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Lai Asks in Category Nutrition 101: |
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I have been anorexic for almost a year now, I have a small frame so that I always believed that I have to eat way less than normal people in order to maintain my weight. it seems to me that I was able to maintain a weight of 88lbs on a 1500cal. diet. I haven't had my period for over a year now, and I wish to put on some weight in order to have my period back.(mainly because my parents are worried to death and kept on poking me about it) |
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Anyhow, I started eating 2500 cals aday just two days a go and when I weighed myself, I gained like...5lbs already!! I literally freaked out!! I have always kept myself well hydrated and never stricted my carb intake, how come I gain so much weight in just two days??? Can it be that my body was really really messed up that it gains 1lb every 500 cals? Please advice me and tell me a reasonable plan to gain weight. Thank you |
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Lai, |
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Your body acted like a dry sponge that is why you gained that weight so quickly. |
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How tall are you? Assuming you are at least 5ft 5 inches (average female height), to be 88 pounds means you are basically skin and bones with very little if any, muscle. Muscle is the key to having a gorgeous shape, staying lean, and burning calories. |
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Your total weight is the cumulative total of lean body mass + fat. The scale is NOT your friend. All it tells you is TOTAL weight - not how much of your weight is fat. It is the portion of body weight that is fat that we need to pay attention to. To lose muscle is to put yourself in DEEP trouble and health distress. |
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Muscle is why those models look so fabulous - not skeletal. Muscle is shapely. Muscle is also your body's furnace. Without muscle mass, you have no fire on your grill. That is why the food you ate sat on the grill - you had no fire to burn it. Muscle is the store house of ATP Adenosinetriphosphate. Without muscle, you have no metabolism - no fire. |
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A female should not have less than 12% body fat to be healthy. Even body building women who go below that for a contest don't stay at those low body fat percentages in the off season because of the very thing you are experiencing - amenorreah, where your period stops. |
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This is a BIG CLUE that your health is in jeopardy because your period is regulated by your hormones. Your hormones are out of whack because of your chaotic nutrition. Nutrition is a fuel source, and an inadequate nutrition source has more to do with calories - it has to do with the quality of your health. |
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Head to the gym but instead of jumping on the treadmill or bicycle to do more cardio which burns what you do not have to burn in the first place, do the weights and gain some muscle. Now let me warn you - putting on muscle WILL, repeat WILL cause the scale to scream. Trust me, you can put on 10 pounds of muscle and LOOK thinner than if you put on 10 pounds of fat. Think of fat and muscle like this... |
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one pound of fat is like one pound of feathers and one pound of muscle is like one pound of steak. Both weigh one pound, but the feathers take up more SPACE. Muscle is dense or compressed, while fat is loose and light. |
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That is why I say the scale is not your friend. Have a Personal Trainer give you a body fat assessment. It is the body fat you need to manage, not the scale. Remember, the scale measures everything - the weight of your skin, bones, blood, hair, teeth, nails, kidneys, lungs, skeleton, AND fat. If you weigh 120 pounds of solid mass and 12% body fat you will look delicious. If you weigh 100 pounds of which 22% is fat, you will look pudgy and dimply. It is not what the scale says, it is what the body fat calipers (pinchers) say that matters. |
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What should you eat? Every good and nutritious food in moderation, plus exercise - which for now should focus on building muscle mass. |
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I wish you mentioned your age. |
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Hope this helps. |
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Trudy Beerman |
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Health Coach |
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