Why have I regained weight?

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jumbobu
jumbobu Posts: 2 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm 19, female, 4ft 9 and around 105lbs so according to my BMI I'm just under 'overweight' (though I don't have much muscle so I'm definitely not in a healthy body state, I'd like to be at around 90lbs.)
A few years ago I started eating between 1,000-1,2000 calories and went from 112lbs to 95lbs (I know that it is not recommended to go below 1,200 but since I'm very short I found, through trial and error, that my maintenance is around 1,300). I maintained this weight for the last few years purely through calorie counting with a relatively sedentary lifestyle, but the food that I was eating wasn't particularly healthy, nor was it particularly unhealthy.
About a year ago I decided to focus on eating a healthier diet which had more veg, fat and protein, instead of relying heavily on whole grain carbs, as I had been up until that point. Once I had cut down on carbs, my calories naturally fell to about 600-800 calories (which I know isn't healthy but I genuinely found myself getting very full and I wasn't hungry enough to eat any more). I was religious about weighing food etc. but my weight shot back up to around 105. Have I damaged my metabolism through not eating enough, or has reducing my carb intake had an effect? I know carbs are important for work outs but I don't do a whole lot of exercise apart from some walking. I've started trying to force myself to eat 1,000-1,200 calories again (usually from white meat, tuna, lots of veg, some fruit, eggs, nuts/nut butter, cheese and dark chocolate) and have started doing at-home exercises in the hopes of increasing muscle. I ve started trying intermittent fasting too, but I just wanted some advice. Thanks.

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  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
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    You were eating a higher number of calories than you think. Carbs are four calories per gram. Fat is nine calories per gram. Protein is four, just like carbs. You increased your fat and protein more than you decreased your carb calories. An increase of just 100 calories per day comes to ten pounds over the course of a year.
  • xchocolategirl
    xchocolategirl Posts: 186 Member
    edited June 2017
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    You have a BMI of 22.7 so it's in the normal range you don't even have to lose weight. I used the National Insitutute of Health BMI calculator. I would reccomended eating at maintenance if you don't have a food scale buy one, and if you want to tone up incorporating a progressive lifting or even adding resistance to your cardio would be helpful.

    When you were 90 pounds you had a BMI of 19.5 underweight is 18.5. You were so close to being underweight. Gaining weight may not have been a bad thing at all.
    User above is correct you were eating more calories, but I think gaining weight may have been a good thing.

    Good luck!

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