Fast metabolism + Malabsorption + Anorexia = Crap for puttin

danieltheovenpot

I've been in and out of hospital with anorexia for most of the last two years and I can genually say I'm in the process of recovery now. I now realise food doesn't directly lead to weight gain and that you can eat a certain amount and not gain a thing.
But although my attitude towards recovering and eating healthily has improved a whole lot, my body isn't showing the results.
You see I've been thin my whole life. I've always had problems with malabsorption, resulting in my body only absorbing about half the calories I actually eat.
While I was in hospital the other kids with anorexia would go up to meal plan 6, which was around 2600 calories a day. As if that wasn't hard enough they had to put me up to 4200 calories a day in order to show any weight gain. I was on 'meal plan 7' plus suppliment drinks, aswell overnight feeds.
It seems that now that I'm at home and my body's so used to so much food that I've also developed an extremely fast metabolism. I'm managing to eat around 1600 calories a day (which is a huge step from about 300 each time I've been discharged from hospital). For my age, height, activity level and current weight I should be gaining but I've lost about 6kg since I was last discharged. It's so hard to push myself to eat more. I wish I could just maintain my weight on 1600 calories.
Is there anything I can do to slow down my metabolism or help my body absorb more calories? I just don't want to eat more than I am..

lulabellewoowoo

Aw sweetie, what a tough road you have had. It's awesome that you are changing your attitude towards food. It can be very frustrating to have your body working against your best efforts. While in the hospital, did they check your thyroid by chance? Sometimes, things that we do to our body might throw things out of whack. Have you been to a general practitioner and just got the general workup. If you are still losing weight, then you definitely need to get that checked out, especially if you are eating at least 1600 calories (without exercising). Do you exercise and what type do you do?

You are a very brave person for continuing on the positive course. Don't give up because eventually your body will start to cooperate with your mind. Just like people who are overweight need to reset their metabolisms, you may need to also by eating over 2000 calories for a month or two until your body realizes that you are not going to starve it and it starts wanting to take care of you. Make sure you get plenty of sleep too and give your body time to heal itself.

Keep up the great work, and thank you for posting.

SHBoss1673

I've been in and out of hospital with anorexia for most of the last two years and I can genually say I'm in the process of recovery now. I now realise food doesn't directly lead to weight gain and that you can eat a certain amount and not gain a thing.
But although my attitude towards recovering and eating healthily has improved a whole lot, my body isn't showing the results.
You see I've been thin my whole life. I've always had problems with malabsorption, resulting in my body only absorbing about half the calories I actually eat.
While I was in hospital the other kids with anorexia would go up to meal plan 6, which was around 2600 calories a day. As if that wasn't hard enough they had to put me up to 4200 calories a day in order to show any weight gain. I was on 'meal plan 7' plus suppliment drinks, aswell overnight feeds.
It seems that now that I'm at home and my body's so used to so much food that I've also developed an extremely fast metabolism. I'm managing to eat around 1600 calories a day (which is a huge step from about 300 each time I've been discharged from hospital). For my age, height, activity level and current weight I should be gaining but I've lost about 6kg since I was last discharged. It's so hard to push myself to eat more. I wish I could just maintain my weight on 1600 calories.
Is there anything I can do to slow down my metabolism or help my body absorb more calories? I just don't want to eat more than I am..

interesting predicament you are in daniel. It's one I'm going to think on for you as it's not an easy answer. I promise you I'll look into it for you though, and let you know what I find. I commend you on taking the steps you have. Anorexia is a difficult thing to overcome, and it does tremendous damage to the body. I'm actually surprised your body has responded as energetically to the treatment as it has, I guess it means that you caught yourself early enough to allow your organs to repair themselves, which is really good news.
I can tell you this much, I suspect that your anorexia has probably caused your body to halt it's growing phase, and when you started eating again, I imagine it kick started into overdrive. Once you finish your "growth spurt" I imagine your metabolism should calm down. Either that or the anorexia did damage to your small intestines, and they aren't absorbing nutrients as well as they should. If that's the case, I imagine (and I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's the best option I can think of off the bat) processed foods that break down quickly and easily may be your best bet, things with white flour in them. Things that will allow fat storage, and break down with little difficulty in the body. Just make sure you don't go eating lots and lots of it at each sitting, I.E. have lots of small meals. I can explain further why I think this may help if you like.
A couple of things I think that may help you though. Make sure you are doing some anaerobic activity, like weight training. I know this sounds counterintuitive to you, but forcing your muscles to work will keep them strong, and it will keep your bone density up. One of the worst long term affects of anorexia is loss of fat free mass and bone density, these things can lead to really bad medical problems later in life. Keep yourself strong, and you keep yourself healthy.

ncocci989

if your body is having problems abosorbing the calories, could it be that you are allergic to something? i have a friend who would not gain anything and acutally was losing and they just found out that she has ceialic (not sure of sp) disease and since they found, they changed her diet, and took away the glueten and she has been able to gain safe amount of weight and a steady rate...just something you minght want to check out...