1. "When you eat, your body stores more fat as a survival mechanism"

To an extent, this is true. In the sense that your metabolism DOES indeed slow down when you decrease caloric intake. However, as I and plenty of others have found, if you starve yourself to the extent where the low metabolism can't combat the low caloric intake, you'll still lose weight. If you're persistent enough, you'll lose a LOT of weight.

2. "Once you start eating again you'll gain it all back."

This is definitely not true. I gained weight steadily after my freshman year of high school, puffing up from a skinny 135 to 170 in the winter of my Junior year. From then I began to excersize as much as possible, and cut down my calorie intake. That worked, to an extent. By the end of the summer after my senior year, I was 150.

That's where the eating disorder really came into play. At school, I just cracked, I think.. I stopped eating more than probably 500 calories a day for four or five months. I dropped down to 135 at the end of the school year. I got a tonsillectomy, and because of that couldn't eat any solid food for two or three weeks, following the huge ED binge. After that, I started eating.

It's been four months, and my weight is now up to 145. I was so afraid that eating again would turn me into a limp, flabby mess, but it didn't. At all, really. I have probably just as much body fat on me as I did in the other picture. In the second one, however I have ten pounds of muscle underneath the skin.

-------
Educators destroy your brain,
but you don't know, so why care?
Fagotto

my mom is a vegan and she eats a lot and doesn't exercise at all. she's skinny as a stick.

-------
Agent Provocateur

---

Oh, Micus...are you at least better now?

---

Yeah, I'm great now. I just ate two big bowls of cereal for breakfast.

You can look at the links... you tell me!   That's my progress so far, anyways.

-------
Educators destroy your brain,
but you don't know, so why care?
Fagotto

And anyone who says that is a retard. You don't gain back everything you lost. But you are more susceptible to putting on weight quickly when you eat more after starving your body.

-------
Agent Provocateur

---

anyone who says that is a retard.

---

I hear that a lot, unfortunately.

-------
Educators destroy your brain,
but you don't know, so why care?
Fagotto

The reason people say that starving yourself is only a temporary fix is that it doesn't destroy the fat cells, they just shrivel up until they get new calories, so it can definitely come back easily if you're not burning them.

My friend still limits his caloric intake, though not nearly to the severity you are describing of a mere 500 calories a day. He exercises regularly though and has quite a bit of muscle.

Really, now that you're rather light, you should eat intelligently, keep track of  your calories (try a 1,500 calorie diet or something), and exercise.

-------
Who dares wins. - Special Air Service

---

Hey Micus, a friend of mine had an eating disorder in highschool and he learned many things from it, I hope that you can overcome yours like he did and learn just as much.

The reason people say that starving yourself is only a temporary fix is that it doesn't destroy the fat cells, they just shrivel up until they get new calories, so it can definitely come back easily if you're not burning them.

My friend still limits his caloric intake, though not nearly to the severity you are describing of a mere 500 calories a day. He exercises regularly though and has quite a bit of muscle.

Really, now that you're rather light, you should eat intelligently, keep track of your calories (try a 1,500 calorie diet or something), and exercise.

---

Thanks!   It makes sense the way you put it.

I've been trying my hardest to keep track of my eating... if I'm not paying attention, I'll lose track of what I've eaten during the day, and I'll realize that I haven't eaten much at all.

So far today I've had a bowl of cereal and a chicken burger on a bun... probably about 500 calories total.

But I'm hungry right now and I'm about to eat something which should hold me over until dinner. I'm thinking it'll amount to about 1500 calories total. It's really hard, paying attention to what you eat like that. It's so much easier just to ignore the hunger and carry on.

I'm going to incorporate cardio once I get back to school (and I'll be getting cardio work from walking around Boston-- I live a mile from school as it is!), so hopefully that will keep my metabolism up and make me hungry. Time can tell, though...

-------
Educators destroy your brain,
but you don't know, so why care?
Fagotto