Your Curvy Sisters

i’m in health care, and this is in response to the girl who posted the anonymous “never hungry/thirsty” ask; i already commented on it, but i felt like i really needed to write something a little more in-depth to explain what’s going on and to reach a wider audience of girls who might be going through the same thing.

diminished capacity or total inability to perceive hunger or thirst is a sign of ACTUAL STARVATION. you are depriving your body of what it needs to survive. at bare minimum, a young adult woman needs anywhere between 1500-1800 calories for basic function—as in, this is what you would burn if you stayed in bed for 16 hours and slept for 8. (this is your BRM—basal metabolic rate.) anything beyond that, even as much as getting up, putting clothes on, taking a shower, driving a car, etc, will require additional calories. this is why values on food labels are balanced on a 2000 calorie diet, even though most of us will burn more than that in a day. our bodies have plenty of stores to chug along for awhile if we don’t get enough calories, but the real danger of prolonged insufficient intake is in a.) vitamin/mineral deficiencies, and b.) atrophy.

if you go to a doctor in search of diet advice, you will most likely get advice for calorie restriction and exercise. the BARE MINIMUM diet you will get put on will be between 1200 and 1300 calories. (if you are very, very heavy—large enough that you are physically incapable of exercise—some doctors might put you on a severely restricted diet, about 800-1000 calories, provide you with what you need, and keep you monitored. other doctors don’t feel that the benefits of this diet outweighs the risks except in extreme cases.) that’s because anything lower than that minimum is dangerous and unhealthy, and you will still probably have to take nutritional supplements because it’s incredibly difficult to get your full intake of vitamins/minerals in just 1200-1300 calories. if your goal is weight loss, most doctors will encourage you to eat about 1700-2000 calories a day instead and increase your activity rate to compensate.

if you are never hungry/thirsty, eat very little, and are still gaining weight, the key is—counterintuitively to your body—to eat more, take supplements, and exercise! do not go crazy with the exercise, but boosting your calorie intake to at least 1400 and then going for a brisk 30 minute walk daily will do wonders for you. 1400 is still not even remotely enough if you’re looking to maintain your weight, but what you want to do is jump start your metabolism—give it enough food that your body isn’t literally eating itself alive, rebuild the muscle you’ve lost to atrophy, and as you gain muscle mass, your BMR increases. depending on the person, you will begin to feel hungry/thirsty again anywhere between a few days to a few weeks. then you can slowly increase your caloric intake. staying active, making sure you’re getting proper nutrition, and eating enough is how you get into the cycle of healthy weight loss/maintenance.

PLEASE do not starve yourselves, ladies. no matter if your goal is weight loss or maintenance, this is the absolute worst thing you could do for yourself. loving your body includes treating it right!

This isn’t an ask, but please hear me out.

With that last Anon, the who said, er, typed, ‘You’re acting as if theres nothing you can do, if you’re fat, you’re fat because you eat too much. Want to be skinny? Work out.’ I feel the need to try and explain to this ignorant person all the things wrong with this statement. As well as to others who visit your (wonderful) blog and have similar ideas about weight.

First, the idea that you’re ‘fat’ because you eat to much. This person is either a troll or incredibly stupid. There, are many, many reasons as to why a person can become, or is, overweight. One of the biggest factors is Genetic disposition, if someone comes from a family or has/have a parent/s that is/are overweight, there is a high chance that they could have issues with body weight as well. Now, let me make it clear that there is no one gene that makes a person overweight, it’s a series/combination of many different genes that doctors and scientists still haven’t fully mapped out. These genes determine how easily body fat is gained, as well as lost.

The next biggest factor is Metabolism, or how quickly a person’s body can process their food. Some people have very high metabolism, like my friend Taylor,who’s a tall,pale, twig with no coordination(eliminating sports), who can eat like a horse and not gain anything. Then there’s me and a few of my friends who can share a single slice of cheesecake, and still put on weight.

Everyone’s body is different, never try to simplify a person’s weight to how much they eat. 

As for working out to get skinny, well yeah. Working out will allow people to lose weight, for a time. Weight loss is more than just working out, more often than not a lifestyle has to change, eating habits have to change, etc. Once a change has been made weight does begin to come down, however there are problems with weight loss as well that can be discouraging to those trying to lose weight. Like plateaus in weight loss. Even with all the changes a person makes, and the amount of work out time they spend, some people have medical conditions that prevent them from shedding the weight, and more drastic measures have to be taken, aka weight loss surgery.

One problem that I know of too well is keeping the weight off. Researchers have discovered that when an overweight person loses weight, a certain chemical in the brain drops, this chemical and the amount of it in the brain correlates to what the brain perceives as the body’s ‘base weight’ (or ‘normal weight’, and the brain can see it’s body’s base weight at 90 lbs, or 200 lb). So if a 200 lb person loses weight, and the chemical drops the body is going to try and regulate itself back to it’s base weight. This chemical is so important to understand because it changes food cravings, and even how you perceive the taste of food (like something high in fat will taste even more delicious than you previously thought).

My main point is that while there is a certain amount of personal accountability for one’s weight, it’s not something that can, or should, be simplified.

(Also, there’s a short documentary series called ‘Weight of the Nation’ that’s really good on explaining weight, and gives a better explanation of some of the info I gave here (like with the ‘base weight’, etc.))