Advice for weight gain

hey everyone. i'm a 13 year old girl who just joined cc today becuase i think i might have had anorexia for a couple months. well, i started restricting my calories a lot and lost around 15-20 pounds. my mom finally noticed and helped me, and now i eat between 1500-2000 calories a day. i haven't felt so good in a long time! anyway, my mom swears i need to gain the weight back. i'm 5'2" and weigh 85 lbs. do i really need to gain weight? if i do, how should i the healthy way? how many calories would i need? i just went on vacation to my grandparents and they fed me so much, at least 2500 calories a day for a week, and i didn't gain anything, but maybe that wasn't normal. thanks for the help and sorry the post was so long!

Hi! I'm really glad that you've realized that you have disordered eating and you're trying to do something about it. That's a great first step. The reason you're feeling badly is probably because you weren't getting enough food when you were restricting. Since you lost weight so fast, you probably lost a lot of muscle. This happened to me too. I lost like 15 pounds in a month and became underweight, but I now have like no muscle!

Since you're still really young, you do need a lot of calories in order to gain weight. You probably will maintain on at least 2000 depending on how much you exercise. I would definitely suggest gaining some weight back (not all of it--- that's too scary to think about right now!) But 85 pounds at 5'2" is very small. You could work on building up your muscles so that you won't look like you gain a lot! I'm not sure how many calories you need, but I think it's probably more than 2500 since you didn't even gain on that! Try eating nuts, peanut butter, avocatos, granola, full fat milk and yogurt, and all those types of foods that have lots of calories. It seems like it might take a lot for you to gain because you probably have a fast metabolism, being a teenager. Maybe you could talk to your doctor about ways to gain a few pounds the healthy way. You should try not to just pig out on junk food, but you can absolutely treat yourself!! If you want that piece of cake, eat it! That's what I like about trying to gain! lol

Good luck and go have a nice snack!

I recently lost 20 lbs in ten days after I had surgery and I guess I'm kind of in the same situation you're in. I'm not used to eating a lot of food and I've been trying to make sure I have at least 2000 calories a day.

Try eating nuts, nut butters (almond butter is really good!), milk and yogurt like bre54321 says, as well as cheese (lots of protein and fats--good fats that you need), hummus, and juice. I found drinking juice or milk (or soy milk) instead of water when I'm thirsty helps to fill my stomach up with calories instead of just liquid. That way you don't get full from drinking water, and you also get lots of great vitamins.

Make sure you eat a good breakfast, because if you skip breakfast, not only will you miss out on starting your body working for the day, but you also will have to try and catch-up your calories for the rest of the day, which is really hard when you aren't used to eating lots of food. I found that eating small snacks, usually 200-300 calories, once or twice between meals helps me get more calories and I don't end up having to stuff myself at my next meal.

Hope this helps!