Have a messed up my metabolism for good?

[Suasexed]

Have I messed up my metabolism for good and lost mainly muscle?

Hey there! I never thought about joining a forum whilst I've been losing weight, but having searched in Google and found this forum I thought I'd join and have already read lots of really useful stuff. Anyway, I'm Tom, I'm 21 and have been losing weight over the last 6 months through quite a restrictive calorie intake "diet". I know, I know it's bad... if I had known and had the advice that's available here when I started I would have done things differently.

But yeah, my starting weight was 19st which is pretty scary (I'm 5ft 11), but have managed to get down to my current weight which is 14st. I've done this by cutting my calories down to around 1500 a day, although fluctuate between 1000 to 1800 every few days. I lost this weight without doing much exercise and I eat mainly lean meats, lots of fruit and veg and pretty much cut out all sugary foods and highly processed carbs. I've yet to plateau and (apart from putting a few lbs on over Xmas) I've managed to lose at least 1lb every week. I've still got a fair bit to lose though, especially around my tummy area. I'm just concerned that I've messed up my metabolism that if I ever wanted to increase my calorie intake I would automatically start putting weight on? I've started upping my exercize to walking/jogging and am starting to do some weights (something I wish I did right at the beginning.)

I think I've lost a lot of muscle too... I've defintely lost a lot of fat, but I still feel like I've got a lot of fat still to lose, which makes me wonder if a large amount of my weight loss is actually muscle. Having said that if I tense my arms my biceps don't seem to have strunk particularly and my leg muscles appear to look the same.

Sorry for this long long post, basically just wanted to say hey, get some advice about metabolism and the amount I'm eating and how much of the 5st I've lost could likely be muscle, and if that's the case, how can I continue to lose fat whilst retaining as much muscle as possible from here on in?

 

[KaraCooks]

It's pretty impossible to permanently screw your metabolism that badly. It's possible that if you increase your calories, you will gain some weight ... but it won't take that long for your body to catch up again and you'll be in a position to continue losing with more calories coming in.

The general rule that tends to work is to estimate 10-12 calories per pound of current body weight to lose healthily. So if you weigh 14st, that's about 196lbs, so about 1900-2000 calories would be a good rate for you to lose safely.

 

[Big D]

as far as preserving muscle mass, what are you doing as far as exercise and weight training? As a side note, you're always going to lose some muscle mass when losing a lot of weight like you have (congrats by the way) if for anything because you're not having to support and move as much weight as you used to.

but no, its really hard to permanently mess up your metabolism. check out the concept of 'refeeding'.

 

[clever_plant]

I'll just echo what others are saying... it is pretty much impossible to really fuck up your metabolism in any permanent way unless you are either suffering from an untreated eating disorder for a long time (some anorexics end up with metabolisms, and well.. organs and bodies in general that are permanently trashed, if they aren't treated) but yeah.. read up on refeeding... to put it in a ... like.. uncomplicated manner... your body pretty much wants to have a "functioning" metabolism... so while you might gain a pound or two refeeding your metabolism will be up to speed within a reasonable amount of time.

So.. in short.. don't sweat it, just try to get into the ballpark of your BMR over a couple of weeks and your body will catch up and you can go down again to something like 1800 and loose pounds and pounds

as a final note.. congrats on the great weight loss!

 

[Ronbell]

You've got one great contributing factor working for you here: your age.

Any muscle loss that you have during your weight loss can easily be regained. My suggestion is to gradually increase your calories up to around what kara suggests, but of course, gradually.

Increasing the cardio and exercise is also a great idea. I couldn't imagine weight loss with diet alone :S

 

[cbsfitness]

You are 21. You will find that if you use a well designed resistance training program that takes advantage of your current macro nutrient ratios and up the calories to the correct amount that within a year or less you will have a new physique. Congrats on what you have done so far. (Wish I was still in my 20's it was much easier to lose fat and gain muscle.)