I suffer from an eating disorder (which averages at around 900 calories of intake, and excessive exercise a day,) and have been losing one pound nearly every day recently (since I have been struggling more with reaching 900 calories.) My question is what am I actually losing? I am definitely not exercising enough to be burning 3500 calories (one pound of fat,) a day, so what in my body am I losing in these pounds at such a high rate?
It's most likely just water weight, which can fluctuate easily. That's why weight loss can be deceptive at times. I'd definitely seek help though, and if you're young, eating so little can do permanent damage to your development. I didn't have a diagnosed eating disorder, but I use to engage in similar behavior as a teenager - where I'd reduce the amount I'd consume to under 1000 calories. It just made me miserable, moody, fatigued, and starving.
I have been doing this for around a month or two (before I was able to keep it at 1200,) could I still be losing water weight now? Anyways, I am receiving help, just curious what I could be losing at this point.
I don't know anything for real myself but my mom's a personal trainer and at this point i think she's got some sort of disordered eating issue herself...after being overweight and losing the weight she needed, i think it just turned into an eating disorder of sorts for her. But this is supposed to be about you so anyways. If your body is starving and needs energy it can take it from water weight yes but if you're really losing a pound a day...hun first off that's dangerous. Lemme preface it with that - you can safely lose 2lbs a week i think it is and going under 1200 calories is like...its so dangerous that most calorie count sites i've been on refuse to give you a number below it. Your body needs a certain amount just to keep itself functioning and not do damage to itself, and that's like a ballpark average number but its in no way accurate for everyone its just a guideline. And there are actual height-weight-age-gender ranges out there to give you a guideline on what is a safe range for you with weight, I've used it myself cause i have weight insecurities just watching my mom...i mean if you aren't already working on that with a doctor. But anyways, as i was saying...it could be muscle mass your losing. Which is bad. Muscles...your heart's a muscle. I don't know the academic stuff like my mom does but i just know its really dangerous. Are you seeing a doctor or nutritionist about it? A psychologist?
You could be losing a bit of everything, but the body will burn muscle often, which isn't good. I have a severe chronic illness that caused by not to really eat at the end of last year, and I dropped down to 100 pounds at 6'1". I thought I'd be thrilled to weigh so little, but I just ended up with muscle loss, a sunken-in rear, and my legs still weren't as thin as I wished there were. It was also difficult for me to move around without feeling over-exerted, the area around my heart would hurt, and it would hurt to lie down in the bathtub. There's nothing wrong with being slim or a little underweight and healthy, but taken to an extreme will only harm yourself.
If you're not even eating 900 calories a day and exercising excessively, you could still easily be losing fat/muscle rapidly, even if the calorie in/calorie out equation doesn't seem to add up. Dependent on your metobolism, the mental or physical stress you're under and anything else you might be doing to your body to encourage rapid weight loss (like if you're using diet pills/laxatives,) it can be quite easy to lose a lot of weight in a short amount of time. Even if a certain amount of what you're losing is water weight, which could certainly be possible depending on how much salt and carbohydrate you're retaining, you're quite significantly undereating so continued weight loss is probably to be expected, especially if you've continually reduced the amount of calories you're taking in.