Is there a weight that is too low for you and what kind of symptoms do you have?
I haven't really started upping my cals for maintenance yet, mainly because in general I'm blissfully happy with where they are now and because I'm scared. I also like to keep a little extra for my weekends. So that means that I'm still losing a little. Last week I was down to 142 and was ravenous Wednesday, Thursday, and by Friday I couldn't take it anymore so I gave in and ate extra. We where out of town that weekend and so I indulged and between that and the water weight from my race I was back up to 146 by Monday. This week I was back op and down again to 142 yesterday and again ravenous, I stayed op though because I really like the way 142 feels from a physical exterior perspective. This morning I'm down to 141 and I had to eat 1/2 a banana after my usual morning run because I was so freaking hungry. Do you think this hunger is because of losing weight or because my body doesn't like the low 140s and is trying to go back up. I mean for 5'-6" the low 140s is a completely normal weight so I find it hard to believe that that would be too low for me. I'm just not sure where this crazy hunger is coming from or what I should do about it.
I am interested in what other people have to say as I'm trying to find my "sweet spot" as well. I'm struggling with the body image issues that have always haunted me and what led me to getting fat in the first place...ie. "never good enough." I have washboard abs (not bragging..wait, yes I am! ), but am unhappy with my thighs, etc.
In general, I think my hunger thermometer is completely broken, so I depend on energy levels to let me know how much I should be eating. On my heavy workout days (1.5 hr karate and 1 hr trainer), I try to eat things on the higher end of the calorie spectrum, but that are still within my exchange allowances. For example, I'll do 1/2 bagel instead of low carb bread or 3oz buffalo instead of 3oz chicken. That seems to be helping me maintain without adding additional foods in. It also gives me a little cushion for the occasional treat.
I think what I'm going to be careful of (and maybe you can look at this too) is the addiction to losing weight. It's so satisfying to see the scale go down. I felt a little virtuous when I dropped below goal and thought...hmmm...what if I dropped 10 more? But, it's a slippery slope and I don't want to trade one addiction for another. I'm trying to deal with what it is in my brain that always wants more, more, more. Why do I always feel like I'm "too much ____" or "not enough _____."
It sounds like you are doing a lot of heavy exercise. Way more than me anyway; since I started maintaining I've pretty much been doing the basic 4-5 times a week, raise heart rate to 80% for 30-60 min (mixing cardio and weights and on week 5 of the C25K), with an occasional weekend hike thrown in. I've been lucky not to feel hungry, real hunger anyway, at maintenance calories or a bit below. But I bet if I exercised as much as you I would have more trouble with that. Maybe you could try eating a bit more as a test, or tweaking your nutrient combo a bit. I know vaguely from seeing it on the Runner's World page that there are lots of complex ideas about runners' nutrition, maybe you could look there if you haven't yet.
I did a long reply,
however, when I tried to post it
this Site logged me out and lost it.
SO...Please read some of my other recent posts here,
and I believe you'll have my answer.
I was at my lowest weight last summer and fall, was maintaining around 123, and I would get fantastically hungry after runs. When I gained a little weight, mostly from muscle I think as my pants stayed the same, I found I wasn't starving to death the day after running. I did try to eat a better balance for the running, so that might have helped as well? I didn't find myself crazy hungry after other workouts, but I didn't have as much of a calorie burn on them either.
While you are way more physically active than I am, I have experienced the same. We are about the same height/weight, and I've noticed that I go through spurts when I'm trying to stay around 141-142 when I am ravenous. Like, want to chew off my left arm hungry, even though I've eaten way more calories that I feel is reasonable for my height/activity/age...
I try to just eat something small to quite the rumblings - 100-150 calories of something healthy - and increase my fluids. Inevitably, I will lose weight the next day.
The problem for me is continuing to want to eat at that level. Once my body evens back out & the hungries quiet down, I enjoy the extra "snacks", and whammo - back up to 145.
Soooo, I feel like it is OK to stay here, even though I would really LOVE to see the 130s for longer than a nano-second. To obtain & maintain that weight will take some hungry days and yet another rebalancing phase.
Not sure if any of this is helpful. Just letting you know, I guess, that you are not alone.
Is there a weight that is too low for you and what kind of symptoms do you have?
About 115 or below that is too low. Never mind what the BMI charts for my height say. I stop menstruating. I'm hungry nearly all the time. I am always cold -- even drinking something cold makes me shiver uncontrollably. (At this weight, I can remember warming up my Diet Pepsi in the microwave, in a mug, to take the edge off it.) My digestion slows down, so that my capacity to eat is limited. It's not that my stomach has shrunken, it's that the food gets through me more slowly. The most striking effects are psychological. I become fixated on food. I mean, I fetishize it. Like someone with a porn addiction, I can't stop looking at pictures of it, reading recipes, staring at it in grocery stores or in the windows of shops. I watch people eat. (It's the starving prisoner thing. I read an account of the Minnesota Starvation Study -- described briefly here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneso...ion_Experiment -- in Gina Kolata's "Rethinking Thin" & found my behavior resembled theirs.) Food is all I think about it. And I don't concentrate very well. My thoughts race & scatter everywhere.
I wish that I did not know this about myself, but unfortunately, I do. I trust this hard-won life experience more than the little numbers lining up on that chart.
ETA: How could I forget one of the most flagrant symptoms? I start bingeing. And there is a particularly ugly, compulsive edge to it.
Could you say why this particular weight is important to you? It took me a while to be happy with 140, but then decided not hitting the 130s was OK. Going under happened accidentally, during the summer, and I'm pretty sure those 2lb were muscle weight. I was away from the gym and doing upper body work. And now my shoulders and back have a bony aging look that I am not entirely happy with, and I am back to working hard to get the muscle layer back, and the two to five lb with it if necessary.
I know that I don't like it when my weight dips too low, usually around the 132-135 area. I may feel emotionally virtuous but I feel fatigued, ravenous (which usually pops me back up to my preferred maintenance range anyway), I don't sleep well and I think that my face starts to look a little too gaunt. The face thing may just be in my head though. I think that finding your "sweet spot" may just take some time and trust. Put your focus on feeling good above any other "rules" you may have. There are no hard and fast rules about your goal weight range. I do think that it just has to be sustainable for the long haul.
Could you say why this particular weight is important to you?
It's just something about the way my clothes fit and my stomach just feels a little less bloated I guess I'd say. At 145-146 I feel, well bloated. I'm OK with 140-145 and if I need to stay at the high end of that range I'm OK with too. Would I rather be at the low end of it yes, would I even love to dip into the high 130s - absolutly, but if it means I'm going to be ravenous and feel weak, well then I guess that just won't be sustainable for me and I will have to accept that, because we all know that sustainablity is key. So I guess well see how the next few weeks go. Things will be getting pretty busy for me and there are going to be a lot of out of town weekends coming up, so it will probably be pretty difficult for me to stay at that lower range anyway.
I'm tall, and I was 145 for awhile. It was difficult, as you said - and it was also the weight for me that simply wanted to come back on....
It really is the running in your case that is making you ravenous. I know, I run too - and that makes eating a more restricted calorie budget difficult. But, running is SO good for your heart, lungs, and stress, that it is obviously worth it.
I don't have any advice, except, maybe you need to 'ride the hunger out'. I mean, you know how, at the beginning of the weight loss journey - you can often feel ravenous as you cut your calorie intake? But, then, you know it is the best thing to do for your happiness - so you just bear down a little bit and find other ways to deal with the hungry, i.e. an activity that takes your mind off food, finding the perfect foods that keep you satiated the longest.... then, the hunger eventually is not SO ravenous.... your mind and body gets used to the feeling.
there is also the ravenous feeling that many women get (myself included) a week before their period starts - i always eat at the high end of my calorie range then.
but, regardless, it is a tough call - running long distances and feeling hungry.... is it worth it to stay at 140 or do you let your body dictate a bit more?
This thread is of particular interest to me! I can't find a whole lot of good info on this aside from what I read in the book "Making Peace with Food" that talks about how your body has a specific weight "set point" that it wants to be at naturally, and if you go under that weight, it will try to get you to gain back up to that number.
I went from 180 pounds, down to 92.5 pounds at my absolute lowest (and I'm 5'2" by the way). I stopped getting my period when I had JUST gotten out of the overweight range a year and a half ago, and it never came back. When I started getting down under 110 and started becoming pretty satisfied with my weight, I started feeling worse. I'm not sure there's a direct connection there or not. I went to the doctor and they said my hormones were all wacky and my liver enzymes were elevated, but never found anything specifically wrong or any sort of cure.
Anyway, I seem to maintain around 98 pounds on 1800 healthy calories a day with moderate (20 minutes cardio, 10 minutes weights) exercise daily. I would that that would be plenty of calories, and I'm not exercising excessively, but I still find myself fatigued, unable to concentrate, irritable, and my mind is fixated on food all the time. I'm not sure what to do. I don't want to force myself to gain back more weight, but I'm afraid maybe that's what my body wants? It's hard to tell.
Just wanted to add my experience into the mix and see if anybody has any further input on this matter!
peccavi, your BMI score is in the underweight range. That might be the answer for you.
Of course you're feeling sick. And it's never normal for a woman's period to stop, barring pregnancy (ETA: or menopause)--I believe it's an indiciation that she has lost too much, but I'm not a doctor. You can check out some ideas on the internet.
Your doctor was not thinking when he or she looked at wacky hormones and bad liver enzymes and your weight, and then didn't ask you more about whether you had been losing weight or what you have been eating in the course of a day. ETA: You say you are eating 1800 calories, and that sounds like plenty--if that is the case, then there may be something else wrong. What you describe isn't normal.
You might want to try a consult with another doctor, one who is savvy about weight loss. And you might also check on that 1800 calories number, just to make sure your counting is correct.
I had to come back and edit this because originally I didn't see how much you were eating.
Hunger isnt always a good sign we should be eating more.
- are you staying hydrated?
- have you gotten your tummy accustomed to eating high volumes of food, hence it needs more volume to feel full?
- are you eating the right foods to stay full? high protein, especially if you workout a decent amount or run around with kids/active lifestyle
- are you under stress, it makes the human body, esp women, crave carbs like insane peeps!
Im 125, 5'6 and have to eat an average of 1600-1800 to maintain...I tried eating 1200-1400 and my body kept losing...not good.
The wise suggestion someone gave me on here (sorry dont recall who!), was to determine maint not by what WEIGHT I wanted to be, but what caloric intake I felt I could easily sustain for life and left me feeling good.
Only other advice is when you know you are truly TOO low:
- loss of energy, you should feel like you have enough energy at all times...really eval this, I think some of us get accustomed to certain energy levels, you should feel truly vital though
- loss of period, this is more like the red alert sign than a warning...see a dr if it ever happens
- never dip below ~1200cal/day
*maybe* my low weight is too low for me?
), but am unhappy with my thighs, etc. 
