How are anorexics so skinny if there's such a thing called "starvation mode"?

I'm confused because a lot of people on here have told me if I eat too little I won't lose weight and I will actually gain weight because my body will hold on to fat and what not. But then how are anorexics so skinny? And it's also said you would gain the weight back really fast. But I remember awhile ago I was only eating 1 meal a day, not because I was anorexic, I didn't even realize I was eating so little and I lost a lot of weight, I was bony as heck and I stayed thy way for two years until I started over eating which will make sense to gain weight. So then how is starvation mode true?

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OK, First, if you eat NOTHING you will certainly lose weight -- that's required by the laws of physics. Maybe not even for a few days, owing to fluctuations in water-weight, but soon you'll start losing weight. Your metabolism will slow down by pulling any lever it can pull to reduce calorie expenditure, but if you eat nothing, it's certain that your body mass will decrease over time.

The loose unscientific term "starvation mode" refers to the fact that your metabolism will try to slow down, and you'll burn fewer calories as a base metabolism. But your metabolism can't shut down to zero calories expended, not until you drop dead.

The health problem is that someone fasting not only burns fat, but you are also cannibalizing your inner protein ... from muscles and organs. This is necessary because your body needs to maintain a minimum level of blood sugar (glucose) for energy-burning. Some parts of the body can live happily by burning only fat, but some parts of the body, including parts of the brain, cannot burn fat and MUST burn blood sugar for energy. If not eating where does blood sugar come from? From protein -- you can easily convert protein to blood sugar. Either dietary protein, or if not eating, it's protein stored in your muscles and organs.

So a starving person is LITERALLY eating himself from the inside out. And loses weight, technically, because fat and blood sugar are metabolized to release energy, and the by-products of that reaction are carbon dioxide and water, and you get rid of those by-products by exhaling, pissing, and sweating. (That's how a person literally loses weight ... exhaling, pissing, sweating, and defecating.)

At some point the starving person damages organs by extracting their protein, and at some point, the damage causes something to fail (probably the heart), and they die. So a person literally starves to death because of organ damage, in the effort to produce blood sugar from their own tissues.

Back to your question. What commenters usually mean about starvation mode is that part about your metabolism slowing down. If you fast totally, yes you'll lose weight. But if you only reduce your calorie intake but still eat, it's possible you won't lose weight because your metabolism will shut down expenditure to below your intake. It's even possible your body will raid your protein stores faster than it does your body fat, and so you have an increase in bodyfat percentage -- even as you lose weight! So you become "fatter" but lighter. It's possible.

Then, with your metabolism all screwed up, when you inevitably eat more normally again, you might gain weight.

These effects are highly variable per individual, aside from the unavoidable fact that ANYONE totally fasting will lose body mass. So one's personal experience doesn't prove anything for the human race in general. It's probably true that severe calorie restriction will screw up your metabolism but individuals are all different, so any random thing could happen to any one person.

• If you don't eat, or eat too little you wont gain weight. You will just appear bloated for some time. If youve seen documentaries of groups of people in other countries that live very poorly & don't have much to eat, you'll notice that the small children are "fat". But really they're just bloated & that will go down once the body has finished eating away all their body fat.
• they're liars. i fasted for a while and lost 10 pounds and i started eating normally instead and only gained like 1 pound back. also, wtahc some doccumentaries on anorexia and you can see how long it took them to recover. Yes, its true that your body holds onto fat, but if you dont eat fattening foods(or any food for that matter) it wont HAVE anything to hold onto, therefore youll lose weight...