PLEASE HELP. Weight question? ?

[Jemshads]

I didn't eat anything at all yesterday, alls I had was 1 can of soda and 3 glasses of milk. When I got home today I had 1 can of soda (so far) and I had a little bit of chocolate cake when I got home. I've heard that if you don't eat for a long period of time and then you eat it causes you to gain weight? Is this true? Thanks so much!

[IvyW]

well for one soda,milk & cake will make you chunky..

but to answer your question..

your body will start storing that ♥♥♥♥.

[momo3bur]

YUP! Don't do that to yourself! I made that mistake for years off and on, and I don't care what anyone else says, there is truth to bad eating habits resulting in a lower metabolism and in turn causing you to gain weight by just fudging a little in your diet.

So your result will be that you will basically have to eat NOTHING if you want to lose, then when you can't handle it anymore and have to begin eating normally again, you will gain it back and more. It's a vicious cycle and better to just stop NOW.

Plus, if you are only going to eat a few things during the day, you're robbing yourself by wasting it on soda and cake. I bet you consumed half a days calories just with that little bit you did eat but your body is still hungry.

If you eat fresh fruits and veggies for the most part, you can eat a ton and still lose weight. You can snack all day and won't hurt a thing.

At least, this is all based on my experience. Not to mention, your skin will start looking GREAT.

[GregD]

Jemshads you do not need to believe anybody - just understand this simple logic:

when any person does not eat their body enters starvation mode

what this means among other things:

- the body slows down its metabolism (you burn less each day)
- the body starts to eat on itself (muscle tissue) (because it needs to live regardless if you feed it or not)

note: remember muscle tissue is an active tissue which uses calories every hour without you doing anything, so losing this is a bad idea

So then what?

Then you start to eat at some point and the body is super happy it is getting food and the first thing the body is going to do is store this food into fat to stock up energy (fat) for future starvations

Also the body is not yet sure if this food was a "one off" so it will not bring back the metabolism just yet, it will lift it slowly over time as it is sure it keeps getting food

[CoolBee]

Depending on the exact size of your drinks, you had 1000-1200 calories yesterday.

You could have had some really nutritious food for that - 1lb of mixed veg, some fish or meat or eggs or cheese (2 portions), some beans or potatoes, and a small chocolate bar.

Is this typical of your daily diet or was it a one off? If it's a one off, it won't kill you. If it's your normal routine, then you need to increase your nutrition.

I ate an average of 1200 calories per day for 3 months and lost 46lb. The core of my diet was highly nutritious and I took NO SUPPLEMENTS whatsoever.

Starvation mode doesn't really kick in unless you are very low body fat % and not if you're eating every day.

Sometimes people think it is because if you lose, say, 7kg (15lb), then your daily calorie requirement falls by around 200 calories a day if you are not very active and more than that if you are so less calories are needed to shift your carcass about.

From careful recording, I know that I need 12 calories per lb of body weight per day for basic living and that increases if I do much walking or swimming or something. Eg walking 3 miles a day and swimming 4km a week boosts my average daily calorie needs by around 500 at my current weight, but at my previous weight, that would have been 650.

That means my daily calorie expenditure needs just for pootling round the house and doing mild housework has FALLEN by 600 calories per day and if I include my normal exercise regime by **750 calories per day**. So that if I continued to eat 'as before' - which kept my weight stable, I would now gain over 1.5 lb a week. It's nothing to do with starvation mode, just simple biophysics.