(no subject)

[telophase]

Post on Skepchick about the female athlete triad, which refers to the tendency of female athletes who are not eating enough to have many, many injuries. They may not think they're undereating--the poster was eating 1600 calories/day when her doctor diagnosed her with this--but they need to be eating significantly more than they are to avoid the injuries.

The Female Athlete Triad doesn’t necessarily present as severe thinness, and that misconception is a dangerous one: just as people who don’t fit the eating disorder “mold” (deathly thin, female) can easily go untreated or even be denied treatment coverage and suffer severe consequences, people who don’t fit that mold can suffer the consequences of the Triad simply because their bodies are scrounging extra fuel from their bone and muscle tissue rather than causing them to lose weight. The Triad can occur at any size and weight.

Comments

[qem_chibati]

Huh that is really interesting.

I've never been particularly athletic, but I used to be a lot more more active, and now I'm wondering about all the injuries I had as a preteen/teen. (entire body minus a foot x-rayed.)

[qem_chibati]

*I.e. I wasn't very /good/ but I was generally always doing an extra curricular activity of some sort or other.

[weirdquark]

What is wrong with the information that female athletes get that they think 1600 calories a day is enough while training? 1600 calories a day is what most calorie calculators estimate I would need assuming I'm totally sedentary. (And weigh less than I do now for that matter.)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if part of it is some of them noticing that they put on weight when they eat more than 1600 calories a day. Of course they are: it's muscle.

[trobadora]

THIS, so much ...

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Yes, I raised my eyebrows at that. 1600 calories is not enough for anyone training as much as the writer said she is. And if she knew half as much as she ought (as such an experienced athlete) about training, she would already know that. I cannot imagine where that idea is coming from.

I also can't believe that My Fitness Pal is actually recommending that. Either she's leaving her exercising out altogether or it's mis-set in some other way. I believe that it does take into account activity level when it makes a calorie recommendation.

[weirdquark]

A 25 year old woman who weighs 100lbs has a BMR of ~1250 calories a day. If the women in the article is about that age and size and runs 40-60 miles a week, then I can't imagine her having a lower multiplier than "moderately active" which nets a bit over 1900. Even 'lightly active' breaks 1700. So her numbers make no sense and even if she was around 40 and that size she'd still need more than 1600 calories a day.