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How to gain weight/is there something wrong with me?
I'm 18 years old 5'7 and currently weigh about 100 pounds. Now I've been ruthlessly bullied and teased throughout my life for my weight (or lack of rather). It's done a number on my self esteem to say the least. What makes it especially hard is that even my NUTRITIONIST didn't seem to understand why my being skinny was such an issue. When I explain to people that I'm upset over being called an stick-ugly-thin-sick-you name it, I'm suddenly the bad guy for not appreaciating my too-thin body. Apparently it's okay that I face ridicule every day, because hey some girls are annorexic. Right. Anyway, let me tell you what I do know about why I'm so skinny.
Well first off, I know it's probably a lot to do with genetics. My mom was thin when she was younger, all my siblings were too. They however grew out of it when they hit puberty. I did not.
Now growing up I was a picky eater. I never liked food much, unless it was overloaded with sugar. I think this is pretty normal, but in any case I'm sure it did hinder my weight gain as a kid.
Also as I understand from my diatition it's actually harder to gain weight when you're already thin than it is to lose weight. This is because my stomach must be small and therefore I can't eat as much as your average person.
Finally when you're skinny you most often have a fast matabalism, and I deffinitely have that!
These things aside since I turned 13 or so I've been desperately trying to gain weight. And I have been able to reach 108 pounds at one point, but within a week I lost all that hard earned weight. As I said, I went to a diatition before, and she told me the usual: eat healthy, protein shakes, fiber ect. And after being on her diet for a month I discovered I'd actually lost 5 pounds. So I ditched that plan and opted to eat lots of healthy fat and BOOST shakes as well. This is what got me to 108 pounds, but even though I doubled the amount of Boost I was drinking and continued to eat a lot, I still lost the weight.
So I'm wondering unless there's some secret weight gain method I'm missing out on (not excersice, I'm a very active person) is there something wrong with my body? If so what on earth could it be?
And if you have any other advice (aside from the usual fiber/protein/eat healthy thing that I'm already doing) on how to gain weight I would really appreaciate it. I just want to be beautiful like the other girls.
Well first off, I know it's probably a lot to do with genetics. My mom was thin when she was younger, all my siblings were too. They however grew out of it when they hit puberty. I did not.
Now growing up I was a picky eater. I never liked food much, unless it was overloaded with sugar. I think this is pretty normal, but in any case I'm sure it did hinder my weight gain as a kid.
Also as I understand from my diatition it's actually harder to gain weight when you're already thin than it is to lose weight. This is because my stomach must be small and therefore I can't eat as much as your average person.
Finally when you're skinny you most often have a fast matabalism, and I deffinitely have that!
These things aside since I turned 13 or so I've been desperately trying to gain weight. And I have been able to reach 108 pounds at one point, but within a week I lost all that hard earned weight. As I said, I went to a diatition before, and she told me the usual: eat healthy, protein shakes, fiber ect. And after being on her diet for a month I discovered I'd actually lost 5 pounds. So I ditched that plan and opted to eat lots of healthy fat and BOOST shakes as well. This is what got me to 108 pounds, but even though I doubled the amount of Boost I was drinking and continued to eat a lot, I still lost the weight.
So I'm wondering unless there's some secret weight gain method I'm missing out on (not excersice, I'm a very active person) is there something wrong with my body? If so what on earth could it be?
And if you have any other advice (aside from the usual fiber/protein/eat healthy thing that I'm already doing) on how to gain weight I would really appreaciate it. I just want to be beautiful like the other girls.
The endo should check thyroid antibodies as well, say for graves disease (which is one form of hyperthyroidism). TSH is one test but the new range is 1.0 to 3.0 (some labs put the range as different as it changed about five years ago - TSH is one of the only standard ranges I know of out there). Free T3, Free T4 is also helpful. But I would also look into the adrenals if you have any skin darkening, nausea, fatigue, low blood pressure or crave salt.
I agree with rumpled. It sounds as though you have Hyperthyroidism. Go get some blood work done as soon as you can. As a bases...your TSH should be 2.00-3.33. There is a website that can greatly help you with questions as well: www.***********.com. By the way, protein drinks are a good thing. Every woman should have some sort of protein for breakfast as the thyroid benefits/likes this. Good luck!
Have you been to an endocrinologist? It could be a thyroid or adrenal issue or some sort of hormonal thing that is keeping the weight off.
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