I have an ulcer, will my metabolism slow down if I don't eat as much?

Question

Well my question has a few parts:
1 Will not eating as much as I used to slow down my metabolism?
2 How little food do you have to eat in order to have your metabolism slow down?
3 Would exercising keep my metabolism up even if I don't eat? (I don't see how your body could burn less calories by doing the same ammount of work, just because of not eating as much.)
4 If I ate really small portions like 7 times a day, would it be okay to eat less than, say 1500 calories?
Thanks in advance...

Oh and the reason, why I'm not eating as much, is that most foods irritate the ulcer, which, if you've ever had an ulcer, you know it's quite unpleasant.

Answer 1

Are you on medication to heal the ulcer? If not, you should be. If you're on medication, then it won't be long before your stomach starts to feel better. So during the relatively short time it'll take for your medicine to help your stomach, your metabolism won't slow down much, if at all. But, get at least 1500 calories---that's just the healthy way.

Answer 2

Eating less will not lead to decreased metabolism but it will use up your energy reserves unless you are burning lesser calories.
Try calculating how much you burn everyday and match it with your dietary intake. Exercising will just lead to faster burning of your reserves. At a particular point when the carb researves burn out the body will burn proteins(muscle mas) which you certainly do not want.
The best strategy would be to control the irritation due to the ulcer and avoid caffeine and spicy food. I would strictly advise against decreasing your daily intake beyond your daily requirement which is approx 2500-3000 for a 70kg man with moderate activity. Here is a calculator for your help.

http://walking.about.com/cs/calories/l/blcalcalc.htm