Posts by bananee

yeah I know. I'm upping my calories next week to at least 1,550...50 at a time, each week..we'll see. Im seeing a nutritionist on monday so Im talking about this to him.

chirp is right. When we choose to change our intakes to a few calories more, our weight will naturally go up a bit (some people are lucky enough to not experience any weight gain but the norm is to gain a bit, specialy if u have been consuming a strict amount for a long period of time), but after at least 2 weeks, you can start seeing how your body is really going to react to this new intake. From there you can tell if you can maintain, lose or gain. It's more about trial and error...its kind of hard to figure it out because everyone's body is different, but it's not impossible. If anything else fails, you should seek professional help. I, myself, am paying a visit to my nutritionist and talking about my concerns and what I should be eating to be healthy. I know Im not way off, but I've gone up and down and all over the place with my intake which I know hasn't done my body well. At least I know that I no longer crave to binge, since a long time ago,  so its a good indication that I might be on the right track, at last (this along with other signs, like period going back to normal, etc).

peaches0405- I know what she meant. I've been in recovery for about a year or so (or more) and I haven't relapse at all (only once a loooong time ago for only a week) so my intake, despite some small up and downs I just previously mentioned, has remained on enough calories to keep my body out of starvation mode, meaning that I haven't been undereating the rest of the time. My weight has naturally fluctuated and it might go up a bit since Im not exactly where I should be, which is something Im all up for, because Im really sick and tired of just living this way. I came here and asked about calories, just to know what I should do. I've had many professionals telling me that I should gain to a weight that's natural for my body to maintain, not one that is higher or lower, which is what I intend to do (that's what I tried to explain as well)

There's no need for a person recovering to be a bmi of 20 unless their bodies naturally take them there after consuming a right amount of calories. Actually, extra weight gain can cause more relapse than staying in a more natural weight for their bodies. I'm not just saying this to say that having a BMI of 20 is healthier for this girls because for some it can really prove to be beneficial, specially if they've been malnourished for a long time and I do appreciate the concern as well. My nutritionist was the one who explained this to me, also my dad who;s a great doctor..he said to just eat a good balanced diet, of enough nutrients and calories, and to make sure I got some physical activity, nothing strenous, just enough to keep my body in shape, and my body would find it's happy weight and things would slowly fall back into place (which means getting my full health back)

I'm sorry if I came across as if I was being a little angry about the whole BMI of 20 thing..but to me, its practically not necessary, unless your body needs it. The body is a very smart complex thing...it knows how to get what it needs, if you feed it properly, so that it can repair and mend itself naturally when it comes to this situations.

Thanks again to all for taking time to answer.

-xo

Im not sayint that you're wrong. I asked a question and I got an answer. Yes 1,500 might not be enough, which I'm not fighting about. Im arguing the other "you have to gain weight to be in a bmi of 20 to be healthy" which is not really true. If I did ask a question was to ask for help, not to keep messing myself up. I know that Im messed up and I know I will gain weight.

The difference is there. Being a BMi of 20 is one thing, and eating enough is another.

If I eat enough and gain up to 118 then fine. If I eat enough and gain to 112 then fine too.

thats what I want to figure out, not what BMI I should or shouldnt be in.

hey gi-jane.

Thing is I've never really been of a bmi of 20. I've always been very naturally skinny..and my nutritionist said that if I was 112 just a year ago witout even counting calories, my body should bring me back up to that weight without a problem. I accepted this fact and I know that 112 should be more of what I shoudl weigh...thing is I havent seen my nutrutionist in a while and wont be able to so, hence me coming here to ask if 1,500 was enough ...Im gainign weight fairly fast...I checked on various calculators and they all give me a range from 1,500- 1,600 cals a day...

thanks for your help.

I think you're just looking for someone to sugarcoat this for you, tell you you wont gain weight at all, so that you can feel better about this binge.

You have to be truthful to yourself first....you know that you might gain soem weight from this in the long run...but if you eat clean for the rest of the time being and exercise, it should not be a big deal. Why do you make such a big deal out of a binge? it happend, its over, get over it...its that easy. I know Im coming off a bit harsh...but why do you need that reassurance for? You know it already yourself :) dont try and look for others telling you you wont gain so that you can fool yourself into thinking you wont see the gain on the scales because if the gain does happen, the disappointment will be 10 times greater and more difficult for you to deal with. Just know that its possible, it can happen, be ready for the consequences, and just take action on it. Do an extra 30 minutes on the treadmill or....one extra pilates class, or wtvr it is you do at the gym...and thats that :)

But yeah, who knows what will happen...

just relax...its only a one time thing...keep eating clean and concentrate on you, not on some extra calories thing.

This is just your past ED talking through..beat it over, for real! you have been great at maintaining a great weight for you..this shouldnt throw you off track.

Everyone ahs a slip off from time to time :) so dont worry.

take care

no that I know of...I couldnt see my doctor today ( I might try calling though as soon as Im done typing this)...Im getting worried its my thyroid :S Ive always been scared of having a thyroid disease but the last time I got my TSH levels checked they were on the low end of the normal range...so it wasnt even high normal... Its been a few months..maybe 4 or so....should I get them checked again? lol my doctor is gonna get annoyed at me for this...

anyway thanks for the response.

you have to weigh yourself first thing in the morning, right after peeing, without any sort of food or liquid in your body and best if you're completely naked.

this is the most accurate you can get when it comes to your real weight.

dont panic.

if you weigh the same with clothes on and after a huge meal, you are way smaller than that :) trust me.

take care

hey everyone!

thanks for all the advice. I didnt take the pill yesterday...but I still have today to take it if anything or at least until next month  if things dont go the way I want them to.

this WAS my period. Im still on it today, and will count the days to see how close to a normal period this is...but I have a feeling this is the real thing...which makes me really happy, because it was completely natural, and things in my body must be going great :)

should I still take the pill or wait til next month to see what happens???

thanks everyone :)

well its been a heck of a long time sicne I posted here..

and since then Ive had many ups and downs...

for those of you who dont know me, hey Im an...and Ive been in this site for a little over a year. I  joined right after I realized that having 400 cals a day was pretty much an ED....I only underate for 2-3 months but I managed to lose 20 pounds...

anyway..Ive been doing much better lately..Ive gained 10 pounds since...and Im really proud of them and I finaly feel at ease with my own body. I am no longer scared of going back to my previous weight (my pre Ed weight)....but Im TERRIFIED of gaining above that.

I know I wouldnt be so terrified of it, if I wasnt gainign weight without me being able to control it. Meaning...Im just gaining, no matter what...slowly but surely...

Im scared of just letting go...and having my weight go up too much :(

I need help...like I need someone that's on my same boat or that has gone through this or something....Im so scared...will this happen? Like will I gain a heck of a lot of weight and will it ever stop? :(

Im currently having 1,500-1,600 cals a day...Im sedentary, I dont go to work or go to college to study so I stay at home basicly all day...meaning 7 days a week Im prolly at home...sitting on my butt :( except for the some times I go grocery shopping or so...its not a routine tho so, sometimes I barely even step out of the house ..

If I could just know that i wont keep gaining like crazy I think I would be ready to just let go for good...but Im scared it wont stop! :(!!!

any help please? :(

Hey cata!  First off let me congratulate you for wanting to get healthier :)  It's always great to see young girls wanting to do things right and lose extra weight for good :)

Calorie Count was not exactly made for young teens like yourself because the tools on this site are suitable for adults, but if you look at the forums, there's one thats for young calorie counters that might help you a lot when it comes to healthy tips to lose weight, etc.

I know of a calculator that works best for growing teens like yourself. It's really important that you feed your body properly even when starting to lose weight, so that you can avoid any future health complications.

here's a calculator you can use to estimate the amount of calories you need to maintain your weight:

http://www.bcm.edu/cnrc/bodycomp/bmiz2.html

I took the time to enter your stats (64 inches tall, 200 lbs, 15 yrs old) and what came up was this:

Sedentary intake : 2,280

Low Activity intake:  2,730

Moderate Activity Intake: 3,150

Very Active intake: 3,780

A healthy weight loss is of 1-2 pounds a week. To get 1 pound per week, you'd need to subtract 500 calories from your daily intake depending on how active you are. If you don't do any exercise, than you subtract 500 from 2,280 which is 1780 calories to lose 1 pound per week. If you want to lose 2 pounds the week, which is the maximum amount of weight loss you have in a week without causing health risks, you'd have to substract 1000 calories from your daily intake depending on your activity level. 2,280-1,000= 1,280. But since you are still growing, your body needs calories in order to keep you healthy, so a teen should never go below 1,500 calories. If you want to lose 2 pounds per week then engage in exercise :) If you were to exercise at least 4-5 days a week for 30-60 minutes a day, you'd be categorized under the Moderate Acvity level so you'd burn more calories and you'd be able to eat more which is better.

But now remember if you chose to work out, you have to take into consideration the amount of calories you burn in each work out. If you were to exercise to lose 1 pound per week, the best way to go about it is to burn 250 cals through exercise, and 250 less in your calorie intake..meaning you'd eat 250 less cals than your maintainance calories and burn 250 through exercise. Dont be fooled, because you can end up undereating if you dont get this right, and that can be very harmful for your body.

Remember to never go below the recommended intakes, and make extra sure you eat a balanced diet of enough protein (lean meats and lean cuts, like chicken and turkey) healthy carbs (whole grains- wheat bread, bran cereals, fruits and vegetables) and healthy fats! ( olive oil, avocados, nuts, peanut butter).

Eat each of these nutrients (protein, carbs and healthy fats) in each of your big meals...eat 6 times a day, so that you keep your metabolism working all day and drink plenty of water...about 2 liters a day. Eat small snacks in between your meals..meaning you'd have to eat every 2-3 hours. Good snacks can range from a piece of fruit, vegetables with some sort of low cal, low fat dip (Fat free ranch sauce), fat free yogurts, bran cereals...make the snacks small so that you dont go above 200 calories per snack :) a typical day would look something like this

Breakfast, snack, Lunch, snack, Dinner, snack.

Your dinner and late night snack should be light...like chicken with veggies for dinner, and a snack like a fruit.

Don't eat anything deep fried, fried by any means, junk food like fast food or chips, no sweets like cookies...if you really crave them, plan out a "cheat day" in your diet....that's one day out of a while that you can have cheat foods like these in your calorie intake. That way you dont deprive your body so much and you dont end up with binges like what happens to a lot of people who severely restrict calories and "forbidden" foods, and end up with one day when they just eat everything in site and halth their weight loss efforts.

So in the end if you keep your moderately active (burn 500 and eat 500 less cals), and consume around  2,650 calories a day, you can expect to see a healthy weight loss rate of about 2 pounds per week.

Good luck! anything else you need to know just ask!

Let us know how you keep up too ;)

-xo

Original Post by merylwhite1:

I think it's pretty normal to try and look skinny. After all, most anorexics think they are fat, and a lot of people who actually are fat tend to dress to look as slim as possible (hope no-one is offended by these generalisations).

Now that you mention that Im actually blown away...I never even realized this before but its partly true, at least it applies to me. Now dont get me wrong, I've never been fat, I myself know that...I always was on the skinny side...I barely reached the considered healthy BMI o f 20..I ate and ate and always maintained a bmi of around 19- 19.8 never above this (sorry if it seems Im bragging, im not! Im just pointing that out).....anyway the point is...that even though I was never fat, I always felt kind of "fatty" but because I was very flabby, and I thought that I needed to lose weight (when in fact all I needed was to tone up!- durr)...so I would wear tiny clothes...like...clothes that fit me tight but that fit me at the same time... I remember trying to make my shirts as tight as possible, wearing pins on the back of the shirt so that any extra bit of fabric was wraped as tight as possible around my body. Like I felt a need for people to say "oh, you have a great body!" or at least I liked to pretend that they thought so whenever they looked at me. But when I lost all the weight and was barely 100 pounds...I always covered myself up...its not until I Got up again to 108 pounds that I Started showing off my body again...weird huh? The closer I get to my old body, the more I want to prove Im "good looking" but when I was super skinny, something that I always wanted (that thankfully has changed  A LOT since recovering) I hid my body as much as I could thinking I looked bad :S

funny stuff these eating disorders....geez lol

listen cowcow..I have been in your exact same position before, and so have a lot of girls in this site that have thankfully moved on to better ways of living. Right now you are in a state of denial, mainly because you "feel" good with your body and you "feel" healthy. It was not a silly thing to post this, at all. I wouldnt say that to post something on a forum concerning health is silly at all. We have all gone over the lists of things that you will encounter while being underweight. You were fine just before you lost weight, you just needed to tone your body, thats it.

If you want to believe that its fine to stay at the weighy you are, then be ready for the long term effects, because there will be...and you will remember this thread and how many people did warn you about this.

lalabanana is right....but in the end is up to you...

if you rather be thin than healthy and live a long fulfilling life, good luck.

once again, take care of yourself...and dont fool yourself thinking that its ok to stay in that weight range, and do eat more...dont just say you will ;)

<3

I back up everything that has been said up there. I only have very few things to add.

To you what does being overweight mean?

To most people in society being overweight is very very unhealthy.

Well being underweight is just as bad as being overweight. They both put your health at risk a great deal. The longer you keep a weight that is not healthy for your age and height, the longer you're exposing your body to more health complications in the long run. Everyone has named a few already...Because of brittle bones you don't only get osteoporosis...rememeber all the parts in your body that are made of bones...yes your teeth. You might end up even losing those at a very early age...as early as 25+.

Don't try and lose more weight..if I were you I'd get up to at least a BMI of 18.5....at the very least!...but since you've been underweight its actually better to let your body heal in a more healthy weight of a BMI higher than 19 or 19.

How much calories a day are you consuming and how much exercise you are performing how many days?

We can easily underestimate our diets and our exercise habits...so watch out for that okay?

take care of yourself.

EDIT: I just read a few of your posts and it sounds to me like you're not eating enough. You say you exercise for 30-40 minutes plus a bit of strength training that you think doesn't make much of a difference, is that daily?

According to the calculators if you're doing this everyday, you are fairly active meaning you'd have to eat 2,400 calories just to maintain your current weight. This is if you're very active...if you were to be moderately active meaning you'd exercise around 4-5 days a week you'd still have to eat above 1,900 calories just to maintain your weight.  First of all a healthy weight for you would be from 92 to 127 pounds.

If you dont want to look "chubby" losing weight is not going to give you what you're looking for. You have to strength train, that way you gain muscle, and you look slimmer than you are now, and you'll be in a better physical condition as well as healthier, because you'd probably gain weight but only muscle weight. Trust me there are girls who weigh more than you do at your same height that I bet look slimmer than you do right now because they have put on muscle. Muscle takes up less space than fat...so even if you weigh more you have less inches on our body than if you were to carry your weight entirely in fat.  Trust me..I lost weight the wrong way, and I got skinny but eve then I was very flabby and I was underweight just like you...so I noticed that losing weight doesnt get you anywhere if you dont tone up and exercise.

Eat more than just 1,400 ...thast what you would have to eat if you were to not do anythign all day.

Plus I think that you posting this shows that you know you're doing something wrong and are only looking for approval of others so taht you can feel better about it...but in the end you know better.

Hey sweets..

Im not sure what you want us to post for you as a reply to this....but there isnt much else to say but to relax....all these things are for you to decide to let go of or let them rule your life.

I think that you should keep going to therapists and even a support group if you can...try and find as much help out around you as possible...and just talk it all out.

To obsess about exercising is another type of anorexia...which is yet again another disorder more that you're pulling yourself into. Sometimes our disorders come from problems deep within...problems that we refuse to pay attention to because we are too busy trying to fix our emotions with outer appearances that can only grant us temporary relieves...because in the end we keep doing conterintuitive actions, and doing more harm than good and not realizing it before it gets out of hand.

There's only one piece of advice that I, as a girl recovering from an ED myself, can give you.

Try to love yourself. Just like that. Have you ever just sat down, and instead of thinking "omg look at this love handle" or "I have to get on that treadmill in 10", think something more like " I love this and that about me" and then come to realize that you have so much more to be thankful for in life....that living like this is not living at all. To sit down and think that there are millions of people out there with a mortal illnesses that would kill to be able to live a few more years..years that you are guaranteed to live because you are healthy and you can chose to live those years the fullest....you can decide to either destroy yourself doing what you're doing....or take life into your own hands and say "hey...its about the now, and its about me, and this ED is only making me dead in life...so why bother?"

I know its easier said than done..but these past few days Ive come to realize that...I kept seeing stories after stories of people who were dying...of a little girl of about 9 years old...who decided to not have a open heart surgery that could either safe her or kill her because she just wants to live her life as the kid she is.....that's like a slap to my face...I can live....but Im chosing to throw away all of that and ignore how lucky I am to be alive and to be healthy for being skinny?

that's not worth it, really it isnt.

if you dont exercise you wotn get fat...if you keep a well balanced diet, and you eat accordingly with your activity level, it is physically impossible to gain extra weight.

Eat healthy, exercise daily but because you like it, not because you feel like you have to do it....and just live your life.

good luck sweet

well first off let me clear off something that has been misunderstood.

Carmen, you dont need to be "bothered" by any of what I say...I do not fuzz over grams gain anymore, I could care less. I clearly stated that Im no longer scared to gain weight but not being able to lose weight after wards if I do gain past my goal. I know what's good for me, and I know I still have to gain, thats somethign Ive made clear a lot of times before as well.  It's obvious you havent heard from me in a long time, but Ive talked over and over again about how Im leaving on a trip and about  how Im planning on gaining all the weight need from that moment on, and maintaining a healthy weight for a while and then lose. It seems like you're so frustrated at this, Im the one that doesnt understand why you should be...If you did misunderstood what I meant thats fine no biggie, and I see this fear of not being able to lose after wards to my pre ED if I Gain past it as a completely normal thing.Sorry to "bother" you btw, thats not my intention.

and tahitis, no I didnt say that I was scared of restricting again, I Said that I would never go back to restricting, thats something I really would never even think of doing...I am letting go of fears and I feel a lot better when it comes to food...so yeah I know what you mean....its like when you feed your body your mind also starts to process more "normal" thoughts again....

I know that I dont need to worry, that I will be able to lose any "extra" weight...Im learning to let go of that fear, but I do have to admit that its still there.

thanks