Face and Cheek Fat

Hear my advice, and don’t worry. It may be high cortisol, i can’t be sure or disprove that. But to have a slim face- a) have low bodyfat b) chew food in small bites, so you don’t stretch your face c) try low carbs for a while, it makes my face very cheekbony during p+f times d) massage your face, slap it even, just knead it and all kinds of that. Also cold water (from a strong shower) taughtens up your skin.

That’s how to not look like kanye west. How to get muscles is another thing, i agree at your weight i think you should look into that too. Good luck mate.

Sorry to call you out but having been one I’m hoping you aren’t on the verge of eating disorder behaviors. You mentioned being a nutrition major, but you express a seeming ignorance of practicality and extreme focus on minutia that has no real relevance to your situation. You freak out over being 137 pounds and then claim to be “unique” in how your body works.

Look, I’m not trying to be harsh to you, but I used to do a lot of the same stuff you seem to be. Thing is, you very likely are not an exception, and all this does not add up.

People are quick to assume hormone disorders or freaky body chemistry, but in reality most of us are just average joes who don’t know enough to critique our own situations. Really, you are not fat at 137 pounds. I don’t care what you think.

Don’t get defensive because we “don’t live every day in your body”. No shit, but we live it in ours. We’re made of the same stuff as you and most of us here have made a concentrated effort to gain quality weight, so we do know a few things about the issue at hand. So really, be patient and listen.

Realize that you are not some anomaly, and your problems are easily solvable by simple modifications if you will just have some patience and be willing to try a few things.

So for starters, what are some of your strength levels? How about Squat/Bench/Deadlift or any other major movements we can use to gauge your strength. How much did you weigh before you tried gaining weight, and how much did you weigh after? You mention your bodyfat has gone up, do you have measurements that attest to this fact? If so, what are they?

What is your overall calorie level, as you seem to have your nutrition planned out well? How well do you adhere to your diet? How often and in what way do your cheat meals occur?

These are just a few starting questions, but if you want us to help you solve your problems then we need baseline information to determine the extent of what you are describing.

[quote]Carbon-12 wrote:
Sorry to call you out but having been one I’m hoping you aren’t on the verge of eating disorder behaviors. You mentioned being a nutrition major, but you express a seeming ignorance of practicality and extreme focus on minutia that has no real relevance to your situation. You freak out over being 137 pounds and then claim to be “unique” in how your body works.

Look, I’m not trying to be harsh to you, but I used to do a lot of the same stuff you seem to be. Thing is, you very likely are not an exception, and all this does not add up.

People are quick to assume hormone disorders or freaky body chemistry, but in reality most of us are just average joes who don’t know enough to critique our own situations. Really, you are not fat at 137 pounds. I don’t care what you think.

Don’t get defensive because we “don’t live every day in your body”. No shit, but we live it in ours. We’re made of the same stuff as you and most of us here have made a concentrated effort to gain quality weight, so we do know a few things about the issue at hand. So really, be patient and listen.

Realize that you are not some anomaly, and your problems are easily solvable by simple modifications if you will just have some patience and be willing to try a few things.

So for starters, what are some of your strength levels? How about Squat/Bench/Deadlift or any other major movements we can use to gauge your strength. How much did you weigh before you tried gaining weight, and how much did you weigh after? You mention your bodyfat has gone up, do you have measurements that attest to this fact? If so, what are they?

What is your overall calorie level, as you seem to have your nutrition planned out well? How well do you adhere to your diet? How often and in what way do your cheat meals occur?

These are just a few starting questions, but if you want us to help you solve your problems then we need baseline information to determine the extent of what you are describing. [/quote]

In the past I was anorexic, but got over it completely after only 6 months. It was a complete mental self struggle, but I did it.

I never said i was fat at 137. I simply stated Yes I’m skinny and I do know that I am freakishly skinny.

My strength levels are patheic. I bench about 175-180. Everytime I take time off from the gym it feels like I get weaker like something inside my body is breaking down muscle and strength.

I dont know my deadlift and squat max. but I’ve been able to squat 155pounds 20 times at the end of the superhero workout of reps 12,10,8,20. To me that was good because I gradually added weight to get to 155.

I’ve been trying to gain weight ever since highschool even though i gained weight i lost muscle tone and structure. I’m about 8-10% body fat I tested it 4 different methods in my nutrition classes.

I strongly strict to a sound diet with cheat meals once or twice a week.I eat around 3000 calories a day depending on if its my workout day or not.

Thanks for you help Carbon-12. I really appreciate your time. I think I do have high cortisol levels because that can destory connective tissue and hinder my progess. I might get a blood test done for that. What do you think?

[quote]Serd wrote:

I strongly strict to a sound diet with cheat meals once or twice a week.I eat around 3000 calories a day depending on if its my workout day or not.

[/quote]

I don’t want this post to sound aggressive but the things that you think are right obviously aren’t, if they were you wouldn’t be here posting asking for help. Nutrition classes I have taken in college were the WORST information I have ever been told was true.

My professor told me I (180 lob aspiring bodybuilder at the time) didn’t need more than 50 grams of protein a day. Just because you are studying nutrition in college does not mean you have a strong grasp on it. This place is a great resource for information, click on the articles section and find things written by John Berardi, he is very smart.

The fact that you had an eating disorder is also a big red flag to this community. Read this carefully, fat gain will happen if you want to gain a significant amount of size.

He sounds like that friedrice kid that used to post here. I wonder if he gained any weight. Maybe it’s an alter ego.

I can’t stress enough the importance of slowly increasing calories over time. Did you do a sharp increase when you decided to gain weight?

Try increasing your calorie levels by 200-250 per day if you want to gain weight. Your metabolism will easily adapt to that, and it will be enough to make some progress. Following an ED, even after a period of time, the body will respond in funny ways. So it must be taken at a somewhat slower pace.

Make sure your macros are where they need to be. 40/30/30 P/F/C ratio worked great for me, as the higher protein will help increase your metabolism. Keep healthy fats(olive oil, flax oil, coconut oil, even canola oil) and use good sources of carbs. Read “The Quality Mass Diet” article on this website, it has a lot of good info.

Really though, find a caloric level where you maintain weight. Add 250 calories to that. Even if you somehow gain no muscle mass at all, it would still take 2 weeks for you to add a pound of fat with that. I highly doubt you will though. So add 250 kCal, then weigh yourself and do a bodyfat test after 2 weeks. If you gained no weight, increase calories accordingly. If you gained 1-2 lbs of muscle, then great. If you gained a pound or less of muscle, then increase calories accordingly. If you want to gain muscle, you will add a bit of fat. However, by using proper caloric increases based on your results, this will be minimized.

At 8-10% bodyfat you should expect to gain a little fat. It happens. When I “bulked up” I went from I think 9% to 14%, but I gained 45 pounds in between. Now I’m sitting at about 12% and thinking about dropping a little bit more of that before I start gaining again. The thing is that adding weight is a science, it’s not much of a mystery. I know you probably still have those little demons in the back of your head telling you not to go any higher, but your goals require certain very minor sacrifices to be obtained. After you gain some muscle mass using proper methods, the excess weight will be very easy to shed.

Just take it slowly, it’s a process.

[quote]scottiscool wrote:
Serd wrote:

I strongly strict to a sound diet with cheat meals once or twice a week.I eat around 3000 calories a day depending on if its my workout day or not.

I don’t want this post to sound aggressive but the things that you think are right obviously aren’t, if they were you wouldn’t be here posting asking for help. Nutrition classes I have taken in college were the WORST information I have ever been told was true.

My professor told me I (180 lob aspiring bodybuilder at the time) didn’t need more than 50 grams of protein a day. Just because you are studying nutrition in college does not mean you have a strong grasp on it. This place is a great resource for information, click on the articles section and find things written by John Berardi, he is very smart.

The fact that you had an eating disorder is also a big red flag to this community. Read this carefully, fat gain will happen if you want to gain a significant amount of size. [/quote]

The reason why I provided you guys with the information with about my college major was to inform yall that I had a great interest in it. I have only taken 2 nutrition classes so far that taught me a lot. I’ve been enjoying learning about nutrition for a long time now. Nutrition is not something new to me.

I get all my nutrition information from here. I read a lot of JB’s articles. I read clinical studies on the internet to on specific tops.
My eating disorder happened over a year and a half ago. So i’ve done gained my share of fat and no healthy size.

[quote]Carbon-12 wrote:
I can’t stress enough the importance of slowly increasing calories over time. Did you do a sharp increase when you decided to gain weight?

Try increasing your calorie levels by 200-250 per day if you want to gain weight. Your metabolism will easily adapt to that, and it will be enough to make some progress. Following an ED, even after a period of time, the body will respond in funny ways. So it must be taken at a somewhat slower pace.

Make sure your macros are where they need to be. 40/30/30 P/F/C ratio worked great for me, as the higher protein will help increase your metabolism. Keep healthy fats(olive oil, flax oil, coconut oil, even canola oil) and use good sources of carbs. Read “The Quality Mass Diet” article on this website, it has a lot of good info.

Really though, find a caloric level where you maintain weight. Add 250 calories to that. Even if you somehow gain no muscle mass at all, it would still take 2 weeks for you to add a pound of fat with that. I highly doubt you will though. So add 250 kCal, then weigh yourself and do a bodyfat test after 2 weeks. If you gained no weight, increase calories accordingly. If you gained 1-2 lbs of muscle, then great. If you gained a pound or less of muscle, then increase calories accordingly. If you want to gain muscle, you will add a bit of fat. However, by using proper caloric increases based on your results, this will be minimized.

At 8-10% bodyfat you should expect to gain a little fat. It happens. When I “bulked up” I went from I think 9% to 14%, but I gained 45 pounds in between. Now I’m sitting at about 12% and thinking about dropping a little bit more of that before I start gaining again. The thing is that adding weight is a science, it’s not much of a mystery. I know you probably still have those little demons in the back of your head telling you not to go any higher, but your goals require certain very minor sacrifices to be obtained. After you gain some muscle mass using proper methods, the excess weight will be very easy to shed.

Just take it slowly, it’s a process. [/quote]

Like i said in my early post, my ED was over a year and a half ago, and yes I did slowly increased my calories. My lowest weight was 109 and now im 28 pounds heavier than that.

I know my metabolism is in good shape because I checked my BMR on a body gem and school and measured I was burning 1610 calories at rest. So it wasn’t anything so low and in starvation mode like someone with an eating disorder.

I’ve read the Quality Mass Diet before and yes its a great article. I eat a lot of healthy fats including EVOO but never tried Coconut oil, which i will have to try.

Like I said I’m at 8-10% WITHOUT an ED. If i had to take a guess when I had my eating disorder i was probably at 3% not because just not eating enough but because I was a competitive athlete.

Thanks again sir for providing me with valuable info, but I’m far past the ED and have delt with my body comp like this for a long time and had every time ilook in the mirror. I am almost sure i have cortisol levels.

By all means, get it checked out. A little bloodwork never hurt anyone.