Ex-Powerlifter Became Anorexic Wants to Gain Weight
tl;dr - went from 190 lbs to 140 lbs, 6'2" male age 19. Now at 160 lbs want to gain muscle back
I wasn't competing, but was using powerlifting routines to get fit. I wasn't ever what I'd call swole - maxed bench was 225lb around December 1st. Now I want to get actually heavily into lifting and eating properly, with end goals of 400lb lifts on the main 3 lifts. I understand that's likely years away and am not here for lifting advice. I've got that down.
What I need is eating advice. I ended up being admitted to a hospital for weight+sleep loss due to malnutrition and drug use. I'm now 6 weeks clean and for the first 3 weeks when I was on hospital meds+food I was kind of robotically going through the motions and eating without thinking. Now that I'm out and on my own, my bench has gone down to maxed 50 lbs (I can only really rep the bar) and I need 3500 calories daily. I can hardly force myself to eat 1500 daily - even if I only ever ate steak, avocado, milk and sweet potato I could maybe max out at 2500 calories a day. That being said I don't nearly have enough money to do that and I want to eat as cheaply as possible.
If possible I'd like to spend under $50 for the next two weeks but my max on spending for food is $100
Posted Apr 25, 2016, 9:31 PM UTC
Honestly, you may want to take a break from lifting / heavy exercise until you've established a healthier relationship with food and your body image. I know that's not what you want to hear, but mental health should come first. Do you have a treatment team / doctor who specializes in treating eating disorders?
What do you mean body image? Not sure what that is.
If I were to take a break from lifting/HIIT how do I regain my appetite and what are easy to eat foods?
No, the doctors that I dealt with felt the eating disorder was a side effect of drug use and depression which I agree with. I didn't want to eat before. Now I want to eat very badly, I just can't seem to stomach as much food as I should.
Body image means the way you see your body-- so if you think of yourself as ugly or as fat or as scrawny etc, those are all examples of bad body image.
What foods do you like? I think when you're having appetite problems, the best thing to do is just eat whatever seems least gross to you, especially carbs with a little fat. How about pasta? or avocados?
Re: getting your appetite back, maybe try a little bit of very light cardio, like a very short jog. It should help make you a little hungry, but it won't use a lot of calories, which is good because you don't have any to spare right now.
If anything I have an unrealistically attractive, not an unrealistically unattractive body image.
I eat anything. Favorites would be all meats, almost all vegetables, all pastas, the only real desserts I enjoy are fruit based, favorite drink is either milk or water, I love eggs.
I walk about 30 miles and run about 5 miles a week.
Sounds like you're on track then! Just keep doing what you're doing. Just try to eat a little more of the same kinds of things you eat already until you start to gain a little weight.