Think I messed up metabolism - can't eat to satiety without gaining weight now
I went on quite an extreme diet and I think it has permanently lowered my metabolism to the point now that if I want to eat to maintain my current weight I have to eat less (Around 3000 calories in total) than the amount I could eat in the past at a comparable weight (I think I used to be able to eat around 3300 calories to maintain). There is actually research that shows that your metabolism can be permanently lowered by extreme dieting (it's called "metabolic adaptation" in the research).
Basically, I was 10 kgs overweight, and I was trying to lose 20 kgs to get to an ideal weight, but I was constantly hitting weight loss plateaus every 2 - 3 kgs of weight loss. So I'd lose 2 - 3 kgs, then hit a plateau. And doctors say that when this happens you should adjust your calorie intake to make it lower. So I did this repeatedly, where I would lose 2 - 3 kgs, hit a plateau, reduce calories, lose 2-3 kgs, hit a plateau, etc. The only problem was that I had to keep going so low to the point that I was eventually maintaining weight at 600 calories a day. (I know they say not to go below 1500 calories a day if you're a male but I literally couldn't lose more weight after a few weeks of being at 1500 calories a day so I didn't have any choice but to keep reducing). When I hit a plateau at 600 calories it was not becoming possible to reduce again because I was literally starting to feel dizzy from eating such little food and so I had to stop eating such a low amount of calories, though I was near my desired goal at that point anyway.
Since increasing my calorie intake (relatively gradually), I noticed that now it seems like I maintain at only 3000 calories. When I try going even slightly over 3000 calories, I start gaining weight quite quickly, and then I resume maintaining at that new weight as soon as I go back to 3000 calories. However, I never really feel like I've eaten enough now and constantly am thinking about food. I think this is causing my difficulty sleeping and causing my baldness to progress quite quickly (I can see changes to my hair line on a day-to-day basis on most days). For the few months before I went on the diet, although I was overweight, I was feeling very full for several hours after meals, was sleeping well, and had mostly stopped my baldness from progressing. I think the problem is that not eating enough food causes me to sleep badly which then causes the baldness to progress.
My understanding from the research is that once your metabolism is lowered there is nothing you can do about it, but I don't think it's going to be sustainable for me to perpetually deprive myself of food. If I tried increasing to 3200 -3300 calories (so that I'm actually full and can sleep better, not lose hair, etc.), would I keep gaining weight indefinitely until I am overweight again? Or would my weight gain stop at a point before that? Is there some way of calculating how much weight I would gain before I can maintain at 3200 to 3300 calories?
I went on quite an extreme diet and I think it has permanently lowered my metabolism to the point now that if I want to eat to maintain my current weight I have to eat less (Around 3000 calories in total) than the amount I could eat in the past at a comparable weight (I think I used to be able to eat around 3300 calories to maintain). There is actually research that shows that your metabolism can be permanently lowered by extreme dieting (it's called "metabolic adaptation" in the research).
Basically, I was 10 kgs overweight, and I was trying to lose 20 kgs to get to an ideal weight, but I was constantly hitting weight loss plateaus every 2 - 3 kgs of weight loss. So I'd lose 2 - 3 kgs, then hit a plateau. And doctors say that when this happens you should adjust your calorie intake to make it lower. So I did this repeatedly, where I would lose 2 - 3 kgs, hit a plateau, reduce calories, lose 2-3 kgs, hit a plateau, etc. The only problem was that I had to keep going so low to the point that I was eventually maintaining weight at 600 calories a day. (I know they say not to go below 1500 calories a day if you're a male but I literally couldn't lose more weight after a few weeks of being at 1500 calories a day so I didn't have any choice but to keep reducing). When I hit a plateau at 600 calories it was not becoming possible to reduce again because I was literally starting to feel dizzy from eating such little food and so I had to stop eating such a low amount of calories, though I was near my desired goal at that point anyway.
Since increasing my calorie intake (relatively gradually), I noticed that now it seems like I maintain at only 3000 calories. When I try going even slightly over 3000 calories, I start gaining weight quite quickly, and then I resume maintaining at that new weight as soon as I go back to 3000 calories. However, I never really feel like I've eaten enough now and constantly am thinking about food. I think this is causing my difficulty sleeping and causing my baldness to progress quite quickly (I can see changes to my hair line on a day-to-day basis on most days). For the few months before I went on the diet, although I was overweight, I was feeling very full for several hours after meals, was sleeping well, and had mostly stopped my baldness from progressing. I think the problem is that not eating enough food causes me to sleep badly which then causes the baldness to progress.
My understanding from the research is that once your metabolism is lowered there is nothing you can do about it, but I don't think it's going to be sustainable for me to perpetually deprive myself of food. If I tried increasing to 3200 -3300 calories (so that I'm actually full and can sleep better, not lose hair, etc.), would I keep gaining weight indefinitely until I am overweight again? Or would my weight gain stop at a point before that? Is there some way of calculating how much weight I would gain before I can maintain at 3200 to 3300 calories?
