Questions on Being Very Skinny

[Raphael]

Hey there,

I have some questions about being skinny.

I'm a very skinny and tall person and I have been very skinny my entire life. Gyms got closed recently in my country because of Covid and because of that I exercised less regularly and less intensely during the past two months. I also started to eat a bit less recently because I felt that I was eating more than I needed. However, I don't undereat, I eat moderately, I eat what I feel I need. As a consequence of that, I lost some weight. I'm now at 112 lbs for 6 ft (51 kg for 183 cm) which gives me a BMI of 15.2, before I was at 121 lbs for 6 ft (55 kg for 183 cm) with a BMI of 16.4. According to the BMI, I am severely underweight, however, I feel great overall, but maybe just a bit weaker.

I enjoy being skinny, it just feels great to be thin and light. Also, when I look at myself in the mirror, I found myself good-looking. I don't feel the need to put 20 - 40 more pounds on my body, I enjoy having a skinny body. I also don't feel hunger, I'm conscious that this is weird to say that but I very rarely felt hunger in my entire life, this an almost unknown sensation for me.

Many people have made fun of me for being so skinny in my life and I even had people coming to me to ask me if it was normal or if I was anorexic which is not the case. I very rarely undereat and very rarely overate in my life, it has always being a struggle to gain weight for me even when I would eat more than other people around me. I did gain weight while going to the gym in the past, but never a huge amount. Finally, I started to resonate less and less with the need to go to the gym and to build big muscles. Even if gyms re-open in the future I'm wondering if I'll get back to it or just continue doing some moderate bodyweight workouts at home, which is what I'm currently doing.

Is it normal to be so skinny? Should I eat more? Should I continue to exercise with heavyweights like when I was going to the gym? Do I have risks regarding my health?

[UDT]

Question really is how much do you eat, what do you eat etc. because you only have your own perspective on what is "normal"
Just shooting from the hips I´d say its prob not normal. Ofc they are fast metabolizers (or "ektomorphs"), but they usually eat loads of carbs every day to fuel that fire.

From a med (not med advice) perspective, I remember studies about how slight weight gain over the lifespan is the healthiest as in lower all cause mortality across the agespan. 

Think about it this way, if you suffer from severe illness, you need something in your gas tank to fuel you through. If there is nothing there, your body starts digesting itself way to early which is a stress level rising event, which over the long term is a baddie. 

If I would coach you, we would start with breathing and body connection - have you tried that?  Also, your age is important. If youre below 20, I highly recommend you eat more because your body allocates growth resources according to availability.

[Village]

In your place I wouldn't be getting so cozy in the underweight realm.  The reason being that fat protects you from toxins. All the toxicity that doesn't get discarded immediately via diarrhea or vomit (and you can be sure there's plenty of that in our environment) gets stored in the body, heavy metals amongst it. If you're underweight and have no body fat, where do you think it goes? First, to the bone marrow which is pure fat, and once that fat is packed - to the organs, firstly to the brain as it is 60-80% fat.

Fat people are in risk for certain diseases but their organs are protected, even if it's bad fat. Skinny people are not merely in risk but literally suffer from organ damage that will lead to serious disease in the future.

[Gregory1]

I might be wrong with this but I think that a weight of 51 kg for 83cm is unhealthy.

I am not a doctor or expert at this though.

I think being that skinny might result in you having less energy and motivation to do certain things than "normal people", maybe also more "health fragility."

I used to be very skinny and not be hungry as well. That changed, once I forced myself to eat more than I wanted to.

Pretty quickly my body adjusted and started to demand more food.

Now my weight is at a healthier level.

I am not an expert at this. I would suggest that you should maybe go to your doctor or to an expert and talk with him/her about that issue.

Wish you all the best:)

[Raphael]

5 hours ago, UDT said:

Question really is how much do you eat, what do you eat etc. because you only have your own perspective on what is "normal"
Just shooting from the hips I´d say its prob not normal. Ofc they are fast metabolizers (or "ektomorphs"), but they usually eat loads of carbs every day to fuel that fire.

From a med (not med advice) perspective, I remember studies about how slight weight gain over the lifespan is the healthiest as in lower all cause mortality across the agespan. 

Think about it this way, if you suffer from severe illness, you need something in your gas tank to fuel you through. If there is nothing there, your body starts digesting itself way to early which is a stress level rising event, which over the long term is a baddie. 

If I would coach you, we would start with breathing and body connection - have you tried that?  Also, your age is important. If youre below 20, I highly recommend you eat more because your body allocates growth resources according to availability.

I'm 24 and I have been very skinny all my life. I've never tried breathing and body connection.

Here's what I currently eat:

• Breakfast: a smoothie consisting of half and avocado, blueberries and 2 dates. + a cup of oats + a handful of cashews nuts + some almonds
• 10:00 AM: a fruit (apple, or mandarin, or banana)
• 12:00 AM: a meal with brown rice + 2 vegetables + 3 eggs or fish + a kiwi. The meal size looks similar to this meal, just imagine having some eggs or fish on top of that
• 04:00 PM: a fruit (apple, or mandarin, or banana)
• 07:00 PM: a meal with brown rice (but a bit less than at 12:00 AM) + some grains (lentils, chickpeas, green peas, etc) + 1 or 2 vegetables + some lettuce + black chocolate

[Raphael]

1 hour ago, Village said:

If you're underweight and have no body fat, where do you think it goes? First, to the bone marrow which is pure fat, and once that fat is packed - to the organs, firstly to the brain as it is 60-80% fat.

That's maybe the reason why my bones are thinner than average people.

[Raphael]

20 minutes ago, Gregory1 said:

I think being that skinny might result in you having less energy and motivation to do certain things than "normal people", maybe also more "health fragility."

I used to be very skinny and not be hungry as well. That changed, once I forced myself to eat more than I wanted to.

Pretty quickly my body adjusted and started to demand more food.

Now my weight is at a healthier level.

Yeah, I think I do have less energy than average people and I'm also easily drained by loud noises. Was it difficult for you when you started to force it? When I forced it in the past, it felt very difficult and unnatural.

[mivafofa]

I think if you like being that way, then screw all these skinny-shamings. Of course as long as you get all your vitamins, minerals and proteins. I'm not sure you get all of it when you eat so little, so adding a nutritional green formula supplement could be very handy.. You might be low on energy from lack of carbs or calorie. You're probably an ectomorph whose engine runs best on high carbs

[Gregory1]

2 hours ago, Raphael said:

Yeah, I think I do have less energy than average people and I'm also easily drained by loud noises. Was it difficult for you when you started to force it? When I forced it in the past, it felt very difficult and unnatural.

Again, I want to mention that I am not an expert at this. Ideally you should go to a doctor or an expert to help you. I think that your "noise irritation" and "little energy" might be connected to your low weight

For me it was not that difficult to force myself sinse my body adjusted pretty quickly and I had a huge desire to get a healthier body. I forced myself to eat more than I usually ate for every meal. A week or two weeks, don't remember exact time, eating that much became my new normal and the body actually started to demand more food than before.

I'm not 100% sure about the science of this but I once heard that your stomach is strechable. If you eat and drink more, it is hard because your stomach has to strech. When it streches often, it widens over time. When you stop being hungry you reached the point where your stomach has to be streched in order for more to fit into it. This theory makes sense to me and is congruent with my own experience.

 But I think you have to be smart about this; Do not force youself too much. If you force it to much, you could develop an aversion against food, which might make it psychologically difficult for you to eat and even worsen your problem. (Of course forcing it a bit won't cause such problems, just listen to your intuition about this)

My suggestion for you would be to try and eat more than you usually do, every meal for at least 2 weeks. Also eat at least 3 times a day. Push yourself but don't overdo it.

Buy tasty and delicious food, buy a lot of it. Always eat what you want to, not what you "should eat." Chocolate, Burger, whatever you like. This will make it more likely for you to be able to eat large amounts of food. In my opinion getting a few pounds is a lot more important for you right now than eating the healthiest food possible.

Once you got a few pounds, you can clean up your diet step by step. 

Cheers

[Mz Hyde]

@Raphael I completely resonate with you, almost the same situation with me (the only difference is that I'm female)..

3 hours ago, Raphael said:

When I forced it in the past, it felt very difficult and unnatural.

SAME! Sometimes I even have the urge to vomit.

[JohnnyAb]

Instead of forcing yourself load some calories with your first meal of the day. You can easily get 1k kcal+ without forcing yourself with some milk, peanut butter, honey, bananas, berries, milled flaxseed, protein powder, or whatever else.

You're probably eating less than your body would normally require. Try tracking your macros for a week, it could do you wonders.

Edited May 29, 2021 by JohnnyAb

[Gregory1]

1 hour ago, Mz Hyde said:

SAME! Sometimes I even have the urge to vomit.

I remember also having had that urge to vomit a few years before I finally succeeded in gaining normal weight (this is what I meant with developing a "psychological aversion"). 

Back then I didn't have the right reasons to take on weight and tried it in a very forceful an unnatural way. I only allowed myself to eat the "healthiest" food and also I forced myself too much. 

@JohnnyAbmakes a good point. Get more calories by eating food that has lots of calories. You will then eat more without increasing the volume of the food you eat.

I think you could combine that tip with the "always eating a little more" technique, but again, don't force yourself too much. One point that I forgot to mention above which I think also helps with eating more than your used to is; eating many different things. A lot of the time I eat a certain kind of food and cannot eat any more of it. It feels like I'm full, but when I then start eating something different I can eat again and even want to eat. Diversity of food really helped me and maked it a lot easier for me to eat more than I was used to.

One meal would be like; Bread with Nutella, Banana, your favourite Chocolate, a fruit smoothie, some chips, or whatever you like. Don't limit the diversity, eat as much as you like and as diverse as possible. And of course, eat food with lots of calories, like Cheese, Milk, Bread, Nuts, Chocolate, Chips, Burger, Meat, noodles, whatever feels good;)

[Mz Hyde]

@Gregory1 Uh now you've puzzled me .. I've just started cleaning up my diet and threw out sweets and wheat.

[Raphael]

@Gregory1 Thanks for your advices

[Michael569]

@Raphael do you recall when you raised the "how to boost brain" topic and i suggested you eat much more? 

I would stand behind that suggestion and reinforce the need to increase calories of your meals especially of protein. If you can do that and add some weight bearing training your weight will come up and you'll have much more energy and brain power. No need to force it but you can simply shuffle around the ingredients of your current meals

[Raphael]

@Michael569

Yes. I implemented some of your advice but didn't increase the number of calories. I just started doing that today by eating more carbs for breakfast.

[UDT]

@Raphael

21 hours ago, Raphael said:

I'm 24 and I have been very skinny all my life. I've never tried breathing and body connection.

Here's what I currently eat:

• Breakfast: a smoothie consisting of half and avocado, blueberries and 2 dates. + a cup of oats + a handful of cashews nuts + some almonds
• 10:00 AM: a fruit (apple, or mandarin, or banana)
• 12:00 AM: a meal with brown rice + 2 vegetables + 3 eggs or fish + a kiwi. The meal size looks similar to this meal, just imagine having some eggs or fish on top of that
• 04:00 PM: a fruit (apple, or mandarin, or banana)
• 07:00 PM: a meal with brown rice (but a bit less than at 12:00 AM) + some grains (lentils, chickpeas, green peas, etc) + 1 or 2 vegetables + some lettuce + black chocolate

Cheers Mate so look at it, here´s the deal:

I want you to 50 push ups and 50 split squads a day. Don´t matter when, just do it in one setting (takes 15 min, dont do it after lunch)
And then 
- Smoothie is nice, but dont jug it, its sugar heavy. 
- do you like cheese? jam that shit. Cheese, red meat (not only chicken!) and ham and whatnot. 
- Replace your rice with potatoes and see how that feels
- raw carrots, cucumbers
- guac and avodaco stil good 
- no fruit after 5pm
- no black choco at night 

Makes no sense to increase calories by jamming more carbs, you need to get your fat & protein up 

Note that you neeeeeeed to do the push ups squads. Its for metabolic purposes. 

Try it 3 weeks report backo

[Raphael]

@UDT

I'm trying to find my balance here, so I'm not going to quickly change from one advice to another one. If being too skinny can be dangerous for my health and several people are recommending increasing the number of calories, then I'm going to start here first.

However, I would appreciate if you could explain more all your recommendations because I do lack some knowledge when it comes to nutrition.

 

Edited May 30, 2021 by Raphael

[Michael569]

@Raphael cool beans! Drop me a line if i can offer any more advice. Take it easy from the start. Quality before quantity