I’m a training Level 6 gymnast at a new gym, and I’ve been experiencing pain in my wrist, ankles, etc. I’m 13, 5’2”, and about 86lbs which is in the lower percentile. I have a lot of muscle, but people are telling me that gaining weight and gaining even more muscle with that weight will help me gain skills faster, and hurt less. I’m now trying to eat around 1,800 cals a day instead of around 1,500. Do you agree that gaining weight will help? Should I do any specific exercises to maintain, and gain muscle? Any tips?
Gymnasts Will gaining weight help?
- Thread starter Gym4lils
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- Jan 8, 2023
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I recommend talking to your parents about getting a consultation with a gymnastics-focused nutritionist. As an athlete and a growing young person, it’s going to be very worthwhile to get professional advice before radically altering your diet.
Here is one gymnastic dietitian that people I know have used.
www.foodforfuelrd.com
Here is one gymnastic dietitian that people I know have used.
Gymnastics Dietitian | Food For Fuel
As a former competitive gymnast and Registered Dietitian and Gymnastics Dietitian, Food for Fuel helps competitive gymnasts level up their nutrition to stay healthy and compete at their highest potential.
www.foodforfuelrd.com
GymnastMomX2
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- May 25, 2012
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I would ask your parents if you can meet with a nutritionist, my daughter sees one regularly and it has been super eye opening. The best part is, it’s 100% covered by insurance.
- Sep 1, 2022
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I don't mean to spook you, but I hope you read the stuff below because it's important.
Absolutely see a nutritionist, and if needed maybe consider talking about seeing somebody about the mental side of things too? I find several things here very concerning/red flags:
1. Your weight seems really low and that alone would concern me especially when combined with other things you mention. That does happen more often in growing girls as they're still growing into adult bodies, but combined with other things you mention it's not a good sign.
2. You're counting calories to the degree you regulate how many calories you take in every day, without having consulted a doctor or having a reason to be restricting.
3. That amount of calories is almost certainly too low for you. That amount is low for a growing 13 year old girl who isn't an athlete. You probably need waaaay more. A good nutritionist can help you with that.
4. People are telling you to gain weight. At least in my experience, people nowadays have a terrible idea of what a healthy human looks like. On tv we constantly see people who are too skinny, so we start to think that's normal. Usually by the time people actually start noticing you need to gain weight, you needed to gain weight for a long time already.
Now for some answers to your questions and advise:
1. You probably need to gain weight, and it'd be good to see some professionals about this.
2. Please take this seriously. If you're underfeeding and overtraining, you can damage things in your body for the rest of your life. You always think "Oh but it's not that bad with me yet". Everybody thinks that.
3. Similarly, please be careful with your mental health: things like excessive focus on weight or counting calories may not be so bad now, but these things can get out of hand, and you could be stuck with mental issues for the rest of your life if you let it.
4. I think you could have a look at christina anderson's blog also. She's a great gymnastics nutritionist for high performance, so she knows her stuff. You could for example check out:
Nutrition For Gymnasts
A strong nutrition foundation for the gymnast can help optimize performance and increase longevity in the sport.
christinaandersonrdn.com
and other stuff of hers is also always helpful
- Thread starter
- #5
Thank you, I will look into a nutritionist. What sparked this topic is my doctor saying I need to increase my caloric intake.I recommend talking to your parents about getting a consultation with a gymnastics-focused nutritionist. As an athlete and a growing young person, it’s going to be very worthwhile to get professional advice before radically altering your diet.
Here is one gymnastic dietitian that people I know have used.
Gymnastics Dietitian | Food For Fuel
As a former competitive gymnast and Registered Dietitian and Gymnastics Dietitian, Food for Fuel helps competitive gymnasts level up their nutrition to stay healthy and compete at their highest potential.
- Jan 21, 2007
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If I'm not mistaken, a dietician and a nutritionist are two different things; a dietician is a qualified expert, and a nutritionist is anybody who calls themselves a nutritionist. If somebody's only qualification is that they are a "nutritionist," then they don't actually have any certified expertise on the matter. You want to talk to a dietician, and I'd ask your doctor if there's one they can refer you to.
Anyway, here are my thoughts (which are backed by exactly zero formal expertise, and anything an actual doctor tells you should automatically override anything I say here):
First, weight itself is probably not the main metric you should be focusing on. You may gain or lose weight as a result of healthy eating and exercise, but the weight isn't the goal, the healthy eating and exercise are.
Second, while every body is different, I have a very hard time imagining a 13-year-old athlete getting what they need on the amount of food you're talking about. For a typical teenage athlete, 1800 calories is an afternoon snack. I suspect that a dietician would tell you to aim considerably higher for total daily intake.
That said, there is a balance (and a rather delicate one for a teenage athlete) to be found between setting healthy targets and disordered eating, and you absolutely 100% should get guidance from a certified expert to find where that balance should be for you.
As far as exercises, there are definitely exercises that can help strengthen your wrists and ankles, but weight gain/loss isn't a result of specific exercises. If you consume more calories than you burn, you gain weight. If you burn more calories than you consume, you lose weight. This holds regardless of what types of food you're consuming or what types of exercise you're doing.
Anyway, here are my thoughts (which are backed by exactly zero formal expertise, and anything an actual doctor tells you should automatically override anything I say here):
First, weight itself is probably not the main metric you should be focusing on. You may gain or lose weight as a result of healthy eating and exercise, but the weight isn't the goal, the healthy eating and exercise are.
Second, while every body is different, I have a very hard time imagining a 13-year-old athlete getting what they need on the amount of food you're talking about. For a typical teenage athlete, 1800 calories is an afternoon snack. I suspect that a dietician would tell you to aim considerably higher for total daily intake.
That said, there is a balance (and a rather delicate one for a teenage athlete) to be found between setting healthy targets and disordered eating, and you absolutely 100% should get guidance from a certified expert to find where that balance should be for you.
As far as exercises, there are definitely exercises that can help strengthen your wrists and ankles, but weight gain/loss isn't a result of specific exercises. If you consume more calories than you burn, you gain weight. If you burn more calories than you consume, you lose weight. This holds regardless of what types of food you're consuming or what types of exercise you're doing.
Last edited:
- Sep 1, 2022
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I agree.
I mentioned nutritionist because I forgot that's a different thing. (I'm not from an english speaking country, and in my country we only have dieticians). You'd want to see a dietician.
I partly agree with you. I think always the goal should be to reach a point where you feel healthy and your body functions well. There isn't a universal weight or energy intake for that. However, if your weight and/or caloric intake is too low or your nutrition isn't good, things may malfunction in your body without you even knowing it. So I agree, healthy eating and exercise (feeling and functioning healthy) should be the goal, however I think a weight in a healthy range does come with that. That doesn't mean we need to be weighing ourselves all the time though! Ideally we should be able to (learn to) tell when we're healthy and eating enough just by how we feel physically.
Mostly the same for me. I have some expertise but not nearly as much as a dietician. (I'm a scientist with knowledge of biology and nutritional chemistry, and I am myself recovering from an eating disorder.)
GymnastMomX2
Proud Parent
- May 25, 2012
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This is a good point. The nutritionist my daughter sees is actually a registered dietitian, but also calls herself a nutritionist.
She also does NOT want us counting calories, but my 13 year old probably eats 3000+
- Thread starter
- #9
Thank you so much, your words truly help. I know 1800c a day isn’t the best goal, but I usually have about a max of 1,600 a day (id say about 1450 a day) however, I’m taking small steps.
- Thread starter
- #10
Yes, I understand and I thank you for taking the time to respond to my post. It’s hard for me to know if my body needs more food without tracking calories because I’m used to eating a max of 1600 a day. Do you have any tips to get me to eat more? Idk if that’s a good question or not
I’ll talk to my mom about getting a dieticianI agree with the advice in this thread so far (especially the advice to listen to a doctor above anyone else).
My anecdote is that when I was 15 years old, I was struggling with my gymnastics performance that seemed to be related to my eating habits. My doctor referred me to a dietician. What started as an attempt to fix my diet resulted in discovering that I had a mental disorder! The mental disorder was impacting my eating habits which was impacting my gymnastics. While it took me many years to treat the root cause of my problems, I am so grateful to have worked with a dietitian who was trained in identifying “disordered eating.” I’m not suggesting that you have disordered eating habits, but you should definitely be open to that possibility and trust your doctors to help you
My anecdote is that when I was 15 years old, I was struggling with my gymnastics performance that seemed to be related to my eating habits. My doctor referred me to a dietician. What started as an attempt to fix my diet resulted in discovering that I had a mental disorder! The mental disorder was impacting my eating habits which was impacting my gymnastics. While it took me many years to treat the root cause of my problems, I am so grateful to have worked with a dietitian who was trained in identifying “disordered eating.” I’m not suggesting that you have disordered eating habits, but you should definitely be open to that possibility and trust your doctors to help you
- Sep 1, 2022
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This depends a lot on why you're having trouble eating more. Do you physically have trouble, like feeling sick a lot? Do you find it mentally hard? If so, what makes it hard? Are you afraid of something happening?
Can I ask
1. Why do you know this amount? Like do you keep track of what you eat, and if so why? Or did you make an estimate because of this post?
2. Why did you start limiting yourself to that amount?
Absolutely talk to your mom about this. If it helps, you could consider showing her this thread as well. I find the things you tell us concerning, both from a nutritional view but also from mental stuff. If eating more is a mentally difficult step for you, then you may want to consider getting some support for that too. It's really good that you're coming with these questions and being so open about everything with us! And it's really good that you want to make steps!
I don't know why you're limiting things for yourself, but I figured I'd share a little about my own journey: when I first had to start eating more and gaining weight, there were a lot of tears. But the healthier I get, the better I felt. I still have a ways to go, but I would never want to go back to being underweight. I can do so much more now, and I don't feel as cold and sick all the time, and I actually feel better about my body than I did back then. Anyway, hope you find a moment to answer the 2 questions from earlier in this post.
- Thread starter
- #13
#1 I know the amount because I tried to see how much I eat on an average day, so I can eat more calories than usual so I can gain weight.
#2 I don’t necessarily limit myself to that amount, I just eat around the same stuff everyday 5/7 days a week. During the school week it’s hard to get up and make breakfast, and make lunch. I do eat breakfast and lunch but they are small during the week days usually. Before my mom and doctor said I should gain weight, I didn’t have any idea that I should because my sisters who are adults are only about 100lbs.
- Sep 1, 2022
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In that case, I could think of tips but a dietician could help you figure out what works for you.
A couple ideas for the time being:
- Think: of all healthy foods, if you could have anything what would you have? Is there an achievable version of that you could have? For example, if you think "I'd love some turkey" then maybe you could have a turkey sandwich to school.
- adding peanut butter. yoghurt, granola, or meat to things
- boiled eggs can be practical
- granola bars or proteine bars for in between practise
- preparing breakfast and lunch the evening before if you know you'll be too busy.
If you get full quickly, dry food usually fills less (e.g. granola fills less than oat porridge, toast less than bread).
There are also many threads on chalkbucket
Where I'm from, the food culture is very different than most places. We mostly eat bread for breakfast and lunch so it never takes much time. And for us bread isn't as elaborate as in the US, it's quite different. So it's hard for me to picture the type of foods that are options in other countries. I don't react well to full wheat bread though, so I often have noodles for lunch. it's so much less practical though.
- Thread starter
- #15
For instance, on a usual school day I’d have 1 yogurt or 2 pc of avocado toast or a made good oat bar. None of those options are above 240c, not because I don’t want it to be, just because it’s simply not. For lunch at school I’ve been having a sandwich (made with hamburger buns) and fruit. Snack would be a granola bar or bag of cheese it’s or something similar, and a bigger meal for dinner (mainly protein like chicken, salmon, etc. and a side of rice)
Trust me, your feedback has helped so much. I will show my mom the thread, and I’ll start incorporating your tips. Thank you so much!
GymnastMomX2
Proud Parent
- May 25, 2012
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i really think seeing a professional is best, but some tips we got for my daughter who needed to gain weight/grow. She added a glass of whole or chocolate milk to each meal, even adding heavy cream to it for more calories. She eats three large meals, making sure each one is 1/2 carbs, 1/4 protein and 1/4 color(fruit or veg) and each including fats + calcium. On top of that she also has two snacks that are protein, carb and fat. So not just a handful of pretzels. This isn’t including her mid-workout snacks. She eats beef jerky, fruit snacks and pretzels during her 5 hour workouts. Then her 3 meals and 2 snacks on top of that.
- Thread starter
- #17
Thank you!! Also, is there a replacement for milk? I hate milk by itself (by that I mean I’m fine with products made with milk, but not just the milk)
GymnastMomX2
Proud Parent
- May 25, 2012
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I think you could probably add another dairy product, full fat yogurts, ice cream, smoothies etc. This is where having a nutritionist is great. They will work with you on specifically what foods you like and don’t like.
- Sep 1, 2022
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If you go see a dietician, they'll know how much you need roughly. In the meantime you can think about what kinds of foods you like / find tasty:
Just some ideas for you for inspiration, based on what you're used to eating:
Breakfast:
- big bowl of yoghurt with granola and fruit.
- Oat meal with peanut butter and banana.
- Greek yoghurt with a granola bar
Snack
- Banana
- Granola bar
- bag of nuts
- bag of dried fruits
- cheese strings
Lunch
- 1 or more sandwiches. Possible stuff to put on it can be (a combo of) meats, vegetables, spreads (peanut butter or something else), cheese
- A yoghurt on the side
- A drink yoghurt on the side
- some fruit
- smoothie with oatmeal
You could also mix it up by taking sth completely different. For example you could ask your mom to make extra dinner the day before so you can have a portion for lunch the next day.
- quiche
- pasta with meat and veggies
- Rice with meat and veggies
Etc
Snack:
- same stuff as earlier are options but I'm adding some more ideas
- something just for fun like cookies or chips/crisps.
- dried jerky
But yeah, these are just some ideas you can start thinking about and talk about with a dietician. I think you can also take this as an opportunity to try out tons of tasty new things
Just some ideas for you for inspiration, based on what you're used to eating:
Breakfast:
- big bowl of yoghurt with granola and fruit.
- Oat meal with peanut butter and banana.
- Greek yoghurt with a granola bar
Snack
- Banana
- Granola bar
- bag of nuts
- bag of dried fruits
- cheese strings
Lunch
- 1 or more sandwiches. Possible stuff to put on it can be (a combo of) meats, vegetables, spreads (peanut butter or something else), cheese
- A yoghurt on the side
- A drink yoghurt on the side
- some fruit
- smoothie with oatmeal
You could also mix it up by taking sth completely different. For example you could ask your mom to make extra dinner the day before so you can have a portion for lunch the next day.
- quiche
- pasta with meat and veggies
- Rice with meat and veggies
Etc
Snack:
- same stuff as earlier are options but I'm adding some more ideas
- something just for fun like cookies or chips/crisps.
- dried jerky
But yeah, these are just some ideas you can start thinking about and talk about with a dietician. I think you can also take this as an opportunity to try out tons of tasty new things
- Thread starter
- #20
Thanks so much!!If you go see a dietician, they'll know how much you need roughly. In the meantime you can think about what kinds of foods you like / find tasty:
Just some ideas for you for inspiration, based on what you're used to eating:
Breakfast:
- big bowl of yoghurt with granola and fruit.
- Oat meal with peanut butter and banana.
- Greek yoghurt with a granola bar
Snack
- Banana
- Granola bar
- bag of nuts
- bag of dried fruits
- cheese strings
Lunch
- 1 or more sandwiches. Possible stuff to put on it can be (a combo of) meats, vegetables, spreads (peanut butter or something else), cheese
- A yoghurt on the side
- A drink yoghurt on the side
- some fruit
- smoothie with oatmeal
You could also mix it up by taking sth completely different. For example you could ask your mom to make extra dinner the day before so you can have a portion for lunch the next day.
- quiche
- pasta with meat and veggies
- Rice with meat and veggies
Etc
Snack:
- same stuff as earlier are options but I'm adding some more ideas
- something just for fun like cookies or chips/crisps.
- dried jerky
But yeah, these are just some ideas you can start thinking about and talk about with a dietician. I think you can also take this as an opportunity to try out tons of tasty new things
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