What is wrong with me??

Question
Hi there. I am a 22 year old female. I have been a runner for about 9 years. I only became very serious about running about 4 years ago. I wanted to get in the best shape of my life so I started training hard and eating really healthy. The extra weight came off almost instantly. I was extatic and have never felt so good about my body. Then about a year and a half ago I started doing intense stair exercises and I noticed my bum was getting bigger, and I started gaining weight. I started freaking out and stopped doing the stair training immediately. But since then I feel like I have steadily startd gaining weight despite the fact that I still run for over an hour everyday. I should also add that I am on an extremely low fat diet so it's not like a started downing McDonald's all of a sudden. I am extremely discouraged and I don't know what to do. If anything my diet is even more low fat/low-cal than it was when I was slimmer. Have I reached a plateau?? Please help. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Answer
Hi Sarah
You didn't mention your height weight back when you started or when you started 4 years ago so it is hard to get a good picture.When you get involved in training over time you will be developing some good muscle which is a good thing.The one thing that you can do to get an idea of your body fat for a good base line is have you body fat measurement taken with calipers or the gold standard getting dunked in a tank from some sport medicine or training facility.It is called hydrostatic weighting.This will tell you what your true body fat is and then with that number you will know what your real situation is.You can be skinning and still have a high fat count.Any other questions just get in touch sarah.


All the best

John