Your Relationship with Food and Starvation

I know you’ve heard this before but you will hear it again. You have to find a balance in everything in life. You cannot swear off a whole food group for weight loss. You cannot deprive yourself of anything. If you deprive yourself the chances of binging or falling off a healthy lifestyle is easy and more likely. Once you have established eating everything in moderation, the next important thing is to estimate what you are eating and how much of it.

If you have not started counting calories then do not do it! I repeat, do not count calories if you have not started doing so already!
Counting calories becomes obsessive and impossible to quit. Take it from someone who has learned the hard way. I have tried time and time again to stop but it’s like a drug or an OCD behavior. It turns into more than just a number. It starts to define how you feel about yourself every day. However, I understand that some of you have already started counting calories and I know for some of you intuitive eating does not work due to having an enlarged stomach from years of overeating. There are some rules you calorie counters have to follow!
1. Make sure you are eating enough! Less calories does not automatically equal weight loss! Calculate how many calories you need in a day here in order to lose weight. If you eat less than YOUR minimum you will lose all muscle in your body and will replace it with fat instead.This leads to you thinking you are still “fat” because you still have fat. This will not go away by further starvation. This mindset leads to anorexia and other eating disorders in the future.
2. 1200 calories IS NOT A MAGIC NUMBER AND SHOULD NOT BE FOLLOWED! CALCULATE YOUR OWN METABOLIC RATE! The calories you need in a day should be as follows: calories in - calories burned. This is called your net calories intake.
3. If you eat less than the amount required by your body to survive your metabolism will decrease. This IS true. I have experienced it firsthand. After years of starving myself, my body maintains weight on a calorie intake that should lead to weight loss had I not starved myself for so long.
4. By starving yourself, you will eventually binge. Your body’s main function is to keep you alive. When it senses that it is not getting enough nutrients, it will kick into an animalistic instinct and do anything in it’s power to help you survive. Some people notice that after starving themselves for a prolonged period of time suddenly they binge without knowing why. Some people zone out while eating/binging. One thing you have to realize is that after starvation, you are not binging because the food “tastes good.” Instead, you zone out and start shoving food in your mouth without realizing what happened until the end. This is followed with periods of self-loathing and regret. In order to avoid this, you must be sure you are getting enough nutrients so that your body does not have to be triggered into being animalistic/instinctive.
If you think the calorie intake required for you to lose weight is “too high” then you’re probably wrong. For those of you who have already starved yourselves come talk to me. I have been through this and realize that it is hard to get over it. I will try my best to help you.