Question about anorexic diet

I have had anorexia for 10 years. It's not a pretty picture, many times I stopped eating for over 30 days and ended up in hospital being tube fed, being very sick. Which lead to being in hospital for months. I was having 6 different needles a day, I had refereeing syndrome, I was in starvation mode ( I was eating under 500 calories prior and purging and exercising)

I think just seeing the phrase "anorexia diet" made me want to slap someone...a diet is a choice, a disease isn't. Still to this day I am paying for what this disease has done to my body.

Put simply, there's a middle ground when it comes to... I'd almost be more inclined to say deficit compared to total calories because the numbers seem to work when they're all huge... where the body will do things to make the input/output balance.

Ethereal_Whisper wrote: »

Okay.

Starvation mode is a myth. Yes, while eating a low calorie diet your metabolism does slow after a while, but it's after a couple of months of sustained heavy restriction.

I can say this to be true, because i ate about 16% of what my recommended daily intake is(to maintain) for quite a while(4-5 months), and i lost weight quickly, however, i felt like *kitten* and i now have heart issues, acid reflux(which i believe is now GERD), i have very little lean body mass, and i'm ALWAYS tired. Even while eating a healthy amount, consistently(not to mention my anxiety and depression has gotten worse).

It also bothers me that people think those who suffer with anorexia don't eat at all. Come on. If those with anorexia didn't eat at all, they'd die within a couple of months. Fasts happen a lot with those i know and as an observation as to what i did for a while, but they're not often more than a couple days.

And since I'm tired, i can't figure out how to edit my post so i shall just quote it..

Eating disorders suck. Any type. Bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, anorexia athletica, binge eating disorder, ED-NOS, and everything else that i'm forgetting. It sucks. It's hell. I hate it. I hate all of it. If you, your friend, or anyone is thinking about trying to become anorexic, just know that you don't just lose weight. You lose friends, family's trust, sanity.. anything you have, you lose.

Marianna93637 wrote: »

The difference between an anorexic person not not eating and someone trying to diet by starving themselves is this: an anorexic person eats nothing or close to nothing for a long time. A person trying to starve herself will give up eventually.
both go into a starvation mode, and not lose weight at first, because the body holds onto everything it's got.

As established by the preceding 30 of so posts, which you obviously didn't read, this is BS. Your metabolism doesn't even begin to slow down until after 72 hours of fasting even then it doesn't slow down to a significant degree. True starvation mode doesn't occur until you're left with somewhere around <5% bodyfat. It is not a "fat people" problem.

But a normal, healthy person with an average willpower will give up, because they'll see starving for a week without losing anything is not worth it.

How is this relevant to the discussion of the validity of starvation mode?

For the record.... Starvation mode DOES kick in when you are anorexic. I'm proof positive.

What people misunderstand is that starvation mode as a medical condition is NOT something that prevents you from losing weight. It's something that pertains to aggressive thermo-adaptivity, that causes the body to adjust itself to function on much lower caloric intake. You will lose weight, but when you eat anything you will end up being less able to metabolize that food, which in turn causes you to gain much quicker.

Anorexia Nervosa is a psychiatric condition that makes it impossible for the patient to eat adequate amounts of food due to body perception distortion and fear of gaining weight. At a certain point, it also becomes *physically* impossible to eat adequate amounts of food safely, and you have to rehabilitate yourself in order to eat proper amounts in a safe manner.
Someone eating VLCD doesn't suffer this same psychiatric "perfect storm" theoretically. VLCD eaters tend to still eat varying levels of calories, have occasional binges and celebratory meals, and more. They do not typically maintain a low enough level of calories to convince the survival mechanisms of the body to say, we have to digest our own tissues in order to stay alive. The VLCD dieter will ultimately eat when they feel hungry. An anorexic will not... In fact, most anorexics cease to feel hunger.

My metabolism was absolutely destroyed by anorexia. When I developed binge eating problems after several years of anorexia, I went from being relatively normal, albeit showing kidney issues, to being extremely overweight. My thyroid at that point had stopped responding to normal stimulus, as I'd convinced my biology that food just wasn't there.

I strongly advise against VLCD because it's a slippery slope. Refeeding syndrome can be fatal, and it can make you feel so sick you'll think you're dying. Bodies work best when supported healthfully and efficiently, and I only wish I had really learned that before going down the road of eating disorders in a misguided idea, thinking that if I didn't eat, I would stop being heavy.

cherriegh wrote: »

I was having a discussion with a friend about diet and question was, why do anorexic ppl who eat very little and exercise a lot lose weight but for non anorexic ppl we are told we wont lose weight if we don't eat enough to fuel our workout and our bodies will go into starvation mode and hang on to fat but anorexics dont?

How does that work? I'm not condoning anorexia or any eating disorder but just want to understand science behind it...

I suffer from an eating disorder. EDNOS - eating disorder not otherwise specified. This means I waffle between anorexia, bulimia, and overeating.

When my anorexia is in full swing I can lose a pound a day eating probably 2000 calories a week. HOWEVER, it also ends with me in the eating disorder ward with a feeding tube up my nose and down my throat. Come to think of it the bulimia did that once.

I also became malnourished at 240 pounds.

I don't agree with "starvation mode" thinking. If you starve you lose weight. Period.

jade2112 wrote: »

cherriegh wrote: »

I was having a discussion with a friend about diet and question was, why do anorexic ppl who eat very little and exercise a lot lose weight but for non anorexic ppl we are told we wont lose weight if we don't eat enough to fuel our workout and our bodies will go into starvation mode and hang on to fat but anorexics dont?

How does that work? I'm not condoning anorexia or any eating disorder but just want to understand science behind it...

I suffer from an eating disorder. EDNOS - eating disorder not otherwise specified. This means I waffle between anorexia, bulimia, and overeating.

When my anorexia is in full swing I can lose a pound a day eating probably 2000 calories a week. HOWEVER, it also ends with me in the eating disorder ward with a feeding tube up my nose and down my throat. Come to think of it the bulimia did that once.

I also became malnourished at 240 pounds.

I don't agree with "starvation mode" thinking. If you starve you lose weight. Period.

I appreciate the fact that someone else has come out to say they were diagnosed as malnourished aka "starving" at a higher weight. People simply don't understand that you don't have to look like a skeleton to be critically ill from nutrient deficiencies. The body does not just need calories to survive!

It's not a diet..........