this is a long post, but i honestly need your help. someones help. please

i am a 17 year old, 5 1.5"ish, girl. I used to weigh around 118 pounds about 4 or 5 months ago, now i am 97. And u know what? i am not happy, at all. it is destroying me.
i was a HEALTHY 118 pounds.. i had quite a bit of muscle from running cross country and playing tennis competitively daily.
Now eeevvverryyone is saying how thin i am. its getting embarassing. I cant go anywhere anymore without someone either commenting to me or to my parents on how thin i look. and i dont think its a good thing anymore. I dont like getting that kind of attention, at all. i went to the doctor a couple weeks ago and they told me i lost a lot of weight, and now my parents are thinking i have an eating disorder. and i might have a little one, but i am not fully anorexic.  i just watch what i eat.. but maybe i watch it too much.? my poor parents are worried to death for me, and so are my grandparents and my cousins and everyone is and I WANT TO CHANGE, i just need help doing it.
I know i have eaten less than 1200 calories a day for a looong time, a few months for sure.
i am SCARED TO DEATH that my metabolism is ruined. i am probably eating HALF of what i used to eat. i dont even know.
and i would LOVE to start eating more. oh god would i love it. eating more like i used to. i had a really good metabolism before becuase i would eat whatever i wanted, whenever i wanted, wherever i wanted. i could have cared less.
I WANT TO EAT MORE. and more of what i want, without asking for the "sauce on the side" or not eating the bun on a hamburger. how pathetic is that. i used to eat 2 hamburgers, with buns on both of them. AND DESSERT.
so all i really want to know is do you guys think my metabolism has slowed down alot? i mean i want to eat more, the ONLY THING that is slowing me down is not knowing where my metabolism is at. sometimes i will eat breakfast at 9, and ill be hungary again at 10 30 and lunch is at noon. but sometimes i wont eat even an apple at 10 30 becuase i dont know if ill be hungary for lunch, or if my metabolism can even burn that anymore. so i just save the apple for lunch. is that completely pathetic? if i am hungary and hour after i eat, is that a sign that my metabolism is going and it wants me to eat so it will burn it off? or doesnt that have anything to do with how fast my metabolism is right now?
 my grandma just told me a few days ago- "its never a stupid time to eat if you are hungary" she is worried about me, and i am too.
heres the deal, i am going to the lake this weekend with a ton of family. its usually the funnest weekend of the summer. mainly becuase i love my family to death and the food is amazing, just camping food- chips, burgers, smores, hotdogs, carmel rolls, sunflower seeds, more chips :) I am leaving friday- and today is monday.
alot of people from that side of the family have noticed and commented on me being too thin. so these next few days leadingup to the trip i want to eat more .. so will that get my metabolism back up and going for the camping trip?
or what is my problem. what the heck do i need to do so i can eat 2500 calories a day if i want to. all i really want to know is whats going to happen to me if tomorrow i start eating , lets say, 700 calories more (thats just a guess becuase i am not counting anymore) am i going to just get fat? i want to gain weight, i really want to be around 105ish.. but not fat. WHAT DO I DO
i will take any advice or comments or anything anyone has to say to me... i truly truly need it. thanks so much for reading this long post. i honestly appreciate it.

If you are wanting to gain weight then I would recommend upping your calories with healthy foods.  You could even add Ensure drinks or fruit smoothies.  Your calorie intake does not have to be all food... you can mix in fresh juices as well.

As for this weekend, eat 500 (give or take) more calories than your maintenance calories up until you leave.  On your camping trip, enjoy the weekend.  Show your family that you do eat and if they bring up your weight... explain to them that you are trying to gain weight but would like to do in a healthy manner and ask them to be supportive.  They will more than likely understand. 

First of all, you can't ruin your metabolism.  Science has debunked that.  I can point to some studies if you want.  Your metabolism can slow to as much as 15% if you eat like 800 calories a day. But when you return to eating normally, your metabolism returns to normal, usually within a few weeks. It doesn't go all hay wire.  If you eat 100 more calories a day, you're not going to balloon up to 200 pounds.

All that said, it is extremely unlikely you will ever need 2500 calories on such a low body weight.  By virtue of the fact that you are a mammal, your metabolism is not going to vary a whole lot... the bigger you are, the slower it gets.  So elephants need 10 calories a pound, small dogs and cats need 30 to 40 calories a pound. Mice need a gazillion calories a pound.  Humans need between 10 to 20... more if competitive athletes. Professional football players need 26 calories a pound.  So 11 to 16 calories per pound is pretty much average for human adults.  Below 11, and usually these are either older people, or very sedentary people. Even then, most sedentary people need at least 11.  So at 100 pounds, you are just never going to need 25 calories a pound.  For adults (not you)  13 is pretty average.  So these are some guidelines. You can be pretty confident that you likely need 1200 calories just to maintain, probably more.  Start there and increase calories gradually until you are the weight you want to be... like reverse maintenance. Most people do it the other direction.

I'm a 51-year-old woman.  The most important issue of middle age is bone density.  Up until you are in your mid twenties you build bones.  After that it's all down hill, especially after menopause. Like no matter what, it's hard to slow bone loss.  So what you build up bone in the next ten years will be critical when you are my age.  People who are chronic dieters, who neglect dairy, are one of the main groups who have osteoperosis.  With young girls/women, if your body weigh is too low, you might not get a period, and so you do not have the estrogen needed to build bone. So be sure you weigh enough to have a period. If you aren't, see a doctor. So no less than 2 servings of milk/yogurt a day, three is better.  Other daily is okay, but not as much calcuim for the calories.

So be calm about this. Don't do anything radical, either hugely increasing or decreasing. Make small and deliberate changes. If the scale suddenly jumps, don't overreact, just do the same and give it a few days to see if it corrects.  It's like standing in a canoe, you don't want to shift one way or another too fast. But if you move steady, you do just fine. Don't sweat this, you have it totally under control, okay? And yes, let your self eat more food on this trip. Don't binge. Just eat and enjoy.

Check back in after your trip and let us know how it went.

Hi Liosa!

According to the Kids Nutrition website you need the following amount of calories:

Inactive (Never Active):  1540 calories
Low Activity (Less than 1 Hr a Day):  1840 calories
Moderate (About 1 Hr a Day):  2130 calories
Very Active (More than 1 Hr a Day):  2600 calories

The least amount of calories you will need is 1540 calories (on inactive days) to maintain your weight.  Work on getting to your maintenance calories and once you reach that you can work on eating a 100 more calories at a time that way you can gain a few pounds as desired. 

An easy way to increase your calories without having to actually increase your food intake is to aim for more calorie dense foods.  Cut out any low fat/low calorie foods that you may be eating and replace them with the regular higher calorie version. 

Here is a list of some calorie dense foods:

Cashews - 1oz (160 cals)
Cheddar Cheese - 1oz (114 cals)
Peanuts - 1oz (170 cals)
Condensed Milk - 1oz (123 cals)
Dates - 1cup (502 cals)
Chicken Pot Pie - 1 serving (484 cals)
Ricotta Cheese - 1/2 cup (216 cals)
Potato Salad - 1 cup (358 cals)
Peanut Butter Smooth - 2 tbsp (192 cals)
Trail Mix - 1 cup (693 cals)

Very good post undertherainbow.  I totally agree.

If you want the honest truth, then yes you have an eating disorder.

You shouldn't need to ask people on the internet if you can eat more than you're eating. It's fairly obvious that you are overly obsessed with restricting yourself.

If you want to gain weight, you need to eat more. And yes, you will gain some fat. If you stay active, then the amount of fat you gain will be minimal.

You want to eat 2500 calories and stay thin with a high metabolism?
Exercise. It's the key to raising metabolism and keeping weight off. And Shiptona is right, your metabolism is not ruined, and you cannot permanantly damage it. If you do lose muscle when dieting, it may be slightly lower, but it just takes a couple months of weight training to regain it. But your metabolism is very resilient, and is able to recover easily once you up your calories to maintenance level.

Liosa

You have started many of these threads and people have given you advice for many weeks, but it seems you just want to ask the questions and not listen to the answers.

I think this is a cry for help. And that is good! But you have to take this cry offline. I suggest you go to your family doctor, on your own without your parents, and get reccomendations for a psychiatrist and/or therapist who works with young women with eating disorders. I would also see a nutritionist at the same time.

If I were you, I would ask my parents to ask people who will be at the reunion, before the reunion, not to make any comments about your weight. Eating disorders work in strange ways. Having attention drawn to your weight feeds the disorder and allows the disorder to have a greater hold over you (at least this is how it was for all the young women in an eating disorder support group I was in as a teenager). The attention also serves to build anorexia into your identity. Once it becomes part of your identity, it's harder to overcome.

I imagine that you are divided: part of you wants to be healthy again and part of you is terrified of becoming healthy again. The fact that you are making these posts means that in truth, deep down, you'd rather be healthy.  So go for it! Make that appointment with your doctor right now, and get on with a happier future.