Okay, so for the past year I've been consuming about 1,500 calories a day, and been losing no weight whatsoever. I've been very shaky, and the slightest bit of carbohydrate will make my blood sugar go crazy. I've been fixated on food, and been very anxious and shaky. I have ONLY just realised this could be due to my body being in 'starvation mode', although I didn't think 1,500 was a low enough amount of calories for this to happen. I haven't been losing weight, which I believe is a sign of starvation mode, but if I have a quick metabolism, maybe for my body in particular I haven't been eating enough.

Recently, I've been eating 3,000 calories a day, and feel so much less shaky etc. Is it possible I've been in starvation mode this whole time without realising?! I just thought I was pre-diabetes or something, but it's strange how my symptoms have gone now I've doubled my calorie in-take.

The Great Starvation Experiment :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25782294

probably seen this before but worth a repost. One line in that artice is : "Like many hungry people in Europe, the men never had meat, and calories were set at 1,800 or less." .

Now that describes a mostly vegetarian <1800 cal/day 'diet'

There are no doubt some better articles on the details of the experiment and I know Amazon has a book.

I've read the lower your calorie intake the more chance of you reducing the rate your body burns calories is. The whole thing confuses me actually but I do know to get out of a weight loss plateau I've upped my calorie intake in the past.

I believe not eating enough can slow your weight loss down but not stop it, that doesn't mean it's healthy especially if you are feel dizzy from this? If that is the case you may want to go another way forward.

Do you exercise? If you do you may want to up the intake and also consider the tape measure may be more accurate.

So are you now consuming 3000 calories a day now? How have you got on so far?

I have read that if you don't take in enough calories, your body goes into starvation mode and basically shuts down. It automatically preserves what fat you have stored for as long as it can. We must eat in order to lose. Isn't that crazy?

It is a little crazy but when you think of all the things our body does on a daily basis you can understand why starving it is a horrible idea with all sorts of crazy consequences. I refuse to feel that way, it puts a damper on the thought of trying to get healthy (and fit) but for me personally I get some nasty mood swings out of doing that. Never again.