Putting on weight at start of journey

megruck

hello everyone,

So I am going to the gym and being more active which I'm really enjoying and staying under my calorie goal everyday.

When I check my weight I am gaining! I'm sure it's because I'm building muscle, but need a little reassurance.

Thanks for any tips or help you can give feel free to add me for support too!

Thank you

DemoraFairy

You won't be building muscle in a deficit. How long have you been gaining? How often do you weigh?

JoAnnRyan123

Might be water retention for your worked out muscles

angelexperiment

Agreed with above poster. You are starting out with exercise so you will have that water retention til your body gets accustomed. Drink water like its going out of style! This helps. Keep doing what you are doing, you are doing great! If this continues after some weeks you may want to look into adjusting calories or portions or start weighing foods with a scale that weighs in grams. This helps you really see wgat your tr u e food intake is.

futuremanda

If the exercise is new, or newly intense, you may retain water as your muscles adapt. I put on 4 lbs when I started pilates, which came off overnight maybe a week later.

If you're not used to weighing yourself, do note that fluctuations will happen and are normal. Your menstrual cycle, your digestion, what you've recently ingested, time of day, how much carbs and/or sodium you've had, changing up exercise, etc will all affect your weight. It's not fat, it's water, food, etc. You may just need to learn what sorts of fluctuations are normal for you, and watch your overall trend. If you can't do that without getting stressed, some people find weighing less often (once a week, once a month, etc) to be easier.

You may also want to take pictures and measurements. Sometimes we seem to plateau insofar as the scale is showing, but we are still making progress. If you have other ways of comparing, you'll still be able to see that progress happening!