binge-cycles

[angelpaws]

I am an 18 year old female who is suffering from some sort of eating disorder. I am nearly 67 inches tall and weight about 97 pounds.
Generally I consume 1500 calories every single day but lately since ive begun exercising, I find my weight slowly declineing. Everytime my weight drops lower, I give myself license to binge eat.
When I binge I eat about 4000 calories. Then I feel guilty and cut down a little bit (about 1200 calories) for the next few days.
However even with the binge eating my weight is still dropping.
I am just wondering if it is possible that I am actually gaining fat mass even though my weight is not really going up. Perhaps my body composition is changing negatively due to binge eating and then slight restriction cycles?
I am getting help for this within the next few weeks, but I was wondering if you could point me towards any studies done on the effects of binge eating and weight loss, or binge/ restriction cycles and the effect on body composition. Thank you.

[psyko1]

well look in the mirror and see if there's any changes. but i would probably say yes. what exactly do you eat when you binge? it probably isn't too healthy is it? what do you eat regularly when you don't binge? it's good that you're getting help but i really don't see that as a disorder unless you binge and purge. it seems like there's just days where you just eat alot i guess. but goodluck anyways.

[YellowJacket]

Re: binge-cycles

Originally posted by angelpaws
I am an 18 year old female who is suffering from some sort of eating disorder. I am nearly 67 inches tall and weight about 97 pounds.
Generally I consume 1500 calories every single day but lately since ive begun exercising, I find my weight slowly declineing. Everytime my weight drops lower, I give myself license to binge eat.
When I binge I eat about 4000 calories. Then I feel guilty and cut down a little bit (about 1200 calories) for the next few days.
However even with the binge eating my weight is still dropping.
I am just wondering if it is possible that I am actually gaining fat mass even though my weight is not really going up. Perhaps my body composition is changing negatively due to binge eating and then slight restriction cycles?
I am getting help for this within the next few weeks, but I was wondering if you could point me towards any studies done on the effects of binge eating and weight loss, or binge/ restriction cycles and the effect on body composition. Thank you.

Welcome to the board!

Gaining weight is pretty simple, calories in versus calories out. The reason your weight is slowly declining with the addition of exercise is because exercise is causing your body to burn calories in order to stay fueled to exercise. If youre exercising and eating ~1200-1500 calories, I doubt youre gaining fat. In order to gain 1lb of fat, one must eat 500 calories a day (on average) over their maintainance calories (the amount of calories it takes your body to survive in one day) and they must eat over maintainance 500 calories for 7 days straight just to gain 1lb of fat.

If you weight 97lbs, your maintainance calorie intake is right around ~1400 calories per day. So for you to gain one pound of fat in one week, youd have to consume 1900 calories a day, consistantly. Overeating one or 2 or even 3 days a week isnt going to cause you to gain fat. If youre only eating 1200 calories a day and exercising, youre getting dangerously close (if not already) having to break down proteins into amino acids to use as fuel for exercising and survival. This is a bad thingsince this protein/amino acids are coming from your muscle tissue.


"Binge eating" in bodybuilding is sometimes termed "re-feeding" or "carbing up" although not identical, they follow the same principles. Bodybuilders will essentially do what youre doing, they'll cut carbs and calories to below maintainance for 4-5 days and carb up or re-feed for the following 2. This is done for a couple reasons.... 1. to manipulate leptin levels, 2. carbing up helps keep the individual from looking flat and 3. carbing up helps keep the metabolism going (if you low carb it low calorie it for several weeks straight, your metabolism begins to slow, making it harder to lose weight.

So, these "binges" youre doing can in fact allow you to lose weight by keeping your metabolism running high. Which would explain the weight loss, even though you're eating several calories in excess.

[Bouncer]

Sounds to me like you have a fast metabolism and the amount of calories your taking in isnt enough to maintain your bodyweight. The binging is problly speeding your metabolism up believe it or not because it is making your body digest more food which in turn makes your body work harder, thus your metabolism is speeding. Then you go into the low call phase of 1200 cals a day while your metabloism is speeding and guess what your weight will keep declining. My advice, eat more calories during your regular days. Its that simple. Its a science. Once you understand it, its not that hard.