I'm looking for actually documentation (not hearsay, or my doctor said) about the minimum number of calories the human body needs to be healthy and safe. Obviously I've put way to many calories in my body that's why I've had my surgery. However I don't know if I subscribe to the "starvation theory" either. . . .heck almighty, if I was going to starve to death that would have happened during my liquid phase.

What have you actually read? That I can look up and read in black and white myself, about how many calories you need to eat.

This is purely a question out of my own curiosity, not meant to insight comments about rebellion or "listen to my doctor" *laughter*

Thanks in advance ~ Erica

Go to www.room42.com and input your info in the basal metabolism calc and it will give calories and other info. M:clap2:

Interesting...it says no less than 1542 calories for safe, consistent weight loss for me and 58 grams of Protein per day. That's a lot more than I thought.

Emily

There are books and websites on the minimalist diet where you eat very few calories. It was on Dateline or something like that years ago. These people ate very few calories and they all stated it helped the people doing it live longer and look younger. They actually did. I would look it up to see what you think. I have counting that I am taking in around 1000 calories a day and with no exercise have not been able to lose weight. It is scary to think that a 215 pound person can maintain their body weight with 1000 calories a day.

If anything, I think its impossible to determine without extensive medical assistance, how many calories you require. Some people have fast metabolisms, some have slow ones. I can eat a reasonable amount before gaining weight, my husband lives on air and is overweight.

But I think that they've determined with relative certainty that a low calorie diet lifelong is advantageous. As bandsters I think we'll all probably fit safely within the term low calorie diet.

But the body is so adapatable that you wont keep getting skinnier and skinnier, you will learn to live on 1000 and maintain your weight if you do it long enough.

There are books and websites on the minimalist diet where you eat very few calories. It was on Dateline or something like that years ago. These people ate very few calories and they all stated it helped the people doing it live longer and look younger. They actually did. I would look it up to see what you think. I have counting that I am taking in around 1000 calories a day and with no exercise have not been able to lose weight. It is scary to think that a 215 pound person can maintain their body weight with 1000 calories a day.

Your body could be in starvation mode. If I were you, I'd try upping my calories for a few days then slowly going back to 1000 and see if it helps.

I lose weight consistently on 1300-1400 a day and 20 minutes of exercise bike 5 times/week. I don't lose it fast, but when I stick with it, it does come off.

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<HR style="COLOR: #d1d1e1" SIZE=1><!-- / icon and title --><!-- message -->Starvation/ i did it not knowing I was doing it by low calorie diet of 1000 calorie's not counting the hours of exercise I was doing in a week,tell one day I was looking into my food journal and was shocked on how many calorie's I was consuming the burning all most that much off 3 pounds of weight loss in 42 hard days of exercise! learn from my mistake.please also you can take your weight time's elevin that is the calories your body need's in a day 500 more to gain weight 5oo less to lose works. good luck!

I have been looking this up. It's hard to find information on starvation that isn't given relating to eating disorders, and I want more than just that one branch of opinion.

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One article on POWs in Japan said they were on a "near-starvation diet of 700 calories per day". Most sources will agree that this is most definitely within actual starvation range.

A diet article said that "to avoid triggering the starvation-adaptation response, you should consume at least 1,200 Calories per day if you’re a woman and 1,600 Calories if you’re a man." I think, though, that they were more concerned with the metabolism's slowing-down response than actual starvation.

And I found a technical, encyclopaedic definition that seems pretty thorough:

Starvation is classified into three categories based on caloric intake over time (Frisancho, 1981):

1. Acute - less than 600 calories/day for less than two weeks.

2. Semiacute starvation - less than 1100 calories/day for less than 30 days. 3. Moderate semistarvation - less than 1600 calories/day for as long as 24 weeks.

Initial consequences of starvation are apathy, muscle weakness, and reduction of activity. Body weight loss is progressive. The body first extracts energy from carbohydrate stored in the liver and glycogen in muscles. Then the body burns fat to get needed energy for about two weeks. After that point both fat and Protein are used. After 24 weeks there is a loss of physical work performance. Individuals with a daily diet intake of less than 2,000 calories per day have impaired physical work capacity.

Many sources agree that starvation causes some pretty typical behavior changes. Interestingly enough these new behaviors are the same as those usually found in eating-disordered people... a fixation on the body, an obsession with meal-planning and cooking, the tendency to hoard food or pictures of food, other compulsive-type ritualized patterns. I'm curious. How many of those traits do eating-disordered people start with, and how many show up on their own as a result of our food habits? A lot of doctors attribute our disorders to those traits, not the traits to the disorder, and therefore tend not to consider the possibility.

And the article about the Minnesota starvation study has finally reared its pretty head. I'm so frickin' happy! I love this baby. It explains so many of those odd little quirks that plague me from time to time, and I think it's fascinating to see how starvation can turn almost anyone into an ED, at least for a while. I wonder if that's really how a lot of EDs begin. People with the tendencies start to diet, then their bodies kick into gear and yank them down. So it's not just a matter of willpower or self-control or "not letting a diet get out of hand" if some of us really can't mess with that without going nuts, is it? Go here to read the parts pertaining to the study, and here to find the whole thing (load the page, then click "psychoeducational").

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• untitled2.html
  
• An Endocrinologist Talks About Consequences of Starvation
  
• Problems Caused By Being Underweight
  
• IB Holocaust Project: Starvation, Cold, and Disease
  
• Levi - food, calories
  Primo Levi. Concentration camp survivor and author. Very interesting.
  
• Effects of Combining Low-Carb with Starvation
  
• Anorexics Sentenced to Death
  An article about how the USA's health-care system is failing anorexics.
  
• Practice: Case Examples, Practice Essentials and Frequently Asked Questions
  
• Digestive Reading 5
  
• A Policy of Deliberate Starvation
  Details on the food situation in concentration camps.
  
• The Air Commodore Birchall on Leadership
  Not specifically about starvation, but worth reading. He kicks ass. Story of his experiences in a POW camp.
  
• THE MERCK MANUAL, Sec. 1, Ch. 2, Malnutrition
  
• Toothpaste Used Up the Rest of my Calories!
  A "normal guy's" response to a diet.

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This was found on a site called fat like me! I hope every one out there is losing weight and doing it right,way. If you are going to count calories please do it with an open mind weight loss is good but not at the cost of starvation!

I,am guilt of living around 1200 caolries daily and lower but at what cost long term? please read! I hope it made you think "that" all.

http://jaoii.lunarpages.com/starve.html

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:banana :banana :banana With God behind you success is a prayer away.

Weight 197.6.......... BMI 26.8 and ("DROPPING").......with lean muscle...

P.S I" hope that you are meeting your weight loss goal's

Will Venture to 185lb. Mini Goal.

"You cannot achieve fitness with out Exercise!

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My Jazzercise instructor on Saturday handed out a flyer stating you should multiply your goal weight by 11 to see how many calories you should be eating to arrive at that goal weight. So if you want to be 130 lbs, you should be eating 1430 calories per day.

I really think, though, that what works for 1 person may not work for another. One person may need more/less calories because of their metabolic rate.

Good luck in finding what works for you!