Is 700 calories Sufficient???

On a daily basis i only eat around 700 calories a day, I dont eat meat and try and stick with soy products.
I dont feel that my body needs to eat anymore than this, i feel full throughout the day and im not lacking in energy. I spend most of my day sitting down at a desk and then i do 30 mins of high intensity cardio or wieghts every night and pilates on a weekend.. I also do not eat back the calories i have burnt.

On weekends i probably eat abit more than this, maybe around 800-1000 cals

After reading through alot of posts the whole idea of my body going into 'stavation mode' and everyone preaching about never eating under 1200 calories has freaked me out.
I dont want to eat anymore than this as im scared of gaining weight.
But is this a suffcient amount of food to eat?

I weigh 46 kgs and im 5'5
thank you

If you stand by your stance that you need 1200 JUST for brain function......can I ask how many you consume in a day? How many calories do you have to add to that 1200 to support your circulatory system? Your muscles? Your endocrine system? Your digestive system?..................seems like if we go by your stance, humans would need thousands and thousands a day.

While I'm a little confused as to why I'm the one being interrogated here, I'll humour this.

The human body evolved so that the body itself does NOT need too many calories to function unless there is a sincere increase in muscle, in which case, THAT needs more calories as well. For example, as a college student, I only need between 1400-1600 cals per day. My fiance, on the other hand, is a fitness buff and needs to be physically fit for his job...but he only needs about 2000 per day. This is only a 500 calorie difference in total, which goes to show what the body alone can cope with.

We evolved to be runners - running a ridiculous amount to catch prey, but at the same time, that prey would have been large, such as gazelle-ish creatures. When the brain got to the size it is now, our ancestors had to start farming animals or start hunting LARGE predators to feed their families. They needed larger animals to support the larger amount of calories that it needed to use the brain.

Here's another way of looking at it - a chimpanzee can survive on very little protein (termites or other chimpanzees from rival groups) and they mostly live on plants. Their brains are 1/4 of what ours is, which means that they only need 1/4 of the calories. Meanwhile, look at how much they move. About as much as, say, I would on a daily basis. Which isn't much. Maybe running once in a while to catch something, or to migrate, but they really don't eat much because their brains aren't demanding it of them.

(You can believe in evolution or not, this is just a comparison between similar creatures to prove a point)

Humans NEED the calories for their brains, but not much for the rest of the body to function. It's a beautiful system, really. Most of our calories go to our brains, where the rest is divided up between all of the systems you mentioned, and more (like the sodium/potassium synapse or the movement of calcium in and out of our bones depending on what the body requires) It's very efficient, if given the proper nutrients.

At the same time, it depends on the activity level of the person. If there is a lot of muscle on someone, they need more calories just to feed that muscle.

Summary - if we realize and accept the premise that the body requires a minimum of 1200 calories per day (personally, I say 1500, but that's just my personal opinion) and that it requires nutrients such as carbohydrates and protein, then this active female SHOULD be eating a MINIMUM of 1500 per day. MINIMUM. Again, my personal opinion is that it should be up somewhere around the 2000 mark, but that's for her nutritionist and doctor to decide.

My comment is not really on what your consuming or anything, but I think it does need to be said. In society most ppl would never be so rude as to comment on a person's weight saying you a fat *kitten*, hippo, or anything equally as inappropriate - its mean, and it hurts people's feelings. As someone who *used to* have a crazy metabolism and eat everything in sight but was 5'7 and 115 pounds I never quite understood why people thought it was ok to comment on my weight in a negative manner and assume I had an eating disorder. As I have gotten older my metabolism has slowed and I do need to reevaluate my eating habits and learn how to eat healthy instead of shoving pizza in my face at 3 am like I did when I was a college student. But one thing I learned even as a child is if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. Its just as bad to be mean to someone for being overweight as it is to be mean to someone who is underweight.

geeze, a lot of rude comments. I think you are really pretty, and a perfect weight for your height!

I suggest just upping your calories a bit more per day overtime...because 700 calories is for someone who is losing weight...Generally speaking, 1,200 calories or less per day is for diets to get to the double digits (even then, only goes as low as 1,000 calories...like if reaching a goal of 82 pounds, 1000 calories per day is what you need to get there...to maintain at ~100 pounds would be 1,500 calories per day).

I hope this helps!!!

Instead of accusing you of having an eating disorder, I'll give you some advice about upping cals like you actually asked for.
Slowly up your calories over the next couple weeks until you get to 1200. If I'm under on cals and not really hungry I'll have a couple tablespoons of pb with an apple, thats almost 300 cals right there. Nuts and oils, nuts and oils. I've fallen in love with olive oil. Its a great way to add healthy, clean cals without stuffing yourself.
And to everyone saying she has an ED: from what I understand she WANTS to up her calories in a healthy way, she just doesn't want to pack on pounds in the process. Just because she is small and doesn't eat much, does not mean that she is anorexic. Her mindset doesn't seem to me to be like that of someone with an eating disorder. Just my opinion..