Expert: Joanne - 9/24/2007

Question
I'm 16 years old and have had anorexia for about 2 years. I came out of a unit a couple of weeks ago and in 5 days had lost the weight again. Now I'm in the frame of mind where i want to recover so I'm eating the same diet as i would at the unit when i was on the maintenance phase. But my I'm gaining not maintaining!!

it's beginning to make me distressed as I'm unsure what to eat. Please help!

Answer
If you have been restrciting severely again, you will have affected your metabolism and the way that your body burns the calories that you eat.  In a maintenance phase, (I'm assuming this was after initial weight gain?) your body has adjusted to eating again, and your metabolism is speeding up, allowing you to burn a lot more calories than it did when you were restricting, but your metabolism is not as fast as that just now, meaning you will be storing more of what you eat, allowing your body to repair itself, and also create a fuel store in case you restrict again.

In order to reach a steady weight again, you will need to continue to eat well, allowing your metabolism to recover again, and avoid restricting, as you will return to starvation mode in which your metabolism slows again, effectively meaning that you will be back to stage one in terms of gaining and maintaining your weight.

Do you still have a treatment team involved in your care?  You should talk to them and ask what is the best way to get back to maintenance phase.  A nutritionist may be able to give you a mealplan that will help you with that!

Please come back with absolutely anything you want to talk about!

All the best
Holly