BarbellsandBeakers

The reason it's tough to find a "if you get x calories below you hit survival mode" is because survival mode is kinda a deluded term. I've been writing a series about metabolism on my blog, and basically found the Minnesota Semi-Starvation Study estimated a 40% decrease in BMR during a feeding of 50% of maintenance calories. Other studies put obese women on 1,000 calories a day and found that after a few weeks their BMR dropped on average 20-21%. Some studies estimate these changes last for up to 2 weeks after you normalize your food intake. I currently have the "less calories than optimal starvation study" article on queue, but I have one about fasting and metabolism http://barbellsandbeakers.com/post/17611300146/after-12-hours-of-not-eating-your-metabolism-drops if you want to check it out! It links to the studies too, so you can surf through there

I'm new too From AZ, I spend my summers there, specifically Chandler. I go to school in Mississippi so during the school year that's where I am

Hey all! I'm Courtney, a 23 year old girl from AZ, now living in the south for veterinary school. Like all veterinarians I'm a total nerd and I love reading studies on PubMed. If you couldn't guess, I'm super cool. ANYWAY, I found this through the Tumblr community, and I feel like I may belong? Here's my "story"... My first year in undergrad I developed an eating disorder. "Developed" is the wrong word, since I feel like it was a slow transition from a snowball to an avalanche that fell on me during that first year. I'd suffered from self-loathing, yo-yo dieting, etc. and I grew up with parents who were CONSTANTLY dieting. I remember going to my dads house and gorging on "bad food" because my mom didn't keep it in the house. That first year I found the thinspo community on LJ and it was the straw that broke the camels back. I spent the next few years cycling through cardio bunny, negative calorie balances, exercising into serious deficits, and ruining my body. In April I decided to "recover." This is mostly due to the Tumblr community. Over the last few months I found the fitblr community and made the gradual transition from weight loss to fat loss to body acceptance. I loosely practice Intuitive Eating, but as with everything I am tweaking and learning about myself in the process. In November/December I became serious about strength training. I realized that weighing 118 lbs like I did at my lowest wouldn't do me any good if I constantly felt like I was going to die of starvation or pass out. In January I bought a little book to track my workouts, joined Fitocracy and began to focus on gains. At the same time I transformed my Tumblr from "Courtney's Silly Corner of Tumblr" to BarbellsandBeakers.com. I started taking the science I learned from school and nerdom and applying it to the Tumblr community to fight a lot of the misinformation commonly seen. I also wanted to help other girls in recovery who needed support, a shoulder to cry on or someone to look for who was looking for strength and stability. ANYWAY. I'm 5'4, about 135-ish (slowly weaning off the scale, hoping to destroy it Office Space-style soon) and am working on my strength. My school does a strength week in November that is male dominated (2 female competitors last year!) and I want to compete this year. I wrote down the top weights of each girl and I'm heading toward that. I'm currently at 135 Deadlift, 140 Squat and 55 lb bench press. I absolutely love weight training and loathe cardio, unless it's spinning or running with my dog, Scamper. This was long. If you read it you deserve a pop tart. Hello!