Gain weight with a light eating disorder

I’ve lost weight and I’ve gone from 95kg with a 39" waist down to a current 77kg with a 32.5" waist. I’m 5’10" with a narrow “runners frame” (long thin limbs, classic ectomorph?). I do have some light body dysmorphic disorder because I’ve been fat/bloated in the past, but now I’m much thinner and I feel like myself again. So gaining weight is somewhat problematic in a psychological aspect.

I want to gain some strength and more muscle so Jordan recommended me to gain 1-2kg per month while doing the 12 week strength. I ate about 2000 calories while losing weight, and in the last month I have gradually increased my calories to 3600 with 200-220g of protein, 70-100g of fat and rest carbs but my BW has not gone up.

In the last 10 days I’ve been averaging 3600 and I have lost 0.2kg. But I feel bloated because I’m constantly full and never hungry, I have to force down food which I hate but the scale is not going up atm.

Do I really need 3900-4000 calories to increase my BW? It seems awfully high to me. I’ve skimmed through To be a beast and all the TDEE calculators puts me way below 4000 calories.

Hey man, appreciate you reach to the forums seeking advice.
if your goals are building muscle then you should aim to eat whatever it takes to see the scale trending up, if that means eating 4k calories, trust the process I used to think like you but now I’m 25lb heavier and much stronger than before.
You could replace or take along your normal meals a lot of liquid calories, you could do your own shakes with oats, fruits, peanut butter, milk, yogurt, etc…, Drinking calories is so easy and don’t fill that much.

​​​​​​Cheers.

I’m about your height, weight and waist (176 cm, 75 kg, 82 cm). I’m definitely no expert in nutrition, but: 3900-4000 calories/day for someone your size is an enormous amount of food. For reference, I’m actively trying to gain weight while training four times/week and I’m currently consuming 2600-2800 calories/day (tracked with reasonable accuracy I believe). I have been adding about 0.3-0.5 kg BW per week for six weeks now on that intake.

Even if I am underestimating my intake a bit and considering that I’m a little lighter than you are currently, I think that consuming over 3600 calories/day is significantly too high for you to mainly gain lean body mass in a controlled way while training and you might be at risk of packing the adipose tissue back on. That said, you say that you’ve continued to lose weight while eating that much? That makes me doubt my own guess.

Two suggestions:

  1. Double-check that you’re tracking your current macros intake accurately (weigh food portions, etc. for a week or two).
  2. Double-check those calorie & macro intake recommendations with Dr Jordan on the Nutrition Q&A forum (I might be wildly off-base about them sounding too high, but I agree with you that they sound way too high). Good luck!

@SquatGimp how old are you?
I’m 31 years old, 180 cm 82 kg and my TDEE is around 4000kcal

26 years old. But are you muscular and lean? I’m not, I have some love handles and fat around my chest/stomach. Miles away from abs.

You need whatever you need. Stop looking at the calories and look at the scale. No calculator can really tell you how your body will handle the fuel you put in it.

If you want to gain weight, keep eating until your weight goes up. Track the calories so they are repeatable, but don’t be scared of them.

I weigh everything on the gram and assuming the labels are correct, I should be close. I eat out a couple of times per week but I think my estimations are pretty accurate.

I’m far from lean and don’t have a ton of muscle on my already narrow frame. 32,5” Waist might sound skinny, but I’m more on the skinny-fat side.

I feel bloated after 10 days on 3500 calories but this morning I weighed 76,95kg. I always weigh myself in the morning when I’m semi dehydrated but I think you want to always do it the same time Every day.

Yeah man I guess I should stop worrying too much. A lot of it is overthinking and a feeling of guilt and disigust associated with eating on a surplus. Trust the scale and train my ass off.

Yes, I consider myself leaner and muscular than average, but I will quote Jordan when I asked him similar question:
“if you are not gaining weight, you are not eating enough”

I also did the Navy BF test and it puts me on 18% BF which seems to be reasonably close to the truth. I’m still early in my training career (only 1 year of BBM training and a big part of that on a deficit). I think this makes me in the clear to gain weight now at a slow rate and it’s time to stop worrying and instead focus on the long term process. Thanks for the input guys.