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Quote:

Originally Posted by LAWoman

A good friend of mine has been starving herself at 500-900 calories per day for a year and has gained 12 pounds. It is a crock or else she would be a walking stick.

Obviously her metabolism slowed to accommodate her exceedingly low cal intake, so that she would become more efficient with her energy usage, thus lowering expenditure. Even so, there is a limit to what the body can do before it WILL lose weight--consider the anorexic, or prisoner of war in a starvation camp.

Quote:

Another friend I know cycles and was estimated by her trainer to be burning over 3000 calories with her cycling (major distances) while only taking in 1500 and she has stayed at 215lbs. for the last year.

Keep in mind estimates are just that--estimates, not fact. Most likely, her body became efficient enough so that she wasn't burning as much as thought, plus the metabolism slows to conserve.

This is the thing that can suck with keeping your calories intentionally low for long periods of time--your body will conserve energy, so that it uses less energy. It's still cals in/cals out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Regina

Calories in calories out is an incomplete explaination of how the body works with what it is provided and what is stored. It's not simply just what goes in must come out to reach an equilibrium to maintain weight.

It really is a simple equation: cals in=cals out to maintain weight. The kicker, though, is that it can sometimes be hard to determine exactly what influences each side of the equation. This is where the quality of the calories and metabolism quirks come into play.