Increasing intake after restricting for a long time

raindropwishes
raindropwishes Posts: 182
edited November 9 in Food and Nutrition
A friend of mine had been eating 400-500 cals daily for a while, but is now trying to recover from an E.D. and asked me for advice re healthy eating. I just had a few questions and wondered if you guys maybe able to help.

a) if she starts eating say 1200 straight away, would this mean she'd pile on loads of weight? (I assumed so as the body would be used to like a third of that).
b)Would it be better for her to slowly increase her intake so as not to pile on lots of weight etc?
c)Her appetite is quite small due to restricting for so long so I recommended nuts etc as calorie dense foods. Any suggestions of those?
d)any other suggestions?

Note: "Just do it" or "Eating disorders are stupid" -type comments are not productive or helpful, so please keep them to yourself.

Thanks all :smile:

Replies

  • DirtbikeGal
    DirtbikeGal Posts: 61 Member
    Whenever increasing or decreasing calories always do it slowly. So if your eating 400-500 a day do not eat 1200 the next day. Our bodys are very smart and adapt to changes. So your friends body has adapted to eating so little calories. If they ate 1200 calories the next day the body may consider a surplus and store. So you should increase calories 100-200 per week or so until you hit 1200. Hope this helps and your friend get better:)
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