About 1 week in, former anorexic, current powerlifter page

[RoninLioness]

Hello, good to talk to some other primal people. My name is Leo, I am a 22 year old female who works as a researcher and student at a California university. My jobs keep me very busy, but I find time to work out a lot, since I prefer an active lifestyle.

I started the Primal Blueprint because I was not seeing some health gains that my doctor recommended for me. I am a recovered anorexic, but my weight and bodyfat is still a little below what my doctor wants. I am naturally very lightly built and short, but before my eating disorder I had good stores of bodyfat without being overweight. Now, I am a lot more muscled, but I don't have hip fat like I used to and I can't seem to gain any fat there. My appetite isn't all that great, but I eat as much as I can. Of course, if I am a little more lax on my eating, I lose weight really quickly.

I am very happy with my workout plan, which was already quite similar to what the Primal Blueprint suggested, so that didn't take any time to get used to! I lift heavy, in short sessions, using compound movements and the "Big Three". I don't do long cardio sessions, I mostly just do sprint intervals for short periods of time. I bike everywhere and try not to use my car, and for fun I go dancing and practice eskrima (and armored combat) very often.

After one week in, I am still getting sugar cravings, but I try to stave it off with berries and occasionally a square of dark chocolate. I was a vegetarian until a year ago (since red meat makes me feel very sick), but now I am trying to eat meat every day, rather than just every so often. Beef and pork still make me feel horribly sick, so I avoid them, but I eat as much turkey, chicken, and fish as possible.

My concerns for the lifestyle change have to do with some weight loss I have experienced. I know this diet is good for weight loss, but I would like to gain 5-10 pounds (both muscle and fat). I, of course, want to get more muscled, but I also want to build up my hip fat again. As of now, my proportions are 35-26.5-34. My abdominal muscles are beginning to show, but my hips are bony! So far I haven't really gained any hip fat at all, but I would like to gain an inch or two there. I thought that eating lots of healthy fats would help, but so far it hasn't. Overall I feel better, but it would be nice to have some flesh over my hip bones without losing my visible abs.

So, are there any other former anorexics here? Anyone on the Primal Blueprint that is doing it to gain healthy weight? To the other ladies here, have you had any luck with getting a nicer, curvy figure?

Thank you for your advice! I hope to have some great conversations here.
-Leo

[Gadsie]

Former guy here who was also weird about eating amd underweight. I'm about to leave so I didn't have time to read your entire post. But about your lack of appetite, I have the same thing. Although when I was underweight I didn't. But right now I do. I get nauseated quickly when I eat "too much". I don't know if you have the same thing. You have to try finding something that doesn't fill you up a lot. Maybe cheese, nuts or (stevia sweetener chocolate) milk. Also, what helps to stimulate my appetite is tea. Also fasting works for me. Not too long though, about 14 hours or so, to make myself really hungry and I can usually eat a lot after that

[RoninLioness]

The tea works for me too! I find a cup of bitter green tea helps me get hungry, or gets rid of nausea.
A food I use to help me when I am not hungry, but not nauseated, is avocado. I will just open it up and eat it plain. I also have a handful of almonds, or trail mix without peanuts (I hate peanuts, so I am glad someone else agrees with me about how bad they are :P).