Metabolism

[bubblegvm]

I'm 19 and 9 stone and 6ft 0.5( 184cm) and I eat from about 800-1200 calories a day and everyone says im thin because I have a fast metabolism, but i say to them ' No i just don't each much' they blank me when I say that. My question is am I more prone to gain weight because I eat so little? Or reverse?

[Nottobad]

Hi for your weight at the moment and your height that gives you a BMI of 14.9 witch means you are very underweight. Please get some help with your diet you are not eating enough. And you could do some permanent damage. Please get some help xx

[Penel]

No, you are not prone to gain weight because you eat so little. You need to eat more for the sake of your health. Google "nutrient dense foods" and make sure that you are eating them.

[piglette]

Why are you eating so little? You must be aware that you are not getting enough nutrients daily. How do you feel? Is what you are currently eating healthy?

[bubblegvm in reply to piglette]

I kinda just eat what i want, and that isn't much. And if I become healthy weight I will look short because I won't be slender anymore.

I eat hardly any fruit or veg, maybe once a week. I go on a hour walk nearly everyday.

[piglette in reply to bubblegvm]

You are building up problems for yourself in the long run. If you are six foot you are not going to look short if you put on some weight. It is probably worth your while looking at starting eating a balanced diet.

[bubblegvm]

I kinda just eat what i want, and that isn't much. And if I become healthy weight I will look short because I won't be slender anymore.

[Silver_Fairy in reply to bubblegvm]

You'll hardly look short at 6'!

If you dont eat enough you will start to suffer from muscle wastage.

[Nottobad]

Hi bubblegvm please would you go and see your gp and get some help my mother suffered from anorexia all her life and I am afraid you sound just like her please get some help

[johnsmith]

You need to be asking a nutritionist. Diet, energy, exercise and nutrition is a very very complex subject.

9st and 6ft suggests you are underweight. I am 5ft 8" and I am 10st 4ibs.

You need fat on the body to survive episodes of colds flu and other nasties.

Fast metabolism does not cut it. You may be unable to absorb your food. You may be hyperactive. It is not possible to tell. It may be your hungry intake emotion regulator is a bit out of kilter.

Hope you see someone who give you some sensible answers.

[gilen101]

hi, reading what yo have to say t sounds like you need to be having more good fats(saturated fat) in your body. This doesn't mean go out and have mcdonald's three times a day, it means start adding more meat and oily foods into your diet.

hope this helps

[jimijimi]

Hi Bubble,

I'm much like you, I eat pretty much what I want and have a low calorie diet. You don't say what sorts of foods you eat so it is difficult to answer the question, if you're mostly eating 'empty calories' then an average 1000 calorie diet is going to be very bad for your short, and medium term health, you need to change urgently. To be specific you might develop an illness that will make you retain water and look bloated or you might develop a thyroid problem which will cause you to put on fat or you might even become diabetic which is life limiting.

You ask about how to adjust your food intake to adjust your looks, I think it is important to think about your objectives in a broader sense. Do you want to look skinny so that you are physically attractive or so that you can fit through narrow gaps, maybe so that you take up less space in a crowded train? Well, I'll bet it is about looking attractive to other people because even though it is useful to fit into a narrow gap that is very much a side issue. If your objective is to be attractive then I'll tell you that what is really attractive is someone who is healthy. Study after study prove that we like the look of people who are healthy more than people who are unhealthy (there are other things involved too such as liking people who are nice to us but that's a different topic). Study after study indicates that we place more emphasis on how a person moves than how they look. More emphasis on how they behave than how they look.

Fashion models are chosen so that they make the clothing that is cheap to manufacture look good (straight up and down, less seams, less cutting, less wasted fabric). If we take this as our ideal then 90% of us are going to struggle to be healthy and that shape. If we have to choose between being healthy and being the fashionable shape then we are better off being healthy (both in terms of being attractive to others and in terms of our own well being).

I'd also ask if you drink alcohol and if you include alcohol in your calorie estimate. It is pretty common for people your age to drink alcohol to excess and there are a lot of empty calories in there. If you drink more than a pint of beer per day on average and eat very little then you are on an express way to poor health, particularly if you concentrate that drinking into a weekend of say 7 pints (or equivalent).

I consume roughly 1000 to 1400 calories per day, I eat 9 portions of lightly cooked or raw vegetable and one portion of fruit or fruit juice plus a small portion of fish or chicken. A lot of my calories come from a breakfast of porridge which releases its energy slowly and helps me feel full. Vegetables are low calorie and keep you feeling full. About once per week I'll be out with friends and I'll eat a bit more than usual (like you I basically eat what I want, I'm just lucky that I was brought up eating vegetables and porridge so I like them). If I overeat then the next day I skip breakfast. The key is having a balanced diet, I have milk and seeds with my porridge, various vegetables and fish; this means I have all the building blocks for health. If I put on weight it is because I've slowed down my metabolism and I can raise it with exercise, turning the fat and the nutrients in my diet into muscle which protects me from diabetes and makes my body both work well and look good.

At your age your brain is still developing (if it is getting enough nutrition) so you should probably eat more of the fish and omega oils than I do (even though it is a source of calories pumping those calories into the developing brain is never a bad thing). Like you I do modest exercise but I am much older and a bit shorter than you, I also do strength exercise daily and a cardio work out twice per week but I'm mostly sedentary.

I think you would be much better adopting a strategy of vigorous 'cardio' exercise, building your 'core' muscles with strength exercises, then boosting your calorie and protein intake so that you can build the muscle. Strong core muscles will give you the strength to maintain a good posture, you'll walk about like a movie star.

You're young enough that you should not have any difficulty doing tough daily exercise (swimming is very good, you may have heard of the 'swimmer's body' being attractive, those guys and gals eat a lot of calories). Provided you have a balanced diet you'll look good and feel good, the number of calories isn't all that important, so long as you have enough to do your daily activity.

[thegymhead in reply to jimijimi]

what are you talking about never skip breakfast and 1000 calories is for someone seriously looking to lose weight! this lad needs to get a damn feed and bulk up and given his height id say at least 2800 calories to start off with and then increase to 3500 depending on the level of exercise.

[Terotech1 in reply to thegymhead]

Hi 'thegymhead' if you were to add commas, apostrophes, full stops, question marks, etc. to your literary diet, and then stir in some syntax, I'm sure readers would better understand, and be more likely to accept, your advice.

[SunnySmiles22]

HI

Totally agree with jimijimi's advice about being healthy.

Too many people obsess about being thin, but the truth is that your body starts to kind of eat itself if it doesn't have enough calories, the heart gets smaller and weaker, as do other organs. Easy to ignore when you cant see this happening, but it will be. So don't let that happen to you, eat healthily and well and you will be fine

As I always say, google Karen Carpenter of The Carpenters. A massive band in the 70s, known and loved all over the world, rich beyond their wildest dreams, and yet she still didn't eat enough food and her body got thinner and thinner and her heart wasn't strong enough and she died. Actually died, all her riches couldn't save her. Aged 32. The world was stunned. It was like when Michael Jackson or someone that famous died, nobody could believe it, you think peoples bodies can go on for ever, especially the rich, but they cant.

If a person doesnt eat enough and take enough exercise they will lose muscle and look like a skinny weakling. You will catch bugs a lot. You may be really tired. Don't let that be you when you can easily sort it by eating half decent foods.

I have a gay male friend and he is a bit like you in as much as he is thin and thinks that this is good. I think he feels he wants to be like a model and that guys will fancy him more if he is like that, and I don't know if that's true, but what guy in later life wants to be taking his partner to hospital because he has something wrong that's been because of his own choices over the last few years, something that isn't nice and will require bowel surgery or whatever. You want to have a long, happy and healthy life with your loved ones, and despite what the glossy mags and internet would have us believe, there is a heck of a lot more to life than looking nice, its whats inside that counts. Believe in yourself and be happy and healthy.

As a woman, would defo prefer a man with a reasonably flat stomach (doesn't have to be perfect or a 6pack, just not like a pregnancy!) and nice muscles in his arms. Not too big, just enough. I would never date a man that had a smaller chest than me, its traditional for the woman to pinch the guys shirts and stuff and wear on overnight stays early days in a relationship, how can I do that if they don't fit my chest ha ha!

Good luck with healthy eating, I wish you all the best.