Gaining muscle after anorexia

KateCon912
KateCon912 Posts: 200 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Background: When I started my weight loss journey I was 161 lbs and in about 5 months I got to 110 lbs by eating 500-700 calories a day. I know that was no good for my body but at the time I was losing weight so quickly that I didn't care. I kept the weight off for 2 years! I slowly started to increase my calories to a more normal amount.. now that it's been about 2.5 years, I have gained back 10 lbs and I eat about 1500-1600 calories per day.

I obviously lost a lot of muscle mass while not eating for so long so now I'm trying to gain muscle. But I would like to either lose 3-5 lbs OR tone up my muscles so I don't look so flabby. I am doing 60 minutes of yoga daily and running 1.5 miles at an incline of 3% on the treadmill 5 days a week. I haven't changed my eating at all, still eating about 1600 calories a day, more if I burn more than about 300 calories. I haven't noticed any changes in the scale yet, and my stomach sticks out like I'm 5 months pregnant! I've been doing this schedule for about 2 months now.

Am I doing something wrong? Or does it take a really long time to notice changes? I just find it weird that I have not lost one ounce since I started exercising. I don't want to eat less, and I feel like if I eat any more it would be counterproductive.

I'm 5'5" btw if that helps. Thanks!

Replies

  • Leadfoot_Lewis
    Leadfoot_Lewis Posts: 1,623 Member
    @ 5'5" & 117lbs my guess is that you probably don't have much if any muscle to tone, plus I also seriously doubt you look 5 months pregnant at that weight. To look "toned" you have to build muscle. That requires eating more and lifting heavy weights (neither of which you're doing). How do you expect to get muscle tone if all you do is cardio and yoga? Cut the amount of Cardio/Yoga you do in half and spend the rest of the time lifting weights. Unless you're training for a marathon, you don't need to be doing cardio 5x a week, especially if you're trying to gain muscle.

    My guess is the reason you probably haven't lost any weight is because your body is actually happy to have some calories, so you're getting back or are back at a more natural weight. When you eat 500-700 calories sure you'll lose weight, and you'll also screw up your metabolism big time doing so. Sounds like your metabolism is trying to get back to normalcy.
  • KateCon912
    KateCon912 Posts: 200 Member
    Yeah I know I screwed up my metabolism and I really regret that. I never listened to anyone's advice when I was going through that.

    Thanks for your advice! I will start lifting weights!!
  • Greenrun99
    Greenrun99 Posts: 2,065 Member
    If your looking to lose weight and tone muscles your not going to be there.. what did your muscles look like 10 lbs lighter? I would start a resistance training program and after a while consider doing a bulk as your probably not going to see any muscle definition at your current state.
  • corianmcnuggets
    corianmcnuggets Posts: 1
    Try to do supersets when you lift. Multiple vigorous weight exercises
  • cafeaulait7
    cafeaulait7 Posts: 2,459 Member
    Yoga is great, but I agree that you should lift and make sure to eat enough (protein, particularly) to support building lean mass. You don't have to keep adding weights once you hit the look you like. It's much quicker than the kind of toning yoga will do.

    Yoga will tone, though, also as long as you eat enough protein. Do harder poses if you are eating the right macros and not seeing muscle tone from it; you still have to challenge the muscle. You won't get 'big' from yoga, but it does 'tone' if that makes sense. You can build a lot of strength with it, but you won't see as much visually as from doing weight training :)

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