athletes especially... please read

hi, i've been browsing about these forums lately and i think what im about to say would help a lot of people out there, especially athletes.

well to start off, let me tell you about myself. i'm 16 years old, 130ish pounds, and 5'6". i am a competitive swimmer- i practice 6 days/week, 2-3 hours/day. right now, i eat about 3400 calories a day. NO WAY! yes way. ok so, this is how it started. last year, my ex boyfriend would always make comments about my weight subtly, and i dont think he did it on purpose, but i've always been a little self-concious. but i didn't really think a lot of it, until this summer when i was shy in my two piece. i was healthy, about 130-135 lbs, but i felt like an ogre. so i started to cut down on what i ate, and started calorie-counting, and slowly but surely i started to lose weight. i was at about 1200 calories/day. then i started running cross country this fall, and i became obsessive about calories, and i was aiming for 1,000 calories a day. obviously those pounds were coming off like nobody's business.

then came swim season, and i started to eat a little more- 1500-2500 calories a day, but obviously with my level of training i continued to lose weight. you could count my ribs. i denied that i had a eating problem, and i just thought that i was eating "healthier." i got down to 112 pounds, and i looked gross.

then i started to get sick. so i went to the doctor, and they said that my heart rate was too low (45 beats/minute... pretty slow ha). i started to eat a lot more after that, close to 3,000 calories a day nad i started to gain weight.

but what i didnt tell you during all of that is that my swimming times were SO slow for me. i was a state qualifier last year as a freshman, and my times were 10 sec+ off of what they should have been. i was always cold, and usually in a bad mood. counting calories stressed me out and i was afraid to eat anything that wasn't "healthy" (>200 calories a serving). my times are getting faster, i'm having more fun with my friends, and just enjoying myself.

two months later, i am sitting here typing this out to you. i know that the media tells you that skinnier=better, but especially when you are an athlete, this is not true. all of you athletes that are eating 1200 calories a day, that is not healthy. i promise you will do better in your sport if you get your intake up. it will also make you feel better. now is not the time to be worrying about your weight.. you can do that when you're older.

so sorry this is so long, but this is the first time i've really admitted to myself or anyone the problem i had. thanks for reading this, if you did. don't make the same mistake i did- i probably jepordized my whole sophmore season.

 

DON'T WORRY, BE HAPPY :D

im glad you got help there becuase alot of people with ED dont get help and cant admit it but even though you coduldnt at one point you did and got healthy again bravo :)

Thank you

i only ate around 1200 calories for awhile last track season and i had this problem too, with times going down, but i eat way more now that i know better.

Thanks for the encouragement. I definitely eat around 2,400-3,000 because I'm so crazy active.

I hope other atlthletes read this and realize that undereating only hinders them. A good machine can't perform if it's running on empty.

Congrats on getting healthy and putting the weight back on.

Thanks so much!

I'm also a swimmer... and this season my times got so much better because I was eating more calories.  Last season I went for about 1,500 a day, and this season I was between 1,800 and 2,000 a day... so it really does help!

DAAAAANG I play bball and softball but i find it hard to eat 1,100 much less 3000 how do u do it???