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have trouble with eating and feeling sick.....help with gaining weight????????
Former Member
Posts: 1,875,648 The Mix Honorary Guru
soooo.....basically, I have trouble eating a lot, and I feel sick often - even after eating a small amount. I want to try to gain weight (even though I hate gaining weight, even the thought of it) and get up to around 8st (my boyfriend also advised that too. I am 5 foot 1", 18 years old, and around 7st 6lbs. A few weeks ago I was told I was underweight at the doctors (was around 6st 10lbs). At the start of the week just gone, I was around 7st 3lbs. I am hopefully starting the gym this weekend because i've wanted to join for ages to help boost confidence and to help tone and build muscle to help with my negative body image. However, I would like to try gaining weight as well. But.....I have depression and I find it hard to gather motivation to eat properly or to make myself something that isn't toast - I can't even make that most days. It's very easy to just grab junk food - I also find it easier to eat that at times as well. So I need advice on eating to help gain weight. And advice on motivation to make proper meals. Anything that will help, really. Thanks 
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Comments
I can relate to the having trouble eating without feeling sick because of a winter bug I had last year. So firstly I'm wondering if you have any kind of bug or winter illness that may be causing you to feel sick?
Once I had finished treatment for that the sickness remained. The main things I can advice is don't worry about eating healthaly-that will come in time. While you are feeling sick after eating just concentrate on eating small ammounts of anything you can. I found the most important thing was to eat a really small ammount and to eat often even say every hour than to focus on eating normal meals. That will come in time.
As for the issue of having motivation to make meals I'm still the same with that, all I can suggest is trying setting an alarm that will remind you to go and eat.
Hope you get better soon.
Amy
Setting an alarm is a great idea - thank you! And I don't have a bug, but I used to try to starve myself for a few years (for a while I tried to eat 300 cal and under), and when I got very very depressed in September, I could barely eat for 4 days - which resulted in me losing 3lbs. I've never not been able to eat whilst having depression....I guess it's just gotten worse again. Since September I've had quite a few more bouts of barely eating for a few days and dramatically dropping weight. This resulted in that style of eating continuing after those days. And I sometimes feel very sick and just the thought of food makes me not want it.
This is something I can relate to. I am currently struggling with eating becuase of a need to control too.
Do you have support with the depression? To me it sounds like you need some. Although I know from my experience how hard support is to get and that even if you get to the CMHT they can still be really unhelpful because that's whats happening to me.
But I can't think of anything else to suggest, sorry.
Amy
It's so good that you want to exercise more and eat more and you can definitely do it! It's always such a pain when something gets in the way of things like this (like you mentioned, your depression). It would be good to start off by writing a list of things that you like to eat which is healthy. So even if it is fruit and vegetables, anything as simple as that. Potatoes, rice and pasta are all carbs so they can help you gain a bit of weight, and then what you eat these with can be healthy. Such as vegetables. Like onions, garlic, chicken, beans etc...
We aren't experts or dieticians here, but there are tips all over the internet to help with how to eat healthier and gain weight in a healthy way. Exercise is also very good for coping with mental illness such as depression. It would be good to make a plan or a rota everyday in order to make a commitment to these things. Also YouTube can be VERY helpful for planning meals and making them healthy at the same time. At university I often make more of one particular dish so that I can eat it the next day too, then it saves from having to cook the next day.
Well done for coming on here and asking for help! This is the first step to feeling better
Look forward to hearing from you soon and have a great day
Drea
😊😊