Recovery From Undereating - Youreatopia

[narouz]

What studie shows that thin women earn more money? People who have certain skills, or creativity earn more money.

What study shows that equal pay for work of equal value has been acheived? Where?

It won't matter, tara.
The mind-vise of the politics is
"I got mine, you get yours."

 

[4peatssake]

Please let's not devolve into political argument, name calling and pointing fingers.
There is great hurt here and I would request that we all take a step back and ask ourselves if what we are posting is helpful and advances this conversation.

Please especially, don't use this or any topic as an opportunity to take a swipe at another forum member with whom you have ongoing disagreement.

Thank you.

 

[Blossom]

Please let's not devolve into political argument, name calling and pointing fingers.
There is great hurt here and I would request that we all take a step back and ask ourselves if what we are posting is helpful and advances this conversation.

Please especially, don't use this or any topic as an opportunity to take a swipe at another forum member with whom you have ongoing disagreement.

Thank you.

Thanks for the reminder. I apologize if my comment came off as rude.

 

[tara]

I think for many people, it is misinformation. If I had understood what was physiologically going on in my body, I never would have persisted. Discovering Ray Peat's work has allowed me to overcome old habits and focus on what I can do physiologically and holistically. I think if more women were able to understand how dieting and disordered eating can ruin their bodies, they might change. Of course, having the right environment is also key.

Yes, this makes sense to me. There's the combination of misinformation about health + pressure to be thin. Without the misinformation, it would be easier to manage the pressure.

 

[tara]

Hi gretchen, :)

This has been a huge area for me. I have been involved with a serious eating disorder for about the last 15 years, and must express my utter disgust and anger about the way I've been treated. Yes, I needed to lose weight, and yes, the diets I was on in the 90s fueled weight gain, but honestly, when I started I weighed no more than about 115 and needed to lose 10 lbs at most. I never set a goal weight but instead mastered the technique of eating less-- and for all the naysayers and haters, admit that's all it's about.

I'm sorry. The pressure women are put under to be thin is outrageous, and the way fat women are treated is appalling.
There seem to be a lot of people around who were convinced they needed to lose ~10 pounds. There'd be no way as far as I can see that anyone could know this anyway. And the cost can be high and long lasting.

If you eat 900 calories a day for 5 years, you WILL lose a ton of weight. It's not rocket science.

You can push the metabolism down a long way, but at some point it is going to have to start catabolising itself to maintain life at all. I read that people died of hunger in concentration camps where estimated daily food was of the order of 1300-1400 cals, and they would have been doing physical labour.

I weighed less than 100 lbs throughout the 2000s, except for weighing 102 briefly in 2007. In 2008 I took a job that required a lot of walking and plunged to 90 lbs. It concerned me but even though a whole chunk of one of my front teeth chipped off one day (around the time the weight plunged), I didn't realize I had an eating disorder. A whole inch of hair fell out of my hair line making me look like a freak, but I heard little about that compared to what I've had to put up with since gaining it back.

My teeth have been falling apart most of my life. And the message was avoid sugar and brush your teeth. I've never been diagnosably under-eating (may never have got below 2000cal for more than a couple of days at time), but I now think malnourishment - minerals and protein as well as calories - may have been a factor.
I keep hearing over and over again on the radio about the terrible 'obesity epidemic' (which isn't), and how good it would be to persuade everyone but especially children to eat less and exercise more. I keep waiting for the corresponding interviews and experts talking about the health costs of starvation and over-exercise, and what to look out for, and how important it is to eat enough so we don't catabolise important organs, and how important it is for children to get plenty of nutrients including calories so they can grow strong. Maybe I was out that day and missed it.

I developed insomnia and adult acne the year after I started dieting, and took the bcp for 7 years beginning in 2004. Although my fat loss could have been better, I did more or less get to size zero, wearing size 24-25 consistently, or a UK size 4/6. Sometimes I exercised, but not much. Calories are the main thing to avoid if your goal is to be super skinny. And the fact is, in the 2000s I did get and stay SUPER SKINNY.

I'm glad your fat loss wasn't any 'better' - sounds like you couldn't have afforded it.

I did so mostly for myself resulting from my belief that thinness helps grease the social wheel. Studies show that thin women earn more money, and it's always a card people hold as a last resort for whatever that particular gatekeeper's agenda is to keep you from getting what you want, and sometimes also what you've worked for. Everything always filters down to size. There's the attitude that of course, you don't know, and it won't make any difference, because you are a size 2, or whatever.

I haven't seen those studies, but it wouldn't surprise me. There are other pressures too, for women to conform to some 'ideal' appearance, so we can get on and do whatever, which may not have anything to do with what we look like. There are studies showing women who allow their hair to grey suffer professionally compared with women who colour their hair, too. But it doesn't have such a nasty effect on women's health as starvation diets.

I actually don't care at this point because even though I've recovered, I could always relapse. I'm up to 104, but don't feel great at this weight-- sadly, life isn't as good. I weighed 95-96 earlier this year, and am now officially a yo-yoer. Once the Obamacare thing ends (and it will), we'll go to a single payer system. Everyone can pitch in and help pay for my eating disorder, damaged teeth, etc.

My impression is that just going by weight reaching the so-called 'ideal' range doesn't really tell whether someone has recovered. Eating a reasonable amount of food (eg at least 2500 cals for mature pre-menopausal women, and more when hungry for more) allows the body to rebuild its organs and bring hormones and metabolism back up, and eating to appetite at around that amount and getting to a stable weight is a better indicator of recovery. It seems that people often find recovery tough going - the body might be repairing itself, but it can feel bad on the way. If you are not feeling good physically yet, it could be that more physical recovery is possible. Not feeling good emotionally at a higher weight is another issue - I am hoping that the societies we live in will change on this front, but in the meantime, it's good to have people around who we can tell value us and our health more than our thinness, and can keep encouraging us.

The efforts to get everyone to agree on what's healthy and to create an economy that helps and includes everyone has failed.

While there is life there is hope. :) We haven't got there yet, but I like this goal.

 

[tara]

... and the more reference experience your body has with diverse, balanced, nutrient dense foods/meals, the more honed cravings will become. What you crave is often the most ideal thing the body knows, that its familiar with

I think this is a really good point in favour of eating and giving children the opportunity to eat as wide as possible a variety of nutritious foods.

 

[Blossom]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3208829/
I found this to be an interesting read related to eating disorder recovery. I don't think it's all that uncommon for people to feel objectified in our culture but once we realize how harmful it can be we can choose to explore working toward not doing it to ourselves and others.

 

[tara]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3208829/
I found this to be an interesting read related to eating disorder recovery. I don't think it's all that uncommon for people to feel objectified in our culture but once we realize how harmful it can be we can choose to explore working toward not doing it to ourselves and others.

 

[Jennifer]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3208829/
I found this to be an interesting read related to eating disorder recovery. I don't think it's all that uncommon for people to feel objectified in our culture but once we realize how harmful it can be we can choose to explore working toward not doing it to ourselves and others.

Thanks for posting this, Blossom! :)

 

[YuraCZ]

Great topic. It's so basic thing. Have enough calories for recovery.. But still a lot of people(including me) absolutely ignores this important aspect. So then you can take all these fancy supplements and still get nowhere, because you simply don't have enough energy.. So now I make sure that I have at least 3000 kcal everyday. Thx Tara.

 

[BobbyDukes]

It's hard to eat a lot of calories, without adding significant amounts of fat into ones diet. Unless you add spoonfuls of sugar (tablespoons), or decent amounts of starch. I do better on 2000 calories, with lower amounts of fat, than eating 3-4000 calories, with higher fat.

 

[YuraCZ]

It's hard to eat a lot of calories, without adding significant amounts of fat into ones diet. Unless you add spoonfuls of sugar (tablespoons), or decent amounts of starch. I do better on 2000 calories, with lower amounts of fat, than eating 3-4000 calories, with higher fat.

What's wrong with brown sugar or honey or pure sucrose. If you have enough protein and micronutrients from other foods and supplements..? I would die in a few months on 2000 kcal diet lol.. My diet looks like
2L 1,5% milk
2 home eggs
20g natto (vit K2)
60g hydrolyzed collagen
30g glycine
1 tsp coconut oil
1 tsp butter
300g dates
80g honey
80g sugar white/brown
50g ground coffee
15g sea salt
2 lemons
240g calf liver a week
some chocolate, cheese and ground beef here and there
+vitE, B complex, aspirin, progesterone, magnesium chloride, boric acid, Sodium bicarbonate, zinc, selenium..

 

[ampersand]

Tara, excellent synopsis of the wisdom expressed at youreatopia and other sources.

I agree 100%, because everything that Gwyn says, and that you've laid out here, played out exactly the way she predicted in my own life when I realized I was under-eating and took measures to remedy that.

 

[Mike1234]

I think it's very hard to meet your protein requirements while eating low calorie.

It may be hard, but there are quite a lot of paleos and low-carbers who manage to do it for long enough to cause themselves problems.

It's actually extremely common that people diet on low cals with 100-150g of protein, at least in the fitness world. It does work well for dropping weight fast and maintaining lbm ( in my experience ) but the feeling is terrible.

 

[Mike1234]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3208829/
I found this to be an interesting read related to eating disorder recovery. I don't think it's all that uncommon for people to feel objectified in our culture but once we realize how harmful it can be we can choose to explore working toward not doing it to ourselves and others.

I don't agree. You can definitely be less harsh towards others and hope your peers do the same, but objectifying perceived health/fitness is as inescapable as our desire to eat. I say perceived health because that's what objectifying is instinctually, but as we all know it doesn't mean a whole lot to be thin in the 21st century western world as far as overall health is concerned.

 

[tara]

Just came across this on Youreatopia.
Seems to be saying the metabolism-supressing effects of calorie restriction/energy deprivation are variable from person to person, are sometimes greater than required to compensate for the calorie restriction (so some people gain weight while restricting food for the purpose of weight loss), and can sometimes take up to six years (after the energy deficiency/restrictive dieting is over) to recover from. Repeated (energy-)restrictive dieting seem to exacerbate the effect.

There are obvious and observable variations in how calorie-restriction impacts individuals both metabolically and in the form of overall reduction of mass. Metabolic changes and efficiencies for maintaining energy balance are not equal from one individual to the next. The efficiency of metabolic suppression appears to be maintained up to six years beyond the point of original calorie restriction. v The metabolic suppression also appears to be more aggressive in some than the actual deficit would require. vi That means restrict a bit and the metabolic response will not only match that deficit, but it will also overcompensate such that excess energy is now available within the system. Some individuals may release that excess into the greater environment (carbon dioxide and water) and others may partition the energy within the system (growth, repair and chemical bonds).

http://www.youreatopia.com/blog/2015/6/ ... estriction

 

[Parsifal]

Fat

• Our healthy weight/BMI/fat to fat-free mass ratio varies - there is no 'healthy weight' that applies to everyone - it varies like height etc. Only a few % of people have a natural healthy BMI of 18-21. If we try to force our weight to be lower than our set point, damage ensues.The only way to know what our healthy weight is, is to not restrict calories at all, and let it return to it's natural set point. If this is BMI 35, then forcing it down to the so-called 'healthy' weight range (under 25) will result in significant damage to our health. Statistically, there are studies showing that the risk of death is lower for the so-called 'overweight'' range than for the "healthy" range.

• People with more fat do not routinely eat more than lean people. For those people who have inflamatory conditions that keep them above their healthy weight, she thinks there are many other candidates, including unavoidable stress and hormone-disrupting chemicals in our environment, etc (this also seems compatible with Peat's views).

• The evidence does not show that being fat is either a disease or a cause of disease. There have been large studies showing fatter people had cleaner arteries than skinny ones. Gaining fat may provide some protection against the consequences of metabolic imbalances. For instance, people with more fat may be more likely to survive heart attacks than those with less.

I think people with more fat routinely get treated badly, from explicitly vicious scorn, to patronising assumptions about their character, to discouragement from participating in many physical and social activities, to poor health care, an on. This is widely accepted and very harmful to the majority of people who are not naturally thin. I think the oppression of fat people is one of the factors contributing to many people's (of whatever weight) poor metabolic health. There is no good reason for any of us to participate in it.

Tara I've not read the whole topic yet but I have several questions:

I've always read that the fat in the body act as hormones and especially secretes a lot of oestrogen/leptin so that being fat is not healthy at all, even very inflammatory?
Being fat is an indicator of fatty liver no? It means that you are not using the energy so that you store it in fat.

I believe that looking beautiful is important and a good indicator of health. I've never seen beautiful and energetic fat people. Or at least they look a lot better even if they are beautiful fat when they become thinner.

I've never seen a fat people that was healthy and when they lost weight generally they feel a lot better (if that is done healthy and not extreme).

Why are some people fat when they eat a lot and other thin? Isn't being fat a metabolic problem in it's core?

Does Peat supports this thing of eating 2x more calories than the recommandations? If I recall well he said that when he healed his thyroid he needed to eat a lot less?

What about the RDA for nutrients when you eat more. Do they change a lot?

 

[tara]

post 100742 Does Peat supports this thing of eating 2x more calories than the recommandations? If I recall well he said that when he healed his thyroid he needed to eat a lot less?

I'll comment later on the other questions, but for this one:
I don't know what Peat's attitude/ approach is to recovering from undereating. If anyone has seen him write about this, I'd be very interested to see it.
I'm not sure what you mean about eating 2x the recommendations - which recommendations do you mean? I know there are various public calorie recommendations around that recommend a lot less than the ones Gwyneth Olwyn at Youreatopia promotes. It seems that this arises from studies based on self-reports, which have been shown to be systematically underestimated, on average. One of those links I posted in your other thread describes some of the methodology for Olwyn's recommendations. There is more on this in other posts on that site. They are based on as good data as she could find about what average weight-stable non-dieting people actually eat (not what they say they eat). For recovery from severe undereating, she recommends eating an every day minimum of what it takes to run a healthy metabolism, and more when appetite demands. She then sees people continuing to eat a similar amount to maintain health thereafter (needs may reduce somewhat in old age/after menopause). For a man your age she recommends 3000 cals + 200 cals for being extra tall. Under 25 yrs she recommends 3500.
Peat has not talked about exact calorie needs a lot as far as I can tell, but there are quotes of him talking about 3000 cals as an example of a normal diet, and of 1500 cals as being pretty low. I think when he said he could eat less after suplementing thyroid, he was talking about reducing from more down to 3000 or 4000. Can't recall where this is written now - someone else may.

The most appropriate approach to increasing calories and metabolism is controversial in this forum. Some people recommend eating only as much as the current (low) metabolism can use without gainign weight, and graduall increasing this in step with increasing metabolism. You will find opinions differing from mine from Mittir and Westside, amongst others.
I believe that Olwyn's approach may have a lot to recommend it for people who have been in severe deficit. For those of us who have been in less severe deficit, I don't know if it is best to go straight up to those recommended minima, or whether a slower approach to increasing calories could work as well or better. My guess is that for those of us whose low metabolism is significantly caused by undereating, that consistently eating more may be necessary to signal the body that it can rely on the food supply, and that it is safe to get on with recovery and raising metabolism.

post 100742 What about the RDA for nutrients when you eat more. Do they change a lot?

I would expect most nutrient requirements to increase with increasing metabolism and increasing calorie use. The RDAs are approximations based on averages, and may not exactly match an individuals needs. They are not set in stone, either - they get revised from time to time on the basis of further research. Where I am, they tend to assume a calorie intake of around 2000 cals, which is not enough in general for any adults to run a healthy metabolism. Sometimes individuals need more of something because of past stresses/damage. It may be good to somewhat exceed the RDAs for several nutrients, and some of us experiment with seeing if higher quantities of some specific ones are helpful for us. Haidut has various posts on using particular vitamins etc for particular therapeutic purposes. Peat recomends significantly higher than RDA for calcium and sugar, and maybe lower for iron for most people, definitely lower for 'EFA's for everyone.

 

[Tarmander]

Just came across this on Youreatopia.
Seems to be saying the metabolism-supressing effects of calorie restriction/energy deprivation are variable from person to person, are sometimes greater than required to compensate for the calorie restriction (so some people gain weight while restricting food for the purpose of weight loss), and can sometimes take up to six years (after the energy deficiency/restrictive dieting is over) to recover from. Repeated (energy-)restrictive dieting seem to exacerbate the effect.

There are obvious and observable variations in how calorie-restriction impacts individuals both metabolically and in the form of overall reduction of mass. Metabolic changes and efficiencies for maintaining energy balance are not equal from one individual to the next. The efficiency of metabolic suppression appears to be maintained up to six years beyond the point of original calorie restriction. v The metabolic suppression also appears to be more aggressive in some than the actual deficit would require. vi That means restrict a bit and the metabolic response will not only match that deficit, but it will also overcompensate such that excess energy is now available within the system. Some individuals may release that excess into the greater environment (carbon dioxide and water) and others may partition the energy within the system (growth, repair and chemical bonds).

http://www.youreatopia.com/blog/2015/6/ ... estriction

Any idea where she got the six years number from? I thought it used to be 2-3 years.

 

[Blossom]

Her references are now at the end of each blog post.