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2004/05/02, 09:34 PM
I'm a 23 year old male with a very unusual problem and I'm looking for help to solve it. I am 5ft. 4in. and 120lbs. For all of my life I have been a very skinny/scrawny kid and pathetically weak but I also could eat whatever I wanted without gaining an ounce. A typical ectomorph only I was not tall. Over the last two years there has been a very disturbing change however. My scrawny stick thin body has lost even more muscle making me look absolutely emaciated. But at the same time I have been gaining huge amounts of fat around my belly and middle no matter what I do. I have restricted my diet to about 1700 calories a day on average (which would previously have been unheard of for me), eating healthy foods, and I have been exercising. Doing both cardio and weight training. But nothing works. I just keep getting more and more emaciated with a huge belly at the same time. Some of my jerkier friends have actually nicknamed me "ET". Has anyone ever heard of anything like this? Could it be a sign that something is wrong? I always wanted to have more muscle but looking at my skinny/fat body now makes me want to scream. Any help will be immensely appreciated. Thanks in advance.
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2004/05/06, 04:07 AM
sorry but a little guy like you eating 1700 calories hasn't even started 'restricting' food yet. You haven't a hope in hells chance of losing weight when you are obviously overeating. Cut your calories even more to lose fat(200 less a day or 270?).
If you are not exagerrating about the emaciation part, then you should know you are very sick and need immediate medical attention. With a stomach that is as distended as you imply, then you could have tumours, cancers god knows what wrong with you. See a Doctor
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2004/05/09, 12:57 AM
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Quoting from neiltilley:
sorry but a little guy like you eating 1700 calories hasn't even started 'restricting' food yet. You haven't a hope in hells chance of losing weight when you are obviously overeating. Cut your calories even more to lose fat(200 less a day or 270?).
If you are not exagerrating about the emaciation part, then you should know you are very sick and need immediate medical attention. With a stomach that is as distended as you imply, then you could have tumours, cancers god knows what wrong with you. See a Doctor
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I appreciate the concern. But I doubt I am over-eating. I was regularly taking in almost 3000 calories per day until I was almost 20. I take after my mom's metabolism (or had been). She is 4 ft. 11 in. and 105 lbs., without a lot of muscle, 49 years old, never exercises, and regularly eats almost 2500 calories a day. She's one of the lucky ones who just can, and I was always just like her. This is a recent change for me, and I suspect it may be due partially to a thyroid problem which I am having checked out next week by a trusted physician and family friend. If it's not thyroid I am truly stumped because some metabolic slow down is normal but a slow down of this magnitude is ridiculous. I even run an average of 15 miles per week and lift weights (though it hasn't been helping as of late). If it's not a thyroid problem I'm thinking my body somehow adopted a new metabolic rate as normal somehow. I don't know. I hope the hormone tests shed some light on things.
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2004/05/10, 07:39 AM
Sounds like there could be more going on here. What is a typical day for you like? You don't just magically gain fat for no reason. Like neil said, it could be a bigger problem, or, you may just be starving yourself.
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2004/05/11, 12:13 AM
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Quoting from dahayz:
Sounds like there could be more going on here. What is a typical day for you like? You don't just magically gain fat for no reason. Like neil said, it could be a bigger problem, or, you may just be starving yourself.
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A typical day for me consists of about 1700 calories, down from between 2500-3000 my whole life up until 2 years ago. On days where I run or lift weights I'll take in closer to 2000 to help prevent muscle catabolism. I generally try to eat about 6 times a day spaced about 3 hours apart, with beetween 200-400 calories per sitting. I limit my sugar intake and simple carb intake because they tend to make me very tired as if I had low blood sugar. I try to eat some protein with every meal and I try to eat one gram of protein per lb. of body weight per day. I get about 30% of my calories from fat, and the rest from carbs though as I said, I try to opt for quality carbs from unprocessed and whole foods. I am usually pretty inactive at work but I compensate by running and working out. I run 2-3 times a week at a moderate pace for about 5-7 miles each time. I lift weights about every third day. I also try and walk whenever I can instead of taking the lazy way out. I take a multivitamin and calcium supplement each morning. As far as I can tell i am doing all the right things. I have talked to a physician/family friend who is going to work with me and give me an exam later this week. He says, based on my symptoms and my response to sugary foods he would be curious about the possibility of either hypothyroidism, or insulin resistance/hyperinsulinism. After seing me this Friday he's going to order the appropriate tests including a full thyroid panel, a GTT (glucose tolerance test), and a test for insulin sensitivity.
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2004/05/11, 07:29 AM
Well, that is odd. I still think you are not eating enough, but, I will be curious as to what your doc says, keep us posted.
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2004/05/11, 11:33 AM
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Quoting from dahayz:
Well, that is odd. I still think you are not eating enough, but, I will be curious as to what your doc says, keep us posted.
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I don't think I'm eating enough either :) Especially because I used to be able to eat almost twice what I'm eating now. True I am a little guy, but my mom is even littler than me and she's the same way. It's how we've always been built. Thing is, you get such conflicting advice on the boards. You've got those like neil saying I'm obviously overeating and haven't a hells chance of losing weight, and those in your camp who say I'm not eating nearly enough. In the end, you basically have to go with your own gut and my gut here tells me there is something else going on. I can't be overeating because if 1700 calories is enough to make me fat then when i was eating 3000 just 2 years ago I should have been speedily on my way to obesity. I could be eating too little but I doubt it's enough to really be starving myself. The more research I do and the more I think about it, I really think when that after the lab tests come back the doc is going to find out I have insulin resistance or hyperinsulinism. My mom was a hypoglycemic. I also discovered that two of the biggest symptoms of these disorders are getting sleepy after eating sugary foods, and putting on alot of abdominal fat. So it wouldn't surprise me at all.
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2004/05/11, 03:16 PM
I'll tell you what Mcfly, I have been going to college for this stuff and I train people on a daily basis and help them with there diets every day, my PROFESSIONAL OPINION would be that you are not eating enough, which also means you are most likely lacking in a lot of nutrients. I understand how frustrating it can be to get such conflicting reports. I'll put it to you in another way, I know women who eat twice the amount of calories you do. As a 23 year old male, YOU NEED CALORIES, especially protein. And, if you notice, starving kids in Africa have the same problem, distended stomachs due to starvation, just think about it.
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2004/05/11, 06:06 PM
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Quoting from dahayz:
I'll tell you what Mcfly, I have been going to college for this stuff and I train people on a daily basis and help them with there diets every day, my PROFESSIONAL OPINION would be that you are not eating enough, which also means you are most likely lacking in a lot of nutrients. I understand how frustrating it can be to get such conflicting reports. I'll put it to you in another way, I know women who eat twice the amount of calories you do. As a 23 year old male, YOU NEED CALORIES, especially protein. And, if you notice, starving kids in Africa have the same problem, distended stomachs due to starvation, just think about it.
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Hey man I'm with you. I don't think I'm eating enough either. Like I said, I was at 2500 + just two years ago. Obviously some metabolic slowdown is normal with age but this is too much. However, at 1700 - 2000 calories a day with adequate quality protein, lots of veggies, unsaturated fats, and a daily comprehensive multivitamin I am not suffering from kwashiorkor (The malnutrition related disease which causes the distended bellies and emaciation in African children you mentioned). I also am most likely not malnourished. I'm very vigilant about making sure my daily nutritional needs are taken care of. Also like you, I studied this stuff in college. I was a Health Science/Human Development major and took several classes on nutrition. Right now I'm at 1700 calories because at a higher amount I start putting on loads of abdominal fat. While 1700 is lower than I would like, it really shouldn't be low enough to induce my metabolism to go into starvation mode and slow down. Especially because I have very little muscle mass. My doc suspects it could be either an insulin disorder, or a thyroid condition. Until my blood work is done later this week there will be no way to know for certain, but I really wouldn't be surprised to find that it is a case of insulin resistance or hyperinsulinemia for all the reasons I listed previously. It would explain almost all my symptoms, including sleepiness after eating carbs or sugars, and large abdominal fat deposits even at a low caloric intake. If the insulin receptors are not responsive to insulin, glucose is deposited as fat because it simply cannot be transported to the cells for energy. With IR this fat is predominantly around the middle and abdomen which would account for the disproportionately fat belly I described. It also jives with my family history (father is diabetic and mother is hypoglycemic). I'll let you know how my glucose tolerance test and insulin sensitivity results come out.
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2004/05/12, 07:29 AM
Sounds good, I'll be curious to know.
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