth" that people worry about typically on this site.

These two things have nothing to do with what we are talking about in this situation. The Minnesota experiment leaves a LOT of things unaddressed, and does not answer to the effects of long-term VLCD in eating disordered patients. It discusses acute starvation that was implemented on a collection of volunteers who were later closely monitored and rehabilitated by physicians.

My eating disorder is very unstable, and you are completely right, i'm not recovered.
I'm glad to hear you are recovering Quasita!! How have you overcome your weight plateau?

*In recovery* Like I said, it stays like any addiction. You will always have problems with the temptations and hurdles that come with eating disorders. I didn't get diagnosed with clinical starvation until I had been undereating for about 5 years. By then, my thyroid just plain didn't work if I didn't eat. There are blood tests that can be done to determine if you have a normal functioning thyroid, but are in starvation mode. They do this through a simple fasting/fed test. I had it done only after I spent 3 months working with a trainer, eating a "low calorie" 1600 calorie diet and working out 3 times a week, and GAINED 12 pounds instead of losing anything. It was concluded that if I didn't eat, my thyroid literally stopped producing hormones, which caused me to have digestive issues, fatigue, depression... I had to go on hormone therapy to regulate it.

Anyway, when I first started on MFP, I was 485 pounds. I struggled with undereating then I would binge, which was causing me to keep gaining. So I decided to take my therapy to the next level, and keep record.. of... EVERYTHING.
I thought I was doing well at first. Then I plateaued after my first 13 pounds. People kept saying I was so big, I could eat a large deficit and be fine, but THAT IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE.

How did I break it?
I got a BodyMedia Fit Link to measure my 24/7 TDEE, instead of using a calculator.
I adjusted my MFP to match the BMFL numbers.
I ate back ALL of my exercise calories.
Let me tell you, it was hard. My TDEE at the time was 3600 calories. With exercise, I was shooting up to 5-6k burns a day. But I made myself eat... and eat... and eat...
And you know what? After about 3 days... My body realized we were eating, for real... and it became ravenous. Like clockwork, every hour and a half, I'd be hungry, I'd eat some almonds. I'd have meals. I'd have to wake up in the night to feed myself. I felt gross but I was so hungry and no amount of water would make it go away.

Then, a miraculous thing happened... I started losing.
I began losing 3-6 pounds a week, by eating over 4k calories a day most days and staying active.
I had to stop because I burned so much fat off so fast, that the release of estrogen caused me some serious health problems, and only recently did I get that resolved... and I'm on my way back to what I was doing.

So basically what I'm saying is...
If you're self-diagnosing ED, don't. See a professional.
You have to get a physician and a therapist, STAT. If you're out of control, you can't handle this alone. Don't try to convince yourself otherwise. You are likely deficient in vitamins and minerals.
Make sure you're getting accurate TDEE as well as exercise burns, and eat back your exercise calories.

Less is not always better. Recent studies show that the old adage of "one pound equals 3500 calories burned" is simply not as cut and dry as people want to think it is. Our bodies don't work like that.
There is such a thing as cutting too much.
Even if you think oh no biggie... Remember... People with eating disorders develop things like osteoporosis earlier and more severely because they do not supply their body the way it needs to be supplied. VLCDs only work for short term goals, and while tempting for those of us with eating disorders, they are a very, very bad idea.

Get some help, please.

Great response, and such an interesting story. Thanks so much for sharing.

Anybody who eats "too little" will lost weight. And fast.

Period, full stop.

I am also a 5'8'' woman and I have a medium frame. I have already lost over 20+ lbs(17 of them on MFP).

Eat 1200 calories daily, if I work out I eat 1500 and try to burn at least 300 during my work out. Be sure to measure everything you eat and log each item.
If you stick with the above intake/exercise you should be losing weight....please keep us posted on your results

Anybody who eats "too little" will lost weight. And fast.

Period, full stop.

I already tried that.

Okay, so, I'll concede one thing. If you eat under what you are burning, you will take from your reserves.

However, someone with a historic eating disorder that is not successfully rehabilitating can have a caloric demand far lower than any average person due to how the thyroid and other hormone producing organs can be trained to limit the hunger/need response. People with EDs often report not feeling hungry... and there's a chemical reason for it. They have convinced their body that it's not going to get food, so it just plain stops asking.

So while it may be true that if you eat under your caloric output, you'll lose, you have to make sure your caloric output is at a healthy level to start with. Telling someone with an eating disorder to cut their calories even lower to see weightloss is completely irresponsible, and I'm not going to stand idly by and watch people say that kind of thing to someone that is not asking what you are answering.

Sorry if you have a problem with the fact that I'm not going to put up with this dangerous approach to the OP but I'd much rather have someone I don't know get frustrated with me than keep my mouth shut, and watch people tell the OP to follow the unhealthy road they're on to an untimely death.

Thanks

Anybody who eats "too little" will lost weight. And fast.

Period, full stop.

I already tried that.

Okay, so, I'll concede one thing. If you eat under what you are burning, you will take from your reserves.

However, someone with a historic eating disorder that is not successfully rehabilitating can have a caloric demand far lower than any average person due to how the thyroid and other hormone producing organs can be trained to limit the hunger/need response. People with EDs often report not feeling hungry... and there's a chemical reason for it. They have convinced their body that it's not going to get food, so it just plain stops asking.

So while it may be true that if you eat under your caloric output, you'll lose, you have to make sure your caloric output is at a healthy level to start with. Telling someone with an eating disorder to cut their calories even lower to see weightloss is completely irresponsible, and I'm not going to stand idly by and watch people say that kind of thing to someone that is not asking what you are answering.

Sorry if you have a problem with the fact that I'm not going to put up with this dangerous approach to the OP but I'd much rather have someone I don't know get frustrated with me than keep my mouth shut, and watch people tell the OP to follow the unhealthy road they're on to an untimely death.

Thanks

You're cool, and thanks for posting so much useful info for the OP. And thanks for clarifying. And please note, I said repeatedly that very low calorie intake is a very bad idea.

Nice to know that my goal weight (your current weight) disgusts you...