A Personal View on Exercise Cals and Underfeeding

I have not been on MFP for long but found in week 3 when I ate my exercise calories I didn't even lose a pound but when I ignore them or eat half, I lose weight. I would much prefer to eat them!

Also, what's your take on Saturdays off? If I was at 1200 all week then did not 'diet' on Saturdays, would this stop my metabolism from slowing as one day in 7 would not be 'dieting'? I'm not talking binging, just letting go a little and enjoying a few treats.

Many thanks for your interesting post and for other people's replies - thought provoking.

I haven't read all the posts on here yet (but plan to as soon as I have time!) But I really wanted to ask; what's your take on intermittent fasting, Ladyhawk? Because what you were doing sounds a lot like IF, but if that's what damaged your metabolism then I am slightly concerned... Do you think it was the long period of time without food, or too little food, or a combination of both? I've been researching IF and ESE and have been trying it out for the last week or so with no ill effects, but your story does worry me... Did you gain weight WHILE eating 800-1200cals and only at night, or did something change? Sorry if you've already been asked, I will read through the thread when I get time. Thanks :flowerforyou:

ETA: So now I have read about half the posts, and it seems to me like maybe you were gaining because of the binges? Like you were keeping you body in fat storing mode because you weren't eating enough, but the reason you were gaining weight was because it was holding into the binge cals (and the day to day cals, but they wouldn't be enough to make you gain, would they?) I see a lot of people say they are gaining while eating very low calories which has never made sense to me, but now I'm think it's the times that they are eating more than their 'usual' cals which are making them gain, rather than the 800 or so calories they eat every day. Does that make sense? I mean even if you are in fat storing mode (I think the term starvation mode is greatly overused and exaggerated on this site, so I am making it clear what I am referring to) your body needs calories to survive, so it would take those 800cals to keep your body functioning. So if you stayed at a steady 800, you would either lose or maintain, not gain. There wouldn't be any spare calories for a gain. Sure your BMR would slow down and non essential functions would be shut down, but I still don't think you would gain unless you went over that 800 (or however many) and if you did, it would be minimal simply because there would be no calories to spare. I don't know, this is just what makes sense to me Any help would be appreciated

What she was doing was more along the lines of Long Term Fasting or to be specific, Long Term Underfeeding as she wasn't actually fasting. Short term (intermittent fasting) is usually classified as less than 72 hours but usually less than 24 hours of no calorie intake. Which can be determined acceptable because of the glycogen repletion going on during the feeding periods.

Ah... Thank you for clearing that up I've been intermittent fasting for no more than 24hrs at a time so I'm glad it isn't the same thing Thanks for the response!

Yes, as Banks said it was LTUF, not IF.

And yes, the reason for the gain is

1) Decreased metabolism - (Just using generic numbers for example here) If maintenance cals when healthy are 2000, and through underfeeding they get lowered to 1400, then I now HAVE to eat only 1400 to maintain. Also, it's not just RMR that may decrease - cals burned through activity level will be decreased as well, because typically when you are at that much of a deficit and burning muscle, you have less energy on a daily basis, so you tend to be much less active overall and therefore burn even fewer cals on a daily basis.
2) Binges/carb loading - If metabolism is decreased, and maintenance cals are much lower, but there are occasional binges (and especially if they are mostly simple carbs), the body has been trained to store fat easier, and will immediately shuttle that large intake to fat storage.

However, I want to point out here that there are a LOT of other issues with this other than just the weight gain. Psychological, hormonal, bone density...the list goes on and on, and I experienced (and am still going through) a lot of them. It's not enjoyable. And avoiding the binges doesn't remove all of the risks/drawbacks.

How many carbs would be considered carb loading? What were you eating to be carb loading?

and... bump