Expert: Joanne - 11/29/2008

Question
Hi,
I have suffered from anorexia for years.  In January, they put me in the
hospital because I weighed under ninety pounds (I'm five eight) and my heart
rate was thirty.  During therapy, my therapist put me on anti anxiety medicine
and I gained about 70 pounds in 6 months.  Obviously, this has been
extremely depressing to me.  I have been compulsively exercising, up to five
hours of cardio a day, and I have not lost a single pound (I've been doing this
for months too).  I feel so helpless at this point. What can I do to regain life
and not gain weight? Thank you

Answer
Ali

I think that you need to talk to someone about how you feel about yourself just now.  Are you still receiving therapy?  If not, I think it is worth contacting the person you were working with or a doctor and try to get back into some sort of therapy.

The compulsive exercising is not a good sign, and is highly indicative of an active eating disorder, regardless of exactly how many calories you are consuming.

I'd imagine that you may still have a slow metabolism.  If you have never allowed your body time to sort itself out, and have begun excessive exercise soon after beginning to gain weight, then there is a chance that your body is still working in a starvation mode and you are storing what you eat.

I think that you need to get some counselling anyway, and then you need to look at cutting down on exercise.  Cut back on the cardio anyway and if you must exercise, try to do some weight/resistance training in order to build and tone muscle.  I think that you may also benefit from some nutritional advice from a dietician/nutritionist in order to make sure that your daily food intake is as it should be in order to facilitate a full physical recovery, and hopefully this should all help to stabilise your weight.

Joanne