Loosing weight

[pianovlad1996]

Hi to all!  Well, I am very worried as I lost 35 pounds in the summer, on purpose... Now, it has gone too much and I don't want that weight loss to affect my playing or my health... Is there anyone who can help me with this? I went to specialists and they have said that I should eat and that's it, but I don't think so... It would be to easy =))) Is it okay as I should play a huge amount of pieces and I don't think my actually weight (43 kg) will be enough. Please, this is very important for my health/ playing.

[ceosteos]

Oh gosh! 94.6 pounds?!?! Are you stricken with a problem or eating disorder?

I've heard of petite pianists, but not this petite. I think normal weight is healthy and useful in playing, I can't imagine such stamina from a person who weighs less than normal (strength isn't really defined by weight, there are techniques revolving around that).

[the89thkey]

You are not well if you weigh that little. I'm around 5'11 and weigh...well, anyway, it's between 140 and 180...

[indianajo]

As far as your weight, two of the best players in our local American Guild of Organists chapters are 40 kilo females of about 64" height in their seventies or sixties of age.  Good weight for you depends on your bones, and health.  When I was my healthiest, in the Army and moving furniture in the post Vietnam recession, I weighed 55-60 kilos over a 68" very light frame.
Healthy eating and a moderate amount of exercise are important to good health. Piano is a moderately aerobic exercise that can aid in regulating unwanted calories- as are walking, swimming, wood chopping other aerobic exercise.  The tiredness of aerobic exercise at the end of the day helps regulate entertainment eating, also. I'm walking and riding the bus, carrying home my groceries and supplies from the bus stop, and riding the bicycle in the summer.  That sort of exercise increases the appetite.  
 I was diagnosed with adult onset diabetes in 2008, had painful arthritis in my knees,  and decided to change my diet to eat more like my grandparents, who lived in the country and grew or picked up off the road bank a lot of what they ate.  They did not have diabetes, arthritis, allergies or other auto-immune diseases.   I now eat substantially less meat and animal fat, more vegetable matter than before, and good amounts of vegetable fat (peanut butter, soybean milk on sugar free grains for breakfast),  sugar free fruit jellies, sugar free bread, olive oil based sugar free chocolate frosting tortillas. (like russian blini, not available here).  I have lost 42 lb in 4 years and have been told by the doctor to quit taking pills for the diabetes. The sugar free and vegetable fat and fiber diet is controlling it well enough. Along with piano and 30 minutes on the exercycle every night at a heart rate of 200-my age. This heart rate is discussed in Dr Cooper's Aerobics books.  The arthritis in my knees is gone. I did I injured something in my shoulder joint last August helping a relative move and it is taking more than 3 months to heal it up. But, it is improving.  
Now food nutrient research has underlined the importance of eating as if you were a peasant (except not so much starch).  Dr. Joel Fuhrman has written some books summarizing this research, and describing how eating old fashioned nutrients that the fast food western diet (meat, potatoes, grease) leave out satifies your body's cravings better and leads to better health.  His latest program lists a number of foods you should eat daily, summarized in English by the phrase G-B-O-M-B-S.  Greens stands for green vegetables, and he is in favor of broccoli, kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts, bok choy as the best nutrition green vegtables.  B stands for beans and legumes, which include peas for people that have trouble combining starches and the other beans. O was onions, that eat in my salads and sauces.   M is mushrooms, reported to be good against breast cancer.  B is berries, with strawberries having a recent report that they are good against breast cancer (I can't eat those, too much sugar).  S is seeds, with flaxseeds walnuts raw almonds and pecans getting special mention.    I'm eating flaxseed on my breakfast cereal.  
So if you can tune your diet to include these nutrients, plus tomatoes, teas, chocolates that other research has indicated are useful, perhaps you can regulate your nutritional health better.  A healthy body tolerates a broad spectrum of foods and helps people get over the obsessions with certain unhelpful foods that tend to plague children that grew up on a modern western diet.  
At my age, 62, a lot of muscle had converted to fat, as it does to everybody. So I've started a little strength training to build up my arms and back so it doesn't hurt to practice keyboards for a couple of hours.  Organ playing of pedals has particularly been paining my back muscles. I do some arm exercises learned from the Pilates enthusiast Margaret Richards on PBS TV, starting with a 3 lb weight and now with a 5 lb weight.  I can't do real man pushups anymore, but pushups against a stack chair pushed against the wall seem to help my back muscles improve.  Don't listen to gym rats, they can work you into tendonitis or joint disease with too much strain and too many reps, but moderate strength excercise is good for appetite and health. Most of those twenty year old gym rat muscle men subside into flabby couch potatoes in their fifties and have their heart attack at fifty.  I'm just getting started, I have started learning piano pieces that I want to finish learning in my eighties or later.  
Good luck and good health.

[indianajo]

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[indianajo]

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[vsrinivasa]

I am 6'7" and weigh 77 kilos, which I think is about right. However, there are these two Korean ladies whom I work with. They are 5'2" or so and weigh 40-45 kilos. However, they are two of the best pianists I have ever met (excluding professionals, world-famous people, etc.- I actually got to meet Mitsuko Uchida at one point! She was really nice.). So no, your weight will not and should not hinder your playing.