Underweight

[LittleM]

I am having a really hard time lately. I have anxiety and agoraphobia which I'm currently having therapy for, but progress is slow. I have a stressful life; my mother has cancer so our house is always quite tense, and I just find myself always stressed and anxious. I won't go into why my anxiety started because it will take too long, but I'm finding that the chronic stress is making me more and more underweight.

I am naturally thin; my mum and sister both are and have always been. But that makes it even worse because I have to always make sure I'm eating enough because it's so easy for the weight I try so hard to gain to drop off. But because I'm always stressed I never seem to have an appetite. I enjoy my meals but in between I can't find any snacks that I genuinely find appetising apart from bananas. The thought of eating biscuits and crisps make me feel ill. And I have an intolerance to raisins and cereal bars because I've got mild fructose-intolerance so overly fibrous foods aren't great for me.

I'm just at my wits end, because I feel so ill and sick on a daily basis. I'm perfectly healthy, all my blood tests are normal, but I just cannot gain weight and it's making my life miserable. I look like a 12 year old (I'm 22), I'm so skinny and have no stability in my tummy, I'm always hunched over.

Please someone tell me some tips on regaining appetite? The stress will not be going away and that's what scares me :(

[smileforawhile]

I'm sorry to hear that things are so stressful for you just now. My appetite is always the first thing to go when I'm anxious and I too am a naturally thin person who needs to keep eating to stay a healthy weight. I sometimes find that going for a walk before a meal helps to kickstart my appetite. The exercise helps to lower my stress levels and when I'm feeling a bit more relaxed I'm more likely to feel hungry. If you are not able to go out for a walk could you do some exercise indoors - put on the wii or a fitness dvd maybe or do some hoovering? Anything which distracts you and gets you active a bit might be enough to make you feel a bit more like eating.

[Annie0904]

My daughter is 27 and has always been underweight even though she eats a lot. She wears size 4-6 clothes and has trouble finding clothes to fit her and sometimes has to buy children's age 7! She has tried always to put on weight. Her doctor advised that she eats a lot of cheese in her diet. x

[fozzy is crying]

My weight goes up and down due to one of the drugs I am on. I have no tips about getting your weight up apart for from saying a few years ago when I was not on this medication but had so much stress my weight nosedived. This was despite my eating day and night trying to stop it. In the end I just went back to my normal diet and forgot about it.

My weight then gradually increased but took months to get back to normal as I had lost so much. At its lowest you could see every bone in my body barely covered in skin.

MY GP told me on that it had happened as I stressed so much about it on top of my other stress. Once I stopped stressing about my weight it improved.

Gordon

[almamatters]

I am underweight and really struggle with my appetite especially when I am anxious. I have always been underweight and would like to gain at least 1 stone but find it impossible. I did have an obsessional thing about weighing myself every morning just to see if I had managed to gain a pound, but was encouraged by the GP to just weigh myself just once a week. I am sorry I don't have any tips to put weight on, I would love to hear from anyone who knows.

[LittleM]

That's the thing - as soon as you're aware that you're losing weight it makes you more anxious and you don't want to eat even more even though you know you need to.

When I was at university (before my anxiety started), I was a healthy weight, because I was so happy. My mother was ill then too, but because I didn't have my own problems to contend with I could cope with it as it was the only worry in my life. But now I feel overwhelmed and I'm just not happy. Stress, anxiety and my mood really do determine what my appetite is like. It sucks.