I don't know where to start. My friends tell me that I'm thin, but I don't accept it. I feel like the overwhelming percentage of my body mass is actually fat when what I want is for it to be muscle. I tell them 'Think about it, I may look 'skinny' but scales have me weighing in at an average weight.' I look at my body and I see no muscle, which tells me that that 'average weight' must be being fulfilled by the fat on my body. Something has to be there that is making up for the lack of muscle weight, and to me fat is the obvious alternative. I hate the idea of having so much excess on my body, and am disgusted by myself. I have hopes to start working on getting the body type I want. Once I get up the courage and know-how, I'll go to the gym, start working on an exercise plan and hopefully be happy with what results. Until I can start though, I don't want to do anything to my body that's going to make it more difficult for me to achieve that. I don't want to eat crap food and mess up my nutrition, storing up horrible things in my body that will stay to haunt me later in life. I'm in college though, and live in a fraternity house, paying for a house meal plan. The food I have available is garbage, and I'm sick of the food being offered as if it were actually passable for a meal. I've already payed for it though, and it's not like I have money enough to go and buy what I want. I'm disgusted with myself though that I put up with eating this food. I swear, last week we had a meal where everything was fried! :bang: Perfectly good green beans and they fried 'em up, right along with the onion rings and chicken! Ugh, the meat too. It's all ridden with hormones and steroids, and of course since our house food shopper is trying to get the best deal he can, all there is to eat is the lowest grade meat ever. Who wants to put this crap in their system? I certainly don't. :tantrum: Instead I'd rather just not eat any of it. Usually that's what I do too. I've been keeping a food journal, and its not too rare that I go a day with eating only a cheese/tomato sandwich or two and a decaf americano. I'm glad too. I feel accomplished when I can go through the day and feel proud of what I ate. The empty feeling in my stomach actually makes me feel happy because it tells me that I've been able to withstand the temptation to eat crap. ugh, well I came on here for help, and so far I've only gone off on a tirade. I guess it helps to see where I stand though. I am afraid that I'm developing an eating disorder. My sister has/had an eating disorder, and I feel like I'm portraying a lot of the same characteristics she does when she goes through it. I've seen a counselor for general stuff, and I brought this up as a concern. He told me that he didn't think it was a big deal though. ? That wasn't the kind of help I was looking to get. I want a second opinion. Also, I know a common response to eating disorder issues is that it's important to love your body for what it is. I refuse to do that though. I don't want to be the gangly thin dude who looks like you could snap him in two. I can't accept that, I want to have a body that I can be proud of.
Well, not my area at all, Kara will stop in shortly, but I can tell you this: muscle is denser than fat. So, if you weigh 'average' and appear slim, and then try to convert that weight into muscle weight, you will be slimmer, and possibly dangerously slim. Average weight is kind of vague, too. Average for your height/build/metabolism, or average in general? You need to know more about your body, I suspect, before putting yourself through an intense body-building regimen. The thing is: in order to build muscle with a work out, you'll need to eat more than average, and definitely more that a tomato and cheese sandwich. If you pull a workout and all you've got in your system is, let's see...I'm gonna guess no more than 200 calories, you will pass out. I know, I've done it in highschool (crappy breakfast arrangements). There is nothing wrong with wanting to eat wholesome food, but you're not avoiding crap food for the good stuff, you seem to be avoiding food period. Also, it would seem your entire frat could use a lesson in nutrition. And speaking of nutrition, just to put things in perspective on exactly how much energy your body needs every day: the 2000 calorie diet business means that, as a general rule, an adult human body needs enough energy daily to boil more than seven gallons of near-freezing water.
I took average weight being based off height, age, and build. Though I fall at the lower end of the spectrum, I'm still in the accepted interval. I agree with your statement too about once I do try to start exercising, my body will have different needs. I am taking over my meal plan for this coming year, so I should have food around that I'll be happy to eat. I think that I'll feel good eating more once I start exercising, because then that feeling of hunger will mean that my body is actually doing something, and that it needs more fuel. I'd love to eat more under those conditions because then I at least am happy with what that food is going towards. Back in high school, when I ran cross country I remember having a generally elevated need for food. I was happy to eat too, because I knew that what I was eating was going towards fueling my exercise.
You're 19. What are your height and weight? And what is your chest and what is your waist size? It's fine that you don't want to eat an unhealthy diet. But bad food is better than no food. The typical 19 year old male needs 3200-3500 kcals per day to maintain body weight. A tomato and cheese sandwich is not enough. Baylor College of Medicine has a Children's Research Center that has some good nutrition calculators. You need to look at other alternatives to get your daily needs. Maybe look at getting a part-time job where one of the benefits is free food or reduced prices on meals (like a restaurant, hotel or hospital)?
I'm 5'11", weigh 155 lbs (I just weighed tonight, don't know how trustworthy the scale is though. Usually I'm 145-150). My chest is 35 inches, and for my waist I didn't know exactly where that measure was supposed to be at. So I took it around my stomach, and then about my pelvis. My stomach 29 inches, while my pelvis is 34 inches.
If you are 5'11" and weigh 155, you are definitely on the lower end of the ideal weight for your height. Ideal weight is what people should be, not like the average weight of what people are. You don't want to drop below that. Also, muscle weighs more than fat, so keep that in mind when you say you think you weigh more because of fat. I get that you don't want to eat the fattening food that you are getting in your fraternity house, but you need to eat something. There is no way that it is even remotely healthy to only eat what you are having in a day. Actually, eating that little will drop your metabolism significantly and make it much harder to lose weight, and possibly even make you gain weight. It is really hard to get your metabolism back up once it drops too. Why don't you ask the person who cooks for the house if they can leave some veggies out not fried up or something and you can use the same foods they have but prepare them better for yourself?
