YES!

After the weird 2-month gaining period I went through, in which I was eating 100 calories over my maintenance and somehow gained 25 pounds, I decided to up my intake to AT LEAST 1800.. and in one week, I've already lost 5 pounds.

I never thought it would be possible even though I've been through this before.. but I guess you all [everyone who told me I should be eating more] were right.

And that goes for ALL teenagers--concentrate on nourishing your body and feeding it properly instead of punishing it through heavy restriction.

Thank you :D

FIVE POUNDS!! Well done!!! Guess this is living proof that the advice you recently offered to me in my recent post is 100% correct! Can I ask you something?? People on this have been teeling me I should stop eating 2 hours before I go to bed. Do you do this or do you think it makes any difference??

Anyway, congrats! Just make sure you don't try and lose too much more, you look great as it is! Xxx

I don't understand.

but I guess it is worth a shot.

:(

goodness gracious great balls of fire :)

niceeee!

just, as a side note- did you up to 1800 all at once? or work your way up slowly? how much were you eating before?

just wanting to know, since i've really been struggling with my eating lately (exam season + stress= usually starving myself :( ), and have noticed that my weight is doing funny things...

do you excersize?

thank god you posted this. seriously, there are so many ED-recoverers on this site who have gained from eating so little. IT'S JUST NOT NORMAL!! In order to recover from excessive malnourishment, you have to put a ridiculous amount of food in your body. and even then, it takes FOREVER for your bloodwork to improve....

good job on upping the cals!!! way to be brave!! Haha

Well I was gonna PM everyone, but screw it :p

carmenxox: Yeah, I exercise when I can. Usually I do 30-45 minutes of cardio 3 days a week, and light strength training every other day. And I aaaalways eat most of my calories back, so on days I do 45 minutes of cardio I eat around 2100 calories.

popthebubbles: lol! way to start a post :p And yes, I upped to 1800 all at once, after having gained sooo much on only 1600 calories a day. I was fed up with gaining on so little, and though I was tempted to lower my calories, I upped them instead. Just a few days ago I kind of wanted to lower to 1200 to "make up" for those high days, until I found I lost 5 pounds :D

taywies: Yeah, I knew it wasn't normal either, so I decided to step it up. Thanks for all the positive feedback and encouragement! If it wasn't for that kind of reinforcement I would've never had the strength to attempt such a feat :p thanks!

congratulations!! thats so great u managed to increase and got a positive outcome :D

im glad i read this post...iv wanted this question answered for a while and figure some of u guys might be able to help me

so im trying to gain...im 94 ish lb at 5ft3, i eat 1700-1800 a day and only gain very slowly (as in 1lb in 2-3 weeks) so...is it possible im still in starvation mode?? does everyone recovering from an ed (i should have mentioned that) go through the hyper metabolic thing?? cos this hasnt happened to me!

Good god, girl, you have no idea how relieving this post is. I'm so happy for you! No one deserves to gain on such ridiculous amounts.

I hope you don't mind if I tag your post to make a reference to girls in the future who are afraid to up their calories. I mean so many people on this site swear that "upping your calories will make you gain a bit, then lose" but I rarely hear of a personal story. You truly are inspirational! :)

 

This post could not have come at a better time for me, since I am also upping my calories and was worried about gain. Congrats on losing 5 pounds, that's awesome!

I'm SOOOO glad you posted this! I've also been eating like A TON of food this summer already and I've not gained a POUND. I'm maintaining where I want to be, and that's GREAT because I'm comfy where I'm at. :) and I too was eating like 1600 or less before, and I was having soooo much trouble with my weight, and then I was like "UGH !!! screw it" and I upped my food intake and WAM! I'm perfectly perfect. :) to me...and everyone else likes how I look also. I'm back in Oklahoma for a few weeks, and my family has already told me how much HEALTHIER I am looking this summer, despite the fact that I'm still "freakishly tiny" lol. that's what they said. haha. But I'm glad I look good now, and I'm sooooo proud of myself. :) I PLEDGE TO KEEP THIS UP! haha...whos with me?!

Wow, this is amazing. Ive gained over 30 pounds since recovery, and Im really disgusted that all my hard work has been undone so fast. I really hope if I up my cals to a CONSISTANT 1800 the same thing will hapen to me, I really would like to lose some weight, jsut to feel better about recovery.

Congrats! This is amazing!!

what kind of cardio did you do?  was it anything vigorous?

Heh, this thread came at the peeerfect time for me as I am struggling with that stupid voice telling me "Gain is bad, neener neener" at the back of my head and getting over about 1200-1400 a day! I am going food shopping tonight, so I plan on buying whatever the hell I feel like (that is healthy, obviously!) to eat and getting some good new snacks in there. Whee! Congratulations to you!

Aaahh I knew this post would be inspiring because we don't often get to hear personal accounts. For those of you gaining on low calories, I would definitely recommend upping them. This is all hard to believe even for me, but I remember last year [2007].. from January-May I was eating less than 1000 calories and could NOT get below 120. I upped my calories to 1300-1400 and lost about 10 pounds, and when I increased to 1500 [without exercise] I got down to my LOWEST weight, which was in the high-80s [not necessarily a good thing, but you get my drift]! A lot of people claim that starvation mode is a "myth" or what-have-you, but the evidence proves otherwise. When you're dealing with EDs/undereating, a lot of the time the math just DOESN'T make sense because of some unknown variables, so it's understandable that non-believers exist!

helpless: I used to run a lot last year--about 5-6 miles/day--but I've stopped that because I'm no longer trying to train for cross-country and I'm doing what feels like the equivalent, which is a 16-minute set of intervals [repeated 2 or 3 times] of jogging, lunges, running in place, kicks, etc. I'd call it "moderate" (:

Congratulations, sounds like your metabolism is beginning to be your friend again! I have to ask though because of the 25 lb gain whether you have weighed yourself on a reliable scales like at a doctor's office etc to make sure your weight is accurate.

^okay now that last comment makes me very worried :(

Maybe its because im new to this weight loss thing ( i had incredible body, then kids haha ) so now i need to lose like crazy. I dont understand how you would eat higher calories and still LOSE weight, can someone explain the reasoning to me?

Carmenxox ~ It is always great to periodically check your scale to make sure it is calibrated correctly by using a weight and weighing it.  If they match in weights then your scale is still correct. 

Jfontaine0822 ~ By higher calories, she is meaning a calorie amount that is appropriate for her (weight, height, age).  If you eat too little calories you can have a reverse effect and either lose extremely slowly or "maintain" because your body is starving for the nutrients it needs.  By eating the appropriate amount of calories (within your range) you are properly feeding your body and it is functioning like it should, which allowed her to lose the weight.  It is easy to get in the mindset that the less calories we take in the more (and quicker) the weight will come off.  But that is not always true, there is such a thing as too little calories (same goes for as too many calories).

Revolution3 ~ Congrats!  I am tagging your thread for future reference (if you do not mind).  Your experience will be very helpful to many! 

That was awesome. I get it now. So if mine says to eat 1480 then i should eat the 1480. Not increase, not lower, just eat the whole 1480???but then what if i work out and burn 300 calories? should i make it up and eat another 300? or chalk it up to a good day?

Thank you so much for posting this!! Almost the exact same thing happened to me- i gained about 20 lbs in less than 2 months by eating 1500-1600 calories- it makes no sense! :D