Hi, I don't know what to do.
- Thread starter HeyThere
- Start date
Hey there HeyThere,
Firstly, we don't advocate starvation at all. I am a vegan who, within the past few years, recovered from being severely underweight (>17 lbs under weight) so this is an issue that is very close to me.
The first thing I want to check, if you wouldn't mind (you can send me a PM), is what your height and weight is?
Secondly, what kind of vegan foods are you eating? Wholefoods, or processed foods? Are you keeping hydrated? (Hydration is a big factor in weight loss - i.e. you need to be hydrated to lose weight.)
Are you supplementing your vegan diet with exercise? If not, you absolutely must. You need muscle, not to mention cardiovascular muscle, and starvation forces the body to eat muscle as well as fat - including heart muscle!
Please do a quick search on the forum of something called the 'Herxheimer Reaction'. It is relevant to your case.
On the whole I do not think three months vegan is long enough to be concerned. The Herx period is generally a little longer than three months: in my case it was 4-5 months.
You could look up a diet called 'Raw Til 4' which reports weight loss results. It's a vegan diet you just eat uncooked foods before 4PM and cooked foods after 4PM.
Lastly, and it is lastly, you could very carefully - very carefully - use calorie restriction. But since you display signs of letting this get out of control, such as suggesting you will starve yourself, I really don't think this is wise. I've been there, and now I'm having to see various specialists to make up for the awful period of deficit I put myself through. You should never, never, never eat fewer than 1200 calories in a single day. You should not lose more than 2 lbs per week. Anything more rapid is considered starvation which is so very rarely wise except in very particular cases, under medical supervision, where short periods of fasting can help with serious other chronic illness. As a result of starving myself for even a short period of time - because I didn't do it long - I have seriously damaged my heart, skin, and hair. I also damaged my kidneys, bladder and liver but luckily they all made a full recovery. It's just not worth it, it's dangerous, playing with fire.
If you feel you need it, please also consider talking to an ED recovery forum about your thoughts of starving yourself. But, also, feel free to send me a confidential PM any time.
Vegan love.
Firstly, we don't advocate starvation at all. I am a vegan who, within the past few years, recovered from being severely underweight (>17 lbs under weight) so this is an issue that is very close to me.
The first thing I want to check, if you wouldn't mind (you can send me a PM), is what your height and weight is?
Secondly, what kind of vegan foods are you eating? Wholefoods, or processed foods? Are you keeping hydrated? (Hydration is a big factor in weight loss - i.e. you need to be hydrated to lose weight.)
Are you supplementing your vegan diet with exercise? If not, you absolutely must. You need muscle, not to mention cardiovascular muscle, and starvation forces the body to eat muscle as well as fat - including heart muscle!
Please do a quick search on the forum of something called the 'Herxheimer Reaction'. It is relevant to your case.
On the whole I do not think three months vegan is long enough to be concerned. The Herx period is generally a little longer than three months: in my case it was 4-5 months.
You could look up a diet called 'Raw Til 4' which reports weight loss results. It's a vegan diet you just eat uncooked foods before 4PM and cooked foods after 4PM.
Lastly, and it is lastly, you could very carefully - very carefully - use calorie restriction. But since you display signs of letting this get out of control, such as suggesting you will starve yourself, I really don't think this is wise. I've been there, and now I'm having to see various specialists to make up for the awful period of deficit I put myself through. You should never, never, never eat fewer than 1200 calories in a single day. You should not lose more than 2 lbs per week. Anything more rapid is considered starvation which is so very rarely wise except in very particular cases, under medical supervision, where short periods of fasting can help with serious other chronic illness. As a result of starving myself for even a short period of time - because I didn't do it long - I have seriously damaged my heart, skin, and hair. I also damaged my kidneys, bladder and liver but luckily they all made a full recovery. It's just not worth it, it's dangerous, playing with fire.
If you feel you need it, please also consider talking to an ED recovery forum about your thoughts of starving yourself. But, also, feel free to send me a confidential PM any time.
Vegan love.
Hi again, I am new to the forum so forgive me if you aren't informed of my reply.
I am 5'6 and 135 pounds, I have obvious excess fat.
I don't think I eat a lot of processed foods, but I don't really pay attention so I could be sorely mistaken.
I drink a lot of water, although, there is always room to improve there.
I don't exercise a lot. I've been asking my parents to get me a bike, so I think that will be taken care a soon.
Thanks for your feedback.
I am 5'6 and 135 pounds, I have obvious excess fat.
I don't think I eat a lot of processed foods, but I don't really pay attention so I could be sorely mistaken.
I drink a lot of water, although, there is always room to improve there.
I don't exercise a lot. I've been asking my parents to get me a bike, so I think that will be taken care a soon.
Thanks for your feedback.
HeyThere,
Well, we're about the same height and age (I'm 5 ft 5.2 inches). Your weight is within normal bounds so - first things first - you have to be aware that you do not need to lose weight.
Please don't attempt to get down to minimum healthy BMI. It's a bit of a misnomer. For example, what would happen if you got the flu for a week and didn't eat so much but - before the illness - weighed exactly minimum healthy BMI? Naturally, a weak of flu would probably make you dip from healthy to underweight. This is why I recommend a 5 lb 'buffer' on top of anyone's minimum healthy BMI - and women do need a decent amount of fat in order to maintain their fertility. The uterus lining alone accounts for up to 0.5-1lbs weight, and sometimes women forget this when they try to stay exactly the same weight through the month - a woman needs to fluctuate a bit. Not to mention menstruation-related water retention.
If you aim to lose weight no faster than 2 lbs per week I think you could be in an excellent place in 9 weeks. But please don't do it any faster or go any further. Give veganism a chance, because if you have starved yourself before you could have given yourself metabolic damage which could be prohibiting your weight loss. Eating vegan will help to heal your metabolic damage if you give it long enough.
Try only to eat whole foods and, if you can use it sensibly, make sure you are not starving yourself by tracking your calories on a site like www.cronometer.com - if you fall below 1200 calories, knowingly, then there's a serious problem and you should stop immediately. Also avoid eating bread, it's just not a good weight loss food. And make sure you continue to take multivitamins.
Hope this helps.
Well, we're about the same height and age (I'm 5 ft 5.2 inches). Your weight is within normal bounds so - first things first - you have to be aware that you do not need to lose weight.
Please don't attempt to get down to minimum healthy BMI. It's a bit of a misnomer. For example, what would happen if you got the flu for a week and didn't eat so much but - before the illness - weighed exactly minimum healthy BMI? Naturally, a weak of flu would probably make you dip from healthy to underweight. This is why I recommend a 5 lb 'buffer' on top of anyone's minimum healthy BMI - and women do need a decent amount of fat in order to maintain their fertility. The uterus lining alone accounts for up to 0.5-1lbs weight, and sometimes women forget this when they try to stay exactly the same weight through the month - a woman needs to fluctuate a bit. Not to mention menstruation-related water retention.
If you aim to lose weight no faster than 2 lbs per week I think you could be in an excellent place in 9 weeks. But please don't do it any faster or go any further. Give veganism a chance, because if you have starved yourself before you could have given yourself metabolic damage which could be prohibiting your weight loss. Eating vegan will help to heal your metabolic damage if you give it long enough.
Try only to eat whole foods and, if you can use it sensibly, make sure you are not starving yourself by tracking your calories on a site like www.cronometer.com - if you fall below 1200 calories, knowingly, then there's a serious problem and you should stop immediately. Also avoid eating bread, it's just not a good weight loss food. And make sure you continue to take multivitamins.
Hope this helps.
I probably should have mentioned I'm almost 15, I put that birthdate so no one I know would find me on here.
Thanks for your advice.
I was wondering what kind of carbs I'm supposed to include in my diet?
Thanks for your advice.
I was wondering what kind of carbs I'm supposed to include in my diet?
OK, in that case your fertility health is not settled at your age. The shortest period of starvation can have detrimental affects since you are still developing. Fertility is precious and precarious. In other words, if you starve yourself at your age you could find yourself facing fertility issues for the rest of your life. Please, do not put yourself through that.
The best carbs come from fruits and vegetables. But there's also grains, including rice and oats, but - like I said - try to avoid gluten if you want to lose weight.
Also don't weigh yourself every day - this is one of the worst things you can do when it comes to avoiding psychological EDs. Twice a week is more than adequate once you get a feel for your metabolism.
The best carbs come from fruits and vegetables. But there's also grains, including rice and oats, but - like I said - try to avoid gluten if you want to lose weight.
Also don't weigh yourself every day - this is one of the worst things you can do when it comes to avoiding psychological EDs. Twice a week is more than adequate once you get a feel for your metabolism.
Lava Flo
Newcomer
The way you feel could change very much if you shift your focus to wanting to feel vitalised rather than wanting to lose weight. A while back I didn't used to exercise much and I had the problem of terrible binge eating. When I was your age I suffered from bulimia. I've truly sorted that out now with lifestyle changes and by nurturing new focus areas. The biggest revelation was realising that our bodies processes different foods in different ways and they also make you feel different about yourself too. Calories are not all created equally. The more refined, the more additives and the more unintelligible words there are are on the ingredients list, the worse you will feel (calorie for calorie). Once you get your bike you could set some realistic short and long term goals for yourself and track them. You might enjoy the sense of achievement from that if you're a factual/achiever personality like my husband (it could either be time based or distance based). Or you might get hooked on the sensation of freedom when you are on it <- that's my bag! When I first started running many years ago, I couldn't go for more than 10 minutes without wanting to quit and my lungs and legs were all burning. Now I can run 10 miles no problem (I never ever thought I'd have been able to do that when I first started)! Now my focus is always on feeding my body with healthful, sustaining energy and I've stopped worrying about weight because it's taken care of itself. So play around with different things to see what makes you smile
As part of cleaning up my food I quit the food industry and I quit the media <- what I mean by that is, I realised that big supermarkets, packet foods, tv and magazines really don't give two hoots about whether you feel well and energetic or happy or free from disease, they want you to stay hooked into what they're selling, and they want to feel inadequate so that you keep giving them your money (otherwise they'd go out of business).Eating fresh homemade, low/no sugar foods, low/no alcohol, no caffeine and a low media diet had big positive impact on my self-esteem, eliminated midnight adrenalin surges (which I previously thought was anxiety <- it wasn't), reduced inflammation in my whole body meaning I could touch my toes again and it really changed things around for me. I highly recommend a docu-film called "That Sugar Film".
I also recommend a good stretch out with flow yoga sessions to really show some love to your hard working and loyal muscles and the beautiful strong bones and joints inside them.
All the best
x
Hi,
You can limit your fat , sugar and calorie intake. Please don't ever starve yourself. Try to eat raw and cooked vegetables - both of them. Eat legumes and grains. You can try to eat less nuts and dried fruits, as they are high in calories and fats. Get your protein from veggies and legumes. Don't eat fried food, bake instead. Eat a lot of fiber and drink water. Do some cardio and strenght training, or yoga, or pilates. You don't need a bike to excrsice)
You can limit your fat , sugar and calorie intake. Please don't ever starve yourself. Try to eat raw and cooked vegetables - both of them. Eat legumes and grains. You can try to eat less nuts and dried fruits, as they are high in calories and fats. Get your protein from veggies and legumes. Don't eat fried food, bake instead. Eat a lot of fiber and drink water. Do some cardio and strenght training, or yoga, or pilates. You don't need a bike to excrsice)
