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Looking to lose weight after a year of recovery! but..


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Hi everyone (: soo lemme give you a little history: I suffered [yes, suffered] from an ED from 2006-2008. I took the proper steps to recover and gain, and eventually did--up to 125-130 pounds. I no longer have disordered thoughts, and eat normally [yay :D ]. Last year, when I reached 140 pounds by not eating enough, I decided to eat more, and slowly lost about 10 pounds. I still wasn't exactly happy with my weight, but I made a conscious decision NOT to do anything about it until my weight was stable for one year. Here I am a year later, without a single ED thought to my name, sitting pretty at 130 pounds. I realize that 130 pounds is a healthy weight, but honestly, I've got a little extra flab to take care of, and I think I'm ready to do this the HEALTHY way.

But there's one preeetttyy significant problem.
During the summer, I'd log my calories around once a week and discovered I was consuming around 1600-1800 calories average [I ate pretty much the same things every day]. I'd do 45 minutes of cardio about, say, 3 or 4 days a week, and I'm almost certain I'd naturally eat more on workout days.
Starting in late August, though, I got a job AND started college, and had little time to workout. When I did have time, I'd be too tired to do anything. However, my job requires me to stand for 5 hours, and I walk for at least 20 minutes a day during the week. I started logging my calories about 2 weeks ago, and discovered I was eating very little--around 1300 calories a day /: I'm trying desperately to increase, but really, I hardly have time to eat THAT many calories, let alone more!
In spite of that roadblock, I have been, over the past few days, desperately trying  to eat more. Today I got to 1700 [phew]. My question, though, is if I'm looking to lose weight, where should I start? I'm confused, because--get this--I've been MAINTAINING my weight, even though I was eating less [unintentionally]. If I can maintain on 1300 AND 1800.. where the heck do I start?!?

You'd think I'd be more knowledgeable about this issue.. but, I'm not :p and I'd love some help!

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If you've been maintaining on low calories then the first job is to boost your intake and get your body used to maintaining on higher calories.   Typically an adult woman needs 2000 cals a day, for example.   If you're particularly active, you probably need 2200 or 2300. 

To get more energy into your diet you need to look for energy-dense, nutrition dense foods and keep high-bulk, low-cal foods to a smaller amount.   So that means eating rather more..... oily fish, red meats, whole eggs, oils, dairy products, avocados, pasta, beans, rice, bread, etc.... and rather less... green leafy vegetables, salads, low-cal fruit, 'diet' foods.

Start earlier in the day with a good breakfast and aim to eat a meal or a snack every 2 or 3 hours.

Once your body is used to 2200 cals a day you can reduce to 1500 or so and you should lose weight.  Stay as you are and you'll only maintain your weight but you'll gradually lack nutrition as time goes on.

This is a duplicate thread.....

 

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