Despite my efforts over the past couple of months to put on weight, I’m actually slip-sliding down the scale instead of going up. Not too dramatically, but when you’re already underweight, every pound counts. Up till recently I was hovering at around 117-118 lbs–where I have been pretty much all year. Not too critical, but still not healthy for a 5’7" frame (IMHO). Now my scale is telling me–despite all the fried green tomatoes and biscuits and pieces of cake I’ve been eating over the past three weeks–that I’m 114. I checked the scale with some handweights. Unless the weights themselves are off, it’s overestimating by a couple of pounds.
I do walk a lot, but not anymore than I did before the rapid dip in weight loss. My appetite has dropped since last year, but over the past few weeks I have been diligent about eating at least 1500 calories or more a day. I eat about 300 calories for breakfast (cereal), 400 for lunch (pita with toasted cheese and a piece of fruit, with maybe a cookie), 500 for dinner (rice and baked/fried chicken, or a third of a Stouffer’s family-size lasgna thing or a quarter of a pan-style frozen pizza), and 300-400 for dessert (cake/brown/pie with ice cream). I know that doesn’t seem like a huge amount of food, but it’s really hard to eat more than this without feeling sick and this was about how much I ate before I started losing so much weight. At least, that’s what my memory is telling me.
At 118 lbs, I wasn’t too concerned, though the “you need to eat more!” remarks from people annoy after awhile. But 114 lbs is simply unsustainable to me. I’m so cold at work that I wear a sweater, gloves, and an afghan and it still isn’t enough. I hate to sound like a baby, but I can’t have my mother see me looking this way or she’ll absolutely freak.
I’m curious. Does your metabolism initially speed up when you eat more? If so, how long should I expect to wait for my metabolism to go back down?
(I know this may be an annoying thread to people fighting weight gain. All I can say is I’m sorry.)