How to fix a broken metabolism after an eating disorder?

Hi Elora,

Awww man, I went through the exact same thing. Your metabolism takes a while to reset but it will when you get to your set weight. The long and short of your question is that you can't achieve this. It's completely impossible.

I hate to say this, but the target you've set yourself is massively underweight, even as a 15 year old. Your metabolism will simply not maintain if you are under what is the set point for your body. I've worked long enough with a dietitian to know that this is the case. By staying under weight, and I should stress this is really underweight (I'm talking about the target you've set yourself), you are setting yourself up to fail. What will happen is you need to restrict in order to maintain, which means you aren't recovering and the eating disorder is completely still in control. Your metabolism will definitely not reset/be fixed. Anxiety will also be higher when you are underweight.

I've suffered with anorexia since the age of 11, and am now 29. The last three years I've really really made the effort to recover, and challenged my fears and during this time I've worked to gain weight (because I was very underweight too) and the last year has been maintaining. My weight was stable once it reached what is an appropriate BMI (20) for a caucasian female. A BMI under 20 is deemed underweight unless you fit into certain ethnic groups such as East Asian, where your bone density is a lot thinner.

I have a target weight band (it's a 2kg band), which allows for fluctuations (and then a 1kg extension for my time of the month because I get quite significant fluctuations then), because weight doesn't stay exactly the same every time you weigh yourself. Even if you ate and drank exactly the same thing every day, environmental factors mean that your weight would still change.My weight has been stable for a year as I mentioned, and stayed within my band, which just goes to show that even after such a long time abusing my body, it is able to recover. I should point out that my diet includes carbs, fats and proteins as well fruit and veg and I also eat puddings every so often and snacks.

The other thing I'd point out is that restriction of food will mean you can't gain muscle as what you do eat will go into repairing the other damage to your body AND keeping you alive.

If you do sport underweight, you are also likely to risk many more injuries.

Sorry that this isn't the news you want to hear, but unfortunately this is the reality. I would really encourage that you try and get a referral for an eating disorder service (for under 19s the situation is quite a bit better due to funding which was introduced a couple of years back to increase service provision for under 19s) and I would suggest you try and work with a dietitian.

Remember, if you want to talk to someone about your struggles, the Beat helpline (the UK's eating disorder charity) is open every day of the year from 12pm-8pm weekdays and from 12pm-4pm at weekends. It is a free and confidential service, you can phone, email, use the online chat, and/or join one of their online support groups.

Hope this helps slightly...

You have to eat high calories foods with essential nutritious and also make sure your body workout plan can balance with the diet. You have to burn the extra calories by doing workout to fulfill your requirement of healthy muscle mass.