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Can low calorie diets still be healthy
Hi for whoever answers this! Ok, so I looked all over the Internet and couldn't find an answer so i was hoping maybe one of you would know the answer. Ok, so I heard for women if they eat less than 1200 calories their body could go into starvation mode. I eat about half those calories, but I still eat plenty. I just eat things that are low in calories and don't overeat. If I start taking in more calories or even eat sugar, then I'll feel like I can't stop. Plus for me, these diets are addicting and I'm perfectly fine with that. I also work off about 130 calories at least each day so it's like my net is around 500 calories. If I eat more, I'll stretch my stomach out, and if I eat things in higher calories, then I'll get back to eating fatty foods, and I feel healthy foods will, well, keep me healthier. I have felt so much better since starting this diet, but I heard that these diets can burn out your metabolism. Will this happen if your still eating enough and have high metabolism foods (egg whites, coffee, green tea, grilled chicken, etc)? To be honest, I'm a little too worried to stop this diet because I always go on and off with this diet and every time I "take a break" from it, I can never seem to stop eat fatty foods and I get to where I don't want to exercise as much. So after hearing all of this, is this diet still ok for me since I eat enough and eat high metabolism foods? It's probably not gonna change the way I eat, I just really need to know. Thank you so much for your time!
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Maybe give some free advice about: Nutrition?
Go vegan. I went vegan this year and have lost 40 pounds, with minimal exercise, bringing down my BMI from 30 to 24. I weigh less now than I did throughout high school, as an overweight teenager, even when I exercised for hours while on Junior Varsity and Varsity sports teams.
My goal for next year is to lose 30-40 more pounds, I just need to start exercising on a regular basis. Nothing crazy, just 30-60 minutes of jogging, Ballet Beautiful, bike riding.. things like that.
I think it's amazing what I've accomplished so far, just by changing my diet, though. It's a lot easier to go vegan than it seems. I was never vegetarian, I went from being able to eat an entire box of pizza or entire tub of ice cream in one sitting to a full-fledged vegan. I now spend a lot less money on groceries, have more energy (never need caffeine, and never feel lethargic like I used to on a regular basis), have more concentration, and etc. Try it for a week, that's how I started, and I felt so good that I just kept going, and it's now been 5 months! You can get every nutrient from plant foods, including protein!
Where do you get your protein?! 10 comebacks from a Vegan.
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The only vitamin you need to supplement is B12, and one I personally recommend is Garden of Life's B12 spray (cause I personally hate swallowing pills, and methylcobalamin is better than cyanocobalamin). You can buy it at any health foods store (Whole Foods, Sprouts, Trader Joe's, etc.), or online.
More on vitamin B12
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These two movies turned me into a vegan overnight.
Forks Over Knives
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Processed People
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Cowspiracy
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Here are some good YouTube channels that have helped me, too.
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Good luck!
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You do not have a healthy relationship with food. Food is something that you eat so as to get on with the rest of your life. Making it your whole life is, well, a bit of a worry.
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I am not a doctor nor am I an expert on eating disorders. From what you have written I would say you have an eating disorder probably one very close to Anorexia. Eating disorders are very serious for you are causing your body to seek other ways to stay alive.
The primary mission of the body is to keep the brain alive. If the body cannot maintain all the functions of the body and still maintain the primary function; it will start to shut down some of its unnecessary functions. By the time the body starts to shutdown the kidneys and liver you are more than halfway to death's door and it is not always possible for the doctors to reverse the damage done to these organs. The last organ the body shuts down is the heart and then the brain dies.
At your present caloric intake, when your body uses up all the stored fat it will start looking for ways to survive. This is why you may feel the need to binge eat high calorie foods and junk foods.
To answer your question your diet is not good for you. You should see your doctor ASAP and tell him or her everything you have told us. I would expect, since you did not state your height and weight, that the doctor is going to find you underweight. Point in fact it is better to be 10 pounds overweight then 10 pounds underweight.
You say you feel healthy; you may be or you may be fooling yourself into thinking you are. Let your doctor be the judge and then follow the doctors orders.
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Its a known fact that a body forced into starvation mode as you are doing, once it does get some quality foods will begin to put on weight faster, often in the form of fat as a way to have a buffer to live off of once you decide to push it through starvation mode again.
So this would explains the cravings that begin whenever you take in sugar or fatty foods, you have trained your body to react this way, wanting to build up a layer of fat for the lean times it anticipates. This is not a good place to be. At this point, you need the help of a dietician to help undo the mode you have unwittingly placed your body into. While in this mode, much of what you eat is not necessarily going to go into supporting your organs, bones and other parts of your bodies overall health, but go straight into creating a layer of fat. This is not healthy. You risk creating major medical issues in the future after too many years of doing this, a slow, imperceptible chipping away at the total healthof certain parts of your body that you wont notice on a daily or monthly basis but that adds up over the years to create major medical problems you maynot have had otherwise. See a dietician, get retrained on how to eat healthy for your age, height, skeletal bone size, amount of excercise you do, etc....
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ok i have to agree with razhie here on some of this. the average person NEEDS at LEAST 1200 calories a day to function, or youll feel sleepy, groggy, have low energy and your body will want to eat things you shouldnt because it wants the temporary immediate boost in blood sugar that it gives until you have a sugar crash and it happens all over again.
what you need to do is kick start YOUR OWN metabolism, not eat things you think are metabolism boosting. idk anything about any kind of "boosting foods" but what i do is buy salad fixings and have a good healthy salad once a week and then sooner twice a week, and up and up. in between that you can still so long as you take a walk after to burn off the fat that will come later. also walking helps you sleep better and deeper and this over time will build up your energy.
with a diet thats healthier over time youll want to lean towards healthier foods on your own and not because you have to or feel obligated. buy more fruits and veggies and SLOWLY wean yourself off the junk. this is a long range plan not a quick fix because your body is a temple and needs to last you for a good long time so there doesnt need to be a rush.
the best thing you can do is see your general practice doctor and ask about having some blood drawn to see what you can to do tailor fit a diet to your body specifically. your doctor will then also be able to give you suggestions on things that will help based on your results.
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You are starving yourself. What you are describing is not okay.
It's not a diet, it's just starving yourself.
You will NEVER be able to keep the weight off if this is how you do it. Eventually you'll "take a break" because it's really hard to convince yourself to keep on starving yourself indefinitely. And instead of learning how to actually eat healthy, you'll just yo-yo between eating badly one way (too much junk) and eating badly another way (too little to survive on).
You need to see a doctor, and likely a counsellor, to get accurate information about your health, and to deal with your eating disorder.
If you are eating less than 500 calories a day, you either don't know how to count calories, or you have an eating disorder.
I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but it's indisputable. If you are actually doing what you say you are doing, you have an eating disorder. That is what you've described here.
You also seem to believe a whole bunch of myths that are common among people with eating disorders. "Starvation Mode" is a myth. "High metabolism" food is a myth. These are utterly non-scientific things people say when they are trying to justify starving themselves. What isn't a myth is that parts of your body will shut down if you don't give it enough fuel. Your periods will stop. Your nails will break. Your teeth and hair get weak.
Eating healthy is great! But eating too little can make you sick. Doing it for long enough will make you sick in ways that your body may never recover from.
Ask for help. Now. What you need to know it's going to be found on Google or from strangers. You need to speak to the experts who can address what you are actually doing to body and how to heal it and keep it healthy.
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