If you are anorexic and lose muscle mass, can you gain it back?

7 Comments

1. When you deprive your body of nutrients, it will use the quickest energy source first (which is fat). This is why anorexia can be so mentally addicting, as the weight loss seems to happen so quickly. But when there is little or no fat left, your body metabolizes the next easiest and quickest energy source (which is muscle). Muscles atrophy rather quickly, simply because if you have little or no energy (due to no food source), you don’t much feel like working to keep the muscle strong. Eventually, even if you continue working out the muslces, they will atrophy simply because your body needs the energy. The most rarely used muscles tend to atrophy first. When your muscle energy source is depleted, your body will start to metabolize you internal organs. This leads to organ failure, and ultimately death.
   My best advice if this pertains to you is get help quickly. The sooner you begin to work on figuring out why you feel you need to do this, the sooner you can try and resolve those issues and return to health. It is one of the hardest struggles to overcome, and I wish you all the best.

2. The arms seem to be the first to go, with girls, I’ve noticed, by looking at anorexic girls….

   anyway, you can gain it back. but with anorexia, you are starving your whole body, the muscles aren’t the only part that lose mass. The bones loose mass as well, so your bones become weaker.

   Don’t forget, your heart is all muscle. So when you are starving yourself, you become more of a risk for a heart attack or heart palpitations.

3. You lose muscle mass because your body is starving so it eats your muscles to survive.

   Get healthy and you will be able to gain your muscles back. As long as you are unhealthy you body will continue to eat itself in order to try to perserve your life.

4. Yes you can gain muscle mass back through diet and exercise. The best thing to do would be to eat protein and exercise through weight training.
   An anorexic loses muscle mass because they have not provided energy for their body to metabolize. First, the body’s cells metabolize carbohydrates in cellular respiration. Alternative energy sources are fats and then muscle. Muscle proteins are used to provide energy as a third choice.

5. From Muscle Atrophy and the fact that an Anorexic’s body is almost in a total catabolic state (breaks down it’s own tissues to keep the central nervous system functioning). When it comes to the metabolic hierarchy, the Brain gets first dibs on whatever minuscule calories are consumed…excessive muscles are at the bottom. Whatever you don’t use often and/or larger muscle groups are likely to be targeted for glucose production.

   To gain it back??? Common sense for rule #1…EAT!! and #2…exercise!

6. When you lose weight, some muscle mass is always lost. The less you eat, the more you lose. It’s gained back when you start eating normally and exercise hard to gain muscle. All muscles lose about the same % of their muscle mass at the same time, so you will lose muscle everywhere but lose more where you have more.

7. Yes, but you have to work effing hard. Lift heavy weights, pile up on the protein.

   Anorexics lose muscle mass because of starvation and excessive cardio…..burning way too many calories when they are not consuming enough to maintain their current lean mass. Anorexics tend to lose just as much muscle as fat.

   Hope this helps.

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