Are you undereating?

I am becoming amazed at how many young women are living on chronically low calories, or cycling between very low and bingeing. Not only can you not get enough nutrition, you also will not have energy. There is a link between how many calories you eat, or let’s say how much good quality nourishing food you eat consistently…and how much energy you have. 

1200 calorie is about what a toddler needs. A grown woman needs closer to 2000 calories! 

There is also a sort of instability that happens when you eat like a bird, erratically, skip breakfast, drink coffee till lunchtime, and then perhaps load up later in the day. You will not have stable energy levels during the day, and you will find you are running on stress hormones. 

Also, your blood sugar will be unstable, you will have highs and lows.

This will also affect your emotions, your mental health- literally the energy available for your brain- and your cycle, and any health issues triggered by stress hormones. The long term consequences can be unpleasant and will rarely be traced back to this type of eating, because it is so normalised. 

You will also be more likely to binge eat later in the day, such as on chocolate or chips, whatever your weakness is. And then the guilt cycle goes on, with restriction leading to binging leading to restriction round and round. 

If this was a good way to control your weight, maybe it might have some value, but it doesn’t even work! You will need to eat less and less just to maintain, because this way of living damages the thyroid, which controls your metabolic rate. 

Your value is not in how much you weigh. And your health is not dependent on your weight either. It’s a huge issue for women- the conditioning is powerful. 

Would you rather be super slim at any cost, or have a sense of health, wellbeing and abundant energy, and let your weight fall where it naturally does when you are thriving? Do you remember what it was like to feel really good in your body?