Expert: Ryan Hale - 2/12/2009

Question
Both my bestfriend and I are extremely competitive rowers. In the summer, spring and fall we are on the water training at the very least 6 times a week. These on water work outs are high cardio and strength. In the winter we are in the gym every day weight training, because of a knee surgery she can not partake in any cardio activities.

Lately she has become very conscious of her weight and eats barely anything. She doesn't eat in the morning after training (although sometimes she will buy a 120cal vitamin water),and she doesn't eat lunch. She will however eat dinner, not a lot but a small meal.

As we are training in the gym she is getting visibly stronger. Lifting more weight and being able to do more reps.

Ignoring the exercise factor for a moment, with Anorexia, or simply not eating enough, does the body eat away at fat first or muscle? How does the exercise that we do impact this? Is it possible that she is eating just enough to keep building muscle? And why isn't she seeing a drop in her weight?

(she is getting help, her parents are aware of the issue).

Thank you.

Answer
Alex-  Thank you for the question.  It's good that your friend is getting help.  Often as athletes, disordered eating does not fall into the "clinical" definition so it is sometimes hard to get counselors or medical professionals (including insurance) on-board.

One of the biggest contributing issues with eating disorders is control or lack of it.  Because she is recovering from an injury, she doesn't have control over a lot of things in her life right now.  Rehabilitation is full of breakthroughs and setbacks, and often it is dictated TO us by doctors, therapists and trainers.  There goes the control!

It's important that her trainers and PTs include her in the day to day rehab process and have her make suggestions, ask questions, and participate in deciding what exercises to do or how much from time to time.

It's also important to have the trainers and therapists work around her injury as much as possible and help her train like a rower as much as possible.  That means, simulating normal training and getting cardio while working around her injury.

I don't know what your friend's body composition was like before her injury and I don't know how much weight she's lifting or how much strength is being gained (or what her caloric intake is for that matter).  With that said, the body does a very good job of going into "survival" mode.  With a drop in calories, it will store it's fat as long as possible which means loosing muscle initially.  

How does the exercise we do impact this?  If she is a trained individual, she is quicker to release fat for energy than the average person.  Long slow exercise will burn fat of course, but intense exercise bouts will burn more calories over time.  She could be consuming just enough calories to be getting lean and build muscle (like I said, I don't know what her body comp was like before).  

She has to make sure she is "feeding the machine."  Food is her fuel for activity and the best result will come from eating enough protien to build muscle...no other nutrient does.  Also, she needs to have a sufficient calorie intake to support the muscle she has.  Without enough calories, the muscle she has will be broken back down and she'll lose it.

Here's an example of body builders.  They eat like horses and lift like crazy in the off season to get as big and strong as they can.  When the competition comes around, they continue lifting for muscle, do more cardio to lose fat, and tapper their eating and eventually eat nearly all protein and very little carbs so they maintain muscle and lose fat.  The problem is, they are getting smaller all the time while in tapper mode, because the body is tearing down the muscle.

When they are in their build up phase, they will never let themselves go more than a few hours without calories, because they never want their bodies to start eating away at the muscle they've worked so hard to build.  When we are hungry, the body senses that it's more important to survive and keep fat stores for later than it is to be huge and ripped so it immediately starts to consume the muscle.

Because you were doing lots of cardio and weights at the same time, the cardio prevented you from getting as strong as you could if you were just lifting only.  So, there was a balance.  Now that she's just lifting, it may be that she's not getting bigger because of her calorie restriction, but she's not getting any smaller either because she's getting just enough calories for the weight lifting she's doing.  If she were eating more, perhaps she would be getting really, really strong.  I don't know how long this has been going on but I suspect that if she were to do it much longer, her body would begin to break down (weight loss, injuries, poor recovery from workouts).

She's also going through injury recovery so she needs good nutrients to support her knee getting better.  Remind her that food will help her right now.  it will help her recover and get the most out of the workouts you're doing, it will help her get the knee better, and she needs proper nutrients for energy for training.  Feed the machine!

Let me know if I can do anything else.  thanks and good luck

Ryan