Hi, some of this may be out of scope for the forum but I don’t have the resources to speak to a therapist atm and have always looked up to BBM guys for the evidence based reasoning. I’m currently about 134 ish lbs and 6 foot/ 6 foot 1 22y/o. I started noticing I have some weird behaviors around obsessing over scale weight, and was using excessive running/cardio to try and compensate. I seem to have gotten back to the activities I like (lifting) and stopped excessive cardio. I’ve been lifting for the last 8 years mainly just for the love of it, and realized I was only doing cardio to try and burn cals. I’m still struggling with the balance between clean eating/being afraid of gaining weight/gaining fat, obsessing over the scale but also wanting to gain more freedom with food/gain some more muscle and gain some strength. My thoughts are to try and start incorporating more “cheat” foods as kind of exposure, keeping cardio to a minimum ( so it doesn’t become excessive). The thing that’s tricky is not being afraid to gain weight, I’ve even told myself that I could cut if I got to 155 and wasn’t happy with how I looked but I still see weight gain as a “negative” even if I don’t necessarily want to.
sorry for the long essay but any advice would be super appreciated. Much love for all the amazing content 
Lichpeko,
Thanks for the post and kind words. I can imagine that wasn’t easy to write, much less experience. As you alluded to, this particular situation is beyond what we can do via the forum. I have some concerns regarding your current weight being far too low as a byproduct of the behaviors and feelings your mention here. I would strongly urge you to talk to your doctor about this and seek referral to a registered dietician, if deemed appropriate. I’m not in a great position via the forum and restrictions around giving medical advice, but weight gain (and behaviors related to that) being monitored by a professional would likely be the right move. Again, I would urge you to speak with a health care professional about this.
-Jordan
Thanks so much for the reply Jordan it means a lot. As of right now I’m in a new location/environment and do not readily have access to a doctor so that may be slightly infeasible for the time being. I definitely agree with you that setting a goal to gain bodyweight is likely the best course of action. Seeing this bodyweight gain from the viewpoint of getting stronger/gaining back self-efficacy over food is likely the best way to go about it. One thing that I was struggling with is setting the actual timeline/goal weight for this “bulk”, feel free to completely tap out of this convo at this point as I can understand how this may border on the edge of offering medical advice online, but would you advise the typical 1-2% bodyweight per month as is usually advised by eric helms/other BBilding coaches, or would you think that my situation should be handled differently and maybe more credence should be given to feelings of hunger/behaviors surrounding food?
Again I totally understand if you don’t feel comfortable answering these and giving advice on such specifics.
Thanks again!
While I can appreciate that it may not be easy or so straightforward on seeing a doctor, I would like to impress upon you that it is important for you to do so, even if that means connecting with them remotely through phone, internet, etc.
I don’t think that 1-2% weight gain per month is a practical recommendation anymore than losing 1-2% per month. I can appreciate that people want hard numbers and milestones, but weight change doesn’t really work like this. In general, I favor a gain of ~2-5 pounds per month, while I’m more more liberal on weight loss, accepting relatively small (but sustained) loss up to very, very large losses. Your situation may be a bit different and I have concerns regarding malnutrition and low energy availability, alongside some behavioral issues. A 1-2% gain/month would certainly be better than nothing, particularly if sustained, but I’d prefer a bit more gain than that.
I think feelings of hunger and subsequent food behaviors need to be managed on an individual basis, for sure.