Q: Hi mike, I am a 5 foot 4.5 inch girl. i am 15 years old and weigh 112 pounds. i run on my schools cross country and track teams, though the past two months i have been out due to injury. first i had a torn calf muscle, and then almost immediately after i recovered from that, i raced once, and ever since have not been able to do the teams workouts due to a strained IT band (in the same leg). my legs seem to be achey all the time, and i am wondering if it is possible that i'm not eating enough, which would cause my body to "eat" muscle and therefore make me more prone to injury..? How many calories a day should i be eating? i try to eat around 1500 but sometimes eat more..

A: Sorry to hear about your injuries. Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to answer your questions -- this is really something you should talk to a doctor or a physical therapist about. Certainly even if you lost some muscle due to undereating that should in no way lead to your legs hurting -- it would simply reduce your strength and/or endurance. Note also that if you have not lost weight during your injury downtime you most likely did not lost much if any muscle either -- but you have 'detrained' meaning that your neural system may not perform at optimal level when you get back to running. But neural re-training is a relatively quick process so you'd be back to normal level within weeks (again, this is assuming no weight loss).

1500 calories is not a lot but may be enough. Really, the key for you is to monitor your weight and make sure you eat enough so it stays constant. But as I said, whether or not you lost weight should not result in pain in the legs. You need to talk to a medical professional about that. Good luck!