Expert: Rev. Ke`ala Richardson - 12/22/2003

Question
I have just found out that friend of mine is anorexic.  She would never allow herself to eat more than 700 calories a day and she would work out a few days a week.  Now, my understanding has always been that if you restrict yourself to under 1,000 calories a day, your body goes into starvation mode and stores fat.  How does someone lose so much weight so fast?  I am just trying to understand this so it makes sense to me and I can help her- she has lost 30lbs!  I just can't understand how it happens if the body stores fat, etc.....

thanks in advance,
Donna :)  

Answer
Aloha, well normally the body will store fat if there is enough food for it to survive on, but when you start restricting to a sever degree it will use all the calories you do provide it and it will also start to use body organs to feed itself. So yes generally when a person starves themselve it puts their body in a storage mode but for only so long, it must feed itself even if it has to eat itself to do so. Hope that helps, aloha Keala
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