I’ve messed up my metabolism with a VLCD

[Koyo]

So I lost a lot of weight doing 800 fast. I was extremely depressed and had become a social hermit due to embarrassment with my weight. I did the low calories diet for 12 weeks.

I lost three stone relatively quickly. But now whenever I eat over 1000 calories I GAIN weight.

I assume it is due to my metabolism having slowed right down.

I’m still glad I lost the weight as I feel so less self conscious.

Please share any advice on how to kick start my metabolism?

I do around 45 mins of brisk walking a day. I do plan to go to the gym this week for the first time. An amazing feat if you knew me. My family are very proud.

But I’m quite anxious given the situation I’m in.

I’m certainly no expert but I would think that adding weight training to build muscle would help. Have you calculated your TDEE recently and checked what that indicates your daily calories ought to be?

Just to clarify, are you saying you lost 3 stone in 3 months?

Yes. I was very unwell mentally. It was lose weight fast or carry on living no life. Which was torture. I was basically agoraphobic. I had to do something drastic. I was very very unhappy. I had all kinds of thoughts. I wouldn’t wish what I went through on my worst enemy.

Didn't we have this thread earlier today?

A big loss like that in a short period has probably resulted in the loss of muscle as well as fat, so I agree with the first poster on the thread that exercising to rebuild your muscles might help - great to hear you are managing a trip to the gym.

You don't say what your current weight/BMI is (not asking you to!) but if there is any chance your rapid weight loss has taken you into the underweight category, regaining weight till you are in the healthy bracket would be normal.

Your age is also relevant here - it's common for metabolism to slow if you are perimenopausal or in menopause.

A general health check with your GP would be a good idea, as losing 3 stone in 3 months is unusual and in your position I would want to check nothing else was wrong.

How long ago did you stop VLCD? Theres always a bit of rebalancing period after but also make sure you're properly tracking all calories and keeping up the excercise

do you remember when you started your VLCD, you lost about 7lbs very quickly? “Water weight” - it’s actually that your body used up all the glucose stored in your muscles which was stored with water. What’s happening now is that your body is replacing that as you start to eat above a deficit. It’s not fat. It’s why you’ll see 4lbs go on overnight when you know for a fact that you’ve not eaten 14,000 extra calories!!