I am so freaked out - getting fat

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I have suffered a buttload of injuries lately and I keep reinjuring one of my bone fractures by exercising when I shouldn't be.

I also have been instructed to eat a lot more(at LEAST 1800 calories per day? excessive!) and I can't dance or run or do anything but swim and walk. Thing is - I'm still gaining weight despite walking and swimming.

I am so freaked out as I've gained about three or four pounds. That might not seem lilke a lot but the problem is it's hard for me to eat ANYTHING that tastes... well, delicious, without wanting to stuff my frickin face, which is why I normally eay about 1100 calories and work out one to two hours per day.

I keep a pretty good balance usually but if I lose control it's going to be impossible to keep eating that much because I don't want to start stuffing my face on the daily.

I don't even know what kind of advice I'm looking for...

I'm well aware of the possibilities that lie in my future. That is why I'm trying to stay balanced as best as I can. If I lose control and eat way too much etc. I know I will freak the hell out and stop eating, which is a lot more dangerous than maintaining my weight(I'm tall and I'm not underweight) on a somewhat reduced calorie diet. Or lifestyle I suppose.

I've been working pretty hard to keep my health in tact, and I don't want everything to come tumbling down again.

While you're healing injuries, you need to eat more. Your body needs the energy to heal itself. And 1800 calories? That's very little, 1100 is especially little. Women do tend to use less calories than men, but women are just...weird. Like I can probably eat 1800 calories per meal if I choose to. But I have a friend, he got married, he doesn't eat much at all by guy standards (whereas I eat pretty moderately high amounts of food by even guy standards), but his wife was complaining he ate so much, it was funny.

Anyway, you need vitamins and minerals. And protein. I'm not imagining you getting much muscle mass on 1100 calories a day. Anyway, I'd say a shortcut, if you're not gonna eat well, is take some protein shakes to cover up your caloric deficit. Generally it's recommended even for people doing aerobic exercise to get 1g protein per at least 2lbs bodyweight, and some people even recommend 1g per pound. So I don't see how you can be getting close to that amount of protein unless your 1100 calories is coming from chicken breasts and steaks and water.

The other thing, you probably should look into strength training on some level. You'll raise your metabolism by lifting heavy weights, and you'll look better. A lot of women are afraid they'll look like the She-Hulk or something by lifting heavy, and it's simply not the case. You'll be able to strengthen muscles that way, and you'll probably be better at dancing (I know I'm better at my sport, figure skating, after lifting) with some weightlifting thrown in. I'm mostly thinking squats and deadlifts, to strengthen your legs, back, and abs. I see this in figure skating, though, the girls have so much pressure to remain super skinny, not for performance reasons, but more for aesthetics, and then the jumps and whatnot cause them to break bones, I think because they have no muscle mass to absorb the shock of what they're doing. And then unfortunately, there's pressure to remain "thin" even if your bodyfat percentage is healthy, I know one skater that's an example of this, Midori Ito, she was the first lady to land a triple axel, and then her performance suffered later in her career because there was so much pressure to be tiny, so she dieted down. They basically wanted to turn her from mesomorph to ectomorph, but when you try that, you're screwed.

So anyway, to get some rehab going, try lifting, and eating more protein and having more vitamins, either supplements or from veggies and meat in your diet. And again, with lifting, you won't turn into a strange looking hermaphrodite, if you look at most female Olympic lifters, they look quite good. http://nimg.sulekha.com/sports/original ... -43-10.jpg That's Lydia Valentin there, she competes in the 75K class, and I think she looks wonderful. Most girls wouldn't want her arms, but you'd not think she was 165lbs at 5'7 by looking at her. http://www.sportzentrum-flora.de/bilder/rohde.jpg Julia Rohde, http://www.fipcf.it/files/fotogallery/Cat53(ESP)DeLaPuente6.JPG Maria De La Puente.

Also, one last thing, you can't dance, right? You allowed to ice skate, assuming you don't try any jumps(not that you'll wanna without lots of ice time)? I know ice skating is much easier on the joints than running. I know a runner who in his old age (he's over 50 easy now) after beating the crap out of his knees switched to speed skating. Your dance experience will probably help you at least a little on the ice (most higher level ice skaters crosstrain in dance), and who knows, it could be a new athletic hobby for you. But ice skating, assuming you can get to a rink and it's not too expensive for you, burns the same calories as running, at my bodyweight supposedly it burns 700 an hour. If you're serious about the ice skating, get your own skates, and make sure they fit well, most people gotta go 1-3 sizes down from their shoe size. You wanna get skates that your big toe hits the end of the skate without it bending and hurting, but you want it to be tight. You want the skate to fit more like a glove, not like a shoe. I know for me, I wear like 10 shoes, and then size 7 hockey skates (though I think figures run more true to size, I wear like 9s for figure skates.)

But yeah, good luck.

I'm always impressed at the athletic ability of figure skaters but I don't have access to an ice rink, since I don't drive and the nearest one is a thirty minute drive away. As for the expectations placed on female figure skaters, thank you, I think a lot of people deny that it's for asthetic.

There is a lot of pressure on female dancers in most types of dance but I quit ballet at a very young age and took up hip hop/street dance. When I elevated to competitions I went to a national competition once before I decided it wasn't worth pursuing professionally because it was no longer fun like street battles are, but there is little, if any pressure on females to be thin at all, it's more like we're still having trouble being accepted in the world of hip hop at all, let alone the dance aspect of it.

I don't eat meat(it just makes me ill to even think about it) and I'm allergic to dairy and eggs. There are loads of sources of protein though, I do drink soy protein shakes and most of my diet is protien. The biggest part of my diet is vegetables, but that is really low calorie and I take vitamins and supplements to stay healthy.

I do a lot of strength training. I think I burn less calories than I should, my body seems to have adjusted to my calorie intake, which I think is why I'm gaining weight. Thanks for the advice though, you gave me something to think about.

Mostly what I do is sprint-jog several times and walk without jogging for long periods because, I confess, I have never been much of a runner but I have always been really good at walking long distances. Even as a kid, when I was really thin and athletic. I would get this terrible pain in my side from running so I hated it. Now, I no longer get the pain but, for some reason, it's uncomfortable after a few minutes.
I started this diet as a New Years Resolution and by the time late February came around, it was really mild so I planted several Roma tomato plants, pepper plants and onions along with herbs like Italian Parsley and Cilantro. Gardening used to really hurt my back. I would garden for one day then not garden again for an entire year or longer because I could not go walking with the back pain from the gardening and I figured walking was more beneficial. I was able to plant all my veggies and not have any pain later or while exercising.

What I enjoy most of all is swimming and I have found a new, fun thing to do - noodle surfing! It involves a floating noodle thingy and water deep enough to go over the head. I stand on the noodle and pretend like I am surfing on it. It's not easy standing on the noodle because it keeps wanting to float to water's surface. It takes a lot of balancing and arm action to keep it down there and it keeps my head and hair above water in the deep end of the pool.

I love the coolness of the water when it is hot outside and full thoroughly invigorated from swimming a few hours at a time.

I have difficulty running through the discomfort. I always stop running and start walking at that point though most the time I am not running, I am jogging. I thought the pain in the side was from a rib. It felt like one of my ribs was digging into a muscle or something . It could have been from lack of oxygen.

I stretch my arms out to the sides and it helps me balance on the noodle. I can stay on but not during waves. After spending hours in the pool, I run out of options for new entertainment so I try to use the noodle to create resistance and tone different muscles to get the most benefit from being in the water.

1,100 calories and an hour of exercise.

That cannot be good for your health.

Yeah, I was just organizing my gmail inbox and came across an email from my sister that she sent a few months ago with a couple of pictures of me from about a year ago. When she sent the email I remember thinking those pictures were disgusting because I was in a pretty normal weight range - to me that's always the "fat zone" and while I've always felt like the size and shape of everyone but me is irrelevant unless they're talking about it, my weight and my ups(where I eat kind of healthy and gain weight rapidly due to months of semi starvation) and downs(the semi starvation) are such a source of misery... I really want to figure out how to find a balance and be okay with it.

My Bubby had a terrible eating disorder and when she got cancer at 84 years of age she was happy to be allowed to starve to death. I think I picked up a lot of her misery and took it on in my own way.

1100 is not nearly enough and I'm starting to pay for years of ritual fasting and compulsive over exercising. Bleh. I feel quite conflicted.

OP, if 1800 calories is making you gain weight, then obviously it's not appropriate for your metabolism and activity level at the moment, regardless of whether other people can eat thousands upon thousands of calories daily. 3 or 4 pounds would freak me out, as well. I'm 5'1". 3 or 4 pounds means a pair of jeans falling off versus being unwearably tight.
I empathize with the cycle of gaining and losing, as well. Every time I try to eat much more than a few hundred a day (I've recently been able to go from 200/300 to 500 by eliminating carbs), I gain weight like there's no tomorrow. I have to do two hours of hard cardio, as well. I would see a nutritionist if I was you and have your blood levels checked- if they come back normal, then no harm no foul. I've never run a deficiency for anything.
The Western obsession with protein is certainly interesting, and makes we vegans scratch our heads- it's impossible to be protein deficient without also being calorically-deficient, nutritionally. The only place you hear of malnutrition related to protein deficiency is in third world countries.



I''m assuming "Bubby" was your grandmother?
I just today ran across this article which might be relevant:
Eating Disorders: Not Just for the Young

Go for Truvia.