A Personal View on Exercise Cals and Underfeeding

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thank you for your post. I'm excited to be starting a healthier lifestyle, and now that I know what I've been doing wrong, and how to fix it, I won't be alarmed if my weight goes up first!

Well said. I have a better understanding of how starvation mode work and how it can occur slowly.

The trouble with not providing enough fuel is that you don't all of a sudden pop up with a big sign on your forehead announcing "Starvation Mode" or "Underfeeding". It is a very gradual process, that can take months or years to set in, and may take even longer to show any visible signs, especially if you are JUST under the amount your body needs. Not eating enough will not make you collapse on "the 3rd day", or even after a year. There's no set time limit - again, there are a lot of variables. Some people may be able to last for years that way - I did.

I'm kind of in shock right now. I just finished reading this entire thread because a kind MFP member directed me here after finding me crumpled in a virtual heap on this thread: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/256033-frustrated-and-a-little-worried?page=1#posts-3512189

To recap, I have spent the better part of 3 years on a 12(ish)00 calorie diet (not including the on and off diets of the past decade). The first 6 months worked beautifully (although there was much frustration, a lot of hungriness and a few plateaus) I successfully lost 30 pounds. The next 2 and a half years I did what I have never in my entire life been able to do. I maintained the loss. And at a weight that I never, ever thought I could maintain. Realizing, then, what I still think, to an extent, is true now - that I cannot trust myself to eat rationally without a set of guidelines AND that I am not capable of sticking to any kind of restrictive eating program indefinitely, I basically ate as if I were still trying to loose weight as many days as I had the willpower to do so and then whenever I would decide I wanted to have a day off or there was an event or something, I would take the day off and kind of binge eat. I don't know that it truly constitues binge eating but I do know that I have still not ever been able to internalize any sort of ordered eating patterns, left to my own devices. I pretty much just snack all day long. Occasionally managing to get several foods together on a plate in some semblance of a meal. I'm a forager.

Anyway, but that worked really well for me for a while. And, honestly, I am still maintaining the original weight goal I set for myself BUT, I got to a point in the last few months where I realized I was creeping up a little bit and I started to try to get more strict and found that it just wasn't working the way it used to. I had actually gotten down to 3 or 4 pounds below my goal weight, in the past and I was pretty happy with that range and then I just stopped being able to hold onto that.

I know that it's entirely nitpicky (maybe obsessive) but it started to frighten me that the implications might be that in order to maintain weight I would have to be a on a restrictive, 1200 calorie diet for ever and ever.

Strangely, in the last couple of days, I was sick with bronchitis and just laying in bed all day and eating what seemed like a huge amount of just crap - chips and candy and ice cream (because it was the only thing that sounded good), assuming I had to be packing on the pounds, not watching what I ate, I actually LOST 3 pounds. I have no idea what that's about. Maybe I triggered something. Don't know.

But prior to that it had been a month of working out 7 hours a week, eating 1200 net calories a day with one free day a week and loosing absolutely nothing. Which wasn't exactly the point. I just didn't want to feel like I had to do all that in order to maintain. I wanted a sign that that wasn't true.

Which led me to my freak out.

But now I'm reading all this and thinking maybe I was going about it all wrong.


Briefly, my stats are as follows. I am 5'7" and currently weigh 129 lb (if we assume the recent "massive" dip is probably transitory.) The lowest weight I ever maintained was about 127. Which is where I would kind of like to get back to. It just feels safer. It's within a healthy BMI, it's below the whole number mark. Anyway. I recently bought a body fat scale and (if I can trust that it is accurate) discovered my BF% is 20%. Which is actually lower than I expected. So I don't know what to expect as far as that goes.

But my concerns/questions are these. And maybe you (anyone) can help clear them up.

1) Given that I work three 12 hour shifts as a nurse, on a unit which, on a slow night I might spend the entire shift sitting at the desk, reading a book and on a busy night I might not get a chance to pee all night, and have 4 nights off which I spend mostly puttering around my apartment, sitting at the computer or watching tv, what exacly do I assume is my usual activity level? Assuming, as I guess a lot of people do, that I should shoot for less, I changed it to "sedentary" when I started plateauing. I have diligently tracked my exercise but even that is sort of in question. I think I am going to trust MFP but I'm not totally sure. My HRM seemed to REALLLLLLY overshoot it, in my opinion. And I almost always try to eat back all my exercise calories. I never had a problem with the logic of net calories. I like that MFP phrases it that way. And I rarely have trouble finding something (sometimes crap, I'll admit) to fill the gap but I don't always make it all the way because I'm allowing for margin of error on the part of MFP.

2) My assumption, what I've always been told, was that 1200 was the magic number. That if you go below it you hit starvation. And now I'm questioning that. I have sort of gotten used to eating that over the past few years but it does tend to make me a little irritable sometimes. My other assumption, though, was that the more growley my stomach, the more likely I would actually loose weight. Because it seemed to be the case. If I was really angry and hungry one day, the next day the scale would say really nice things. I have NEVER been able to understand how anybody could eat less than 1100 or 1000 consistently without being seriously cranky and/or hypoglycemic all the time. I tend to faint when I don't eat enough. And feel like I'm sinking into a black hole of depression. But, there is the question. Am I still putting myself into possible starvation, at 1200? I have probably stayed closer to 1300-1400 per day for much of my maintenance phase. More, if you average my free days. Could that still have been little enough to alter my metabolism?

3) If it is the case that my body has gone into a hoarding state, and that was actually one of the reasons I rationalized, even from the start, giving myself free/binge days between dieting, to trick my body into not going into such a phase, what can I do to crawl out of it without completely loosing grip of everything I've worked for? I don't think I could handle gaining. Mostly because I know that I can go to a place, really easily, when I feel defeated, where I just don't care at all and I just gain and gain until I'm back to where I was. And I cannot let that happen ever again.

I feel like this was a complete overshare but I'm almost more worried about it now that I realize that it could actually get worse, if I am, indeed, screwing with my metabolism. I do, absolutely believe, that overall (very, very slowly) I am learning how to not be a disordered eater, through this process of accounting for everything that passes my lips. But I know that it could tip the other way, even without my meaning to and I really don't want that to happen.

bump - great info here

Thank you for posting. It could very well have been me you were writing about, and I am so glad I found MFP. I'm in the stage of relearning how to eat, and getting back to exercising. I cut my carb addiction last month, after years of surviving on mostly bread, pasta, rice and beans, and fruit. I have eaten very little protein over at least the last 10 years. I'm not a vegetarian, I just wasn't taking the time to cook it. I've lost quite a bit of muscle mass, and my body shows it. I am so proud of myself now for being able to look at a loaf of bread, a package of cookies, or a plate of pasta covered in high fat sauce, and not want to eat the entire thing. I've also broken my addiction to chocolate, which was a "must have" every day.

I am so thankful for the message boards. I often skip meals, and can go for at least a day and half without eating. I am improving, but it's slow going. I'll get there, because I'm doing this for me - Not for a too shallow boyfriend, not for a mother who makes snide remarks about my weight, and then proceeds to shove unhealthy food under my nose, and not for anyone else. I matter to me. This is my body, and I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror, and love who is looking back.

As I said, I'm relearning how to eat. I don't care what diet anyone is on to lose weight, I'm on one too, and I'll be going through phases of reintroducing foods to my body that it hasn't seen in years, if ever. I've dropped weight fast just by upping my protein intake, and although I expect it will slow down eventually, if I lose 20% of my weight, I'll be happy. Not thrilled, but happy.

What makes things worse is having to be confined to a wheelchair - This is going on year #3. Exercise is limited, but I started doing what I can instead of making excuses. Super proud of myself today for exercising, even though I was in quite a bit of pain. I can do this! It isn't going to kill me, and I quit hurting so bad, although the pain is still there. That alone is encouragement enough to keep it up.

I don't step on the scales every day. It takes a little maneuvering to get it to work right since I don't have much balance when I stand up, and I refuse to let that thing intimidate me. I'll let how my clothes fit be an indicator for most of my journey.

Best wishes for success on yours, and thank you for the information.

Wow. Your story describes mine to a T. The only exception is I didn't drink soda daily. I'd only buy it on occasion. My drink of choice was/is iced Caramel Latte. I lived this lifestyle the majority of the time from 2004 until just over a week ago when I found MFP. I could never understand why I continued to gain weight since I typically ate once a day, nor could my family members. I didn't eat a lot of junk either. In fact I was probably eating less in the way of calories because I did try to make good choices by choosing fruit and veggies when I did eat . I just wasn't eating enough. The weight gain didn't happen over night. It crept up on me in increments, just slow enough for me to not think about how much weight I'd gained over the years. Once I hit 200 pounds, a number I never thought I'd reach, the alarms went off.

Now I am on my way to better eating and better health. I've lost a lot of muscle and stamina over the years. I am very fortunate though because I think my metabolism is already kicking in. I'm noticing that I'm feeling stronger every day, have more energy, have an appetite again, and can handle longer workouts without knee pain. I don't think I've gained any yet, but I'm ready if I do. Probably a good thing I don't have a scale yet. It feels really good to take my life back.

Thank you for sharing your struggles with this community. It must be difficult to share the part of your life you least want to talk about. It's a privilege to know that you are willing to share your walk from that dark place to a brighter side of life with us. :flowerforyou:

thank you for your post. A question I have is ive been under eating my calories by some and not eating my exercise calories at all and i had lost 21 pounds in a little over a month now i have gained 5 back in the last week. I know some of it is probably water weight but could my body think it is in starvation mode????

thank you for your post. A question I have is ive been under eating my calories by some and not eating my exercise calories at all and i had lost 21 pounds in a little over a month now i have gained 5 back in the last week. I know some of it is probably water weight but could my body think it is in starvation mode????

This depends on a lot. Proper "starvation mode" is something that happens over months, so you probably aren't in it. But if you are eating under 1000 calories and you've been under for a while, then your body is probably trying to conserve all the food it can.

If you've had something particularly full of sodium, that could be responsible for your weight gain.

You might need to eat back some exercise calories - not eating them doesn't work for everyone.

If it's that time of the month, then that could be responsible.

If you generally just don't drink enough, that could be responsible.

I don't know your exercise activities or duration, or your typical daily intake (including calories, fats, sodium, etc.). You haven't given enough information to determine anything more specific.

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