Gaining back weight sustainably WITHOUT slipping back to binging/unhealthy habits

faithyang

Hi everyone!

I've successfully reached my goal and during a busy few weeks where I was eating well daily I weighed myself and was shocked to see I had gone below my healthy BMI range. Subsequently when I looked in the mirror after my hubby commented I was getting too skinny I began to notice I had ribs sticking out where I'm not comfortable with.

So it hit home that my goals of weight loss has been completed and I went into maintenance mode where I upped my calorie intake in a healthy way by adding more side dishes to my usual dinner options and included a healthy sweet/savoury treat at the end of the day or dinner. I didn't change my cheat days except to stop beating myself mentally over eating a calorific meal.

I weighed myself again after a week and was alarmed to find out I had lost almost a kilo, and a few days ago where I have lost a full kg. Now this has gotten me a little worried because I am not kidding or bs-ing when I say I AM EATING MORE. Same exercise, same cheat days.

I originally started my weight loss journey because I ate too much, too unhealthily and too frequently. Midway through my journey I developed a binge eating problem - no purging, just binge attacks, hoarding food without eating them (except rarely 1-2 pcs from a packet/carton in months), and a very obsessive mentality towards food in general. The usual - over-planning food/meals, thinking about it all day everyday, not going out because of potentially food appearing, etc etc. It doesn't sound as extreme as the above of course its a general progression.

I still ate of course, never really starved but I severely restricted my food, food options, except for cheat days which were extremely controlled, with the occasional binge blow out of 2000-3000 calories, or the weekend binge.

Now that I need to put on weight, I don't want to slip back into the "I can eat whatever dafurk I wanna" mentality and lose all those good habits, discipline, etc that I have built over the period of weight loss. But I don't want to slip into a panic on eating more and going into overdrive of weight loss and disordered food obsession again.

I've never been this skinny in my life and have absolutely no benchmark or direction as to how or where to go from here. My goal is health, so yes I am worried.

Any suggestions on how I can sustainably gain some weight without cutting out my exercise routine, my health(ier) eating habits and the discipline I've built...walking that tightrope of triggering a binge habit or an eating disordered habit?

I know this seems to belong to the weight gain category but the threads there seem to be about bulking as opposed to general diet/weight loss centric questions?

futuremanda

Well even weight gain would mean a set calorie target. So if you focus on the target, that should help prevent the "I can eat whatever!". Because you can't. You can eat X calories in a day of whatever it is you eat.

Another suggestion is to focus on caloric density, not on volume. If you don't want to teach yourself bigger portions and to eat more frequently (as you worked hard on portions and frequency, I'm sure, and because eventually you'll have to drop calories again when you want to maintain), then density is key.

Full fat dairy is more calorically dense than fat free or low fat. Use real mayo instead of diet whatever or mustard. Add a bit of avocado to your salads and sandwiches. Use more dressing / higher cal dressing. Cook your meat and veg with a bit more olive oil. That sort of thing.

Alternatively, you can inch up your portions of everything just a bit, so it's hardly noticeable. Don't say, double your dinner pasta portion. Just adjust the portions of everything you eat up a bit, sort of like how you might have whittled everything a bit when cutting.

Owlfan88

Following, because I'm worried this might be me soon. I'm having trouble convincing myself to eat all my calories now. I have my goal at 0.5 lbs/wk, because I'm approaching my goal, but I'm still losing at over a pound per week. Maybe I need to list my goal as maintence, to get used to seeing those higher allowable calories?

faithyang

futuremanda wrote: »

Another suggestion is to focus on caloric density, not on volume. If you don't want to teach yourself bigger portions and to eat more frequently (as you worked hard on portions and frequency, I'm sure, and because eventually you'll have to drop calories again when you want to maintain), then density is key.

Full fat dairy is more calorically dense than fat free or low fat. Use real mayo instead of diet whatever or mustard. Add a bit of avocado to your salads and sandwiches. Use more dressing / higher cal dressing. Cook your meat and veg with a bit more olive oil. That sort of thing.

Alternatively, you can inch up your portions of everything just a bit, so it's hardly noticeable. Don't say, double your dinner pasta portion. Just adjust the portions of everything you eat up a bit, sort of like how you might have whittled everything a bit when cutting.

Hi @futuremanda, brilliant idea, thank you!

I figured that I need some time to train myself to eating bigger portions gradually so I won't fall into the crazy-eyed binge eater that still resides dormant in me waiting to pounce on an opportunity to rip through food like a woman possessed...and/or bigger portions without planning and suddenly seeing a "high" weight increase and going into a headless chicken panic because it triggers the old "rubber band strategy regression" of disordered absolute control and food obsession.

I will try to incorporate a little more of everything incrementally in all my foods so the calorific intake is bumped up and not so noticeable when I'm eating what looks like a similar portion of food on my dinner table and see how that goes.

RBracken34

You might try looking for help over on the weight gain forum? They might have good ideas...