Weight gain after consistent losses
kar328
Posts: 4,159 Member
Hi, While I love you guys and all you do, I was hoping not to ever need to make a post, but here it is.
Provide your stats (height/weight/age/bodyfat% if you know it/etc)
I'm 49 yo, 5' 2" and currently 216.2. I started at 248. My weight before the stall got to 213.4, then hovered in the 215 range until the past few days. My body fat last week at the gym with the handheld device was 45.7% The digital scale I use says 46%. The ones on the Fat2Fit site range from 28.8 to 60.5%
What's your current gross intake of calories, on average?
I've been doing TDEE - 20% since March. I was using 1700 cal/day. I used to come in a few hundred under, made an effort to get closer. I averaged 1707 in a recent week.
I redid the numbers (my TDEE per my Fitbit Flex recently averaged 2340 and -20% = 1872) and have increased it to 1900 for about a week now. The average this past week is 1934.
What's your current average intake of protein, carbs, and fats, in grams? (GRAMS, not percent!)
Macros are set at Protein 143 grams, Carbs 190 grams, Fat 63 grams. Average intake in the past week is Protein 118 grams, Carbs 227 grams, Fat 66 grams
Do you use a food scale and measure everything?
Yes, except for eyeballing the 2 oz of unsweetened almond milk I throw in my daily coffee, after having measured it for weeks.
Do you track all of your intake, daily? (Everything?)
Yes, haven't missed a day. I'm sure I've forgotten something here and there but I double check it constantly.
Do you take cheat days or days off?
No, I don't restrict anything so there's no reason. I abide by Sara's idea of ice cream every day.
I did say I was going to have fun on my birthday in March and only ended going over my calories by about 50. My trainer suggested a cheat meal, I had two McDonald's hamburgers and one small fries a few days ago, and stayed under my calorie goal.
How much weight have you lost so far and over what time period?
From Jan 2nd to May 30th, 34.6 lbs. Average is 6 l.bs/month, nothing in June. It's gone up 3 lbs this month and hasn't dropped.
Describe your activity (exercise and non exercise) and did you change that activity withing the last couple of months?
I was a total slug until January. I've been seeing a trainer once a week for 30 mins doing strength training and now some heavy weights. I'm learning the 5x5 lifts and actually getting some muscles. I am currently on week 6 of the C25K program. I try to get a 1-2 mile walk in when I am not doing the program that day. Before this, I've done the 30 DS, and mostly plain old walking or elliptical.
I am a night shift 7P-7A nurse in a labor and delivery unit. I work three shifts a week, they vary. Sometimes it's a lot of sitting around and sometimes I can log 3 miles of laps in the halls in that time period. At home I'm pretty sedentary except for the above exercises. If I work three shifts in a row, I find it hard to do any exercising - I want to go home and sleep.
How long have you been stalled and if it is not a complete stall please be very specific as to how much you have lost over the stalled period.
This is the third time in two months this has happened, but the others lasted a week or two then went back to my average 1.5 lbs/week loss. This one has given me a 3 lb gain this month.
Are you breastfeeding? No
Do you have thyroid issues/risks or PCOS?
I have PCOS and take 1000 mg Metformin daily. I've been on birth control pills for it as well, but just talked my GYN into letting me stop them for a few months and see what happens to the hormone levels. Partly to see if the weight changes and partly because it feels weird at 49 to be on them. Stopped them this week. No thyroid issues
Also, please ensure that you have your diary open.
Okay <cringing> Just wanted to note that I changed my meals to time blocks so when you see a full meal between 12 AM and 6AM it's at work. It's just easier to log this way.
Thanks for reading this and taking the time. :flowerforyou:
Provide your stats (height/weight/age/bodyfat% if you know it/etc)
I'm 49 yo, 5' 2" and currently 216.2. I started at 248. My weight before the stall got to 213.4, then hovered in the 215 range until the past few days. My body fat last week at the gym with the handheld device was 45.7% The digital scale I use says 46%. The ones on the Fat2Fit site range from 28.8 to 60.5%
What's your current gross intake of calories, on average?
I've been doing TDEE - 20% since March. I was using 1700 cal/day. I used to come in a few hundred under, made an effort to get closer. I averaged 1707 in a recent week.
I redid the numbers (my TDEE per my Fitbit Flex recently averaged 2340 and -20% = 1872) and have increased it to 1900 for about a week now. The average this past week is 1934.
What's your current average intake of protein, carbs, and fats, in grams? (GRAMS, not percent!)
Macros are set at Protein 143 grams, Carbs 190 grams, Fat 63 grams. Average intake in the past week is Protein 118 grams, Carbs 227 grams, Fat 66 grams
Do you use a food scale and measure everything?
Yes, except for eyeballing the 2 oz of unsweetened almond milk I throw in my daily coffee, after having measured it for weeks.
Do you track all of your intake, daily? (Everything?)
Yes, haven't missed a day. I'm sure I've forgotten something here and there but I double check it constantly.
Do you take cheat days or days off?
No, I don't restrict anything so there's no reason. I abide by Sara's idea of ice cream every day.
I did say I was going to have fun on my birthday in March and only ended going over my calories by about 50. My trainer suggested a cheat meal, I had two McDonald's hamburgers and one small fries a few days ago, and stayed under my calorie goal.How much weight have you lost so far and over what time period?
From Jan 2nd to May 30th, 34.6 lbs. Average is 6 l.bs/month, nothing in June. It's gone up 3 lbs this month and hasn't dropped.
Describe your activity (exercise and non exercise) and did you change that activity withing the last couple of months?
I was a total slug until January. I've been seeing a trainer once a week for 30 mins doing strength training and now some heavy weights. I'm learning the 5x5 lifts and actually getting some muscles. I am currently on week 6 of the C25K program. I try to get a 1-2 mile walk in when I am not doing the program that day. Before this, I've done the 30 DS, and mostly plain old walking or elliptical.
I am a night shift 7P-7A nurse in a labor and delivery unit. I work three shifts a week, they vary. Sometimes it's a lot of sitting around and sometimes I can log 3 miles of laps in the halls in that time period. At home I'm pretty sedentary except for the above exercises. If I work three shifts in a row, I find it hard to do any exercising - I want to go home and sleep.
How long have you been stalled and if it is not a complete stall please be very specific as to how much you have lost over the stalled period.
This is the third time in two months this has happened, but the others lasted a week or two then went back to my average 1.5 lbs/week loss. This one has given me a 3 lb gain this month.
Are you breastfeeding? No
Do you have thyroid issues/risks or PCOS?
I have PCOS and take 1000 mg Metformin daily. I've been on birth control pills for it as well, but just talked my GYN into letting me stop them for a few months and see what happens to the hormone levels. Partly to see if the weight changes and partly because it feels weird at 49 to be on them. Stopped them this week. No thyroid issues
Also, please ensure that you have your diary open.
Okay <cringing> Just wanted to note that I changed my meals to time blocks so when you see a full meal between 12 AM and 6AM it's at work. It's just easier to log this way.
Thanks for reading this and taking the time. :flowerforyou:
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Replies
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Hi!
How much sleep do you usually get? Has it been worse recently?0 -
I've had chronic sleep issues for many years, I wake up every couple of hours. It was that way even when I did 12 hour day shifts. The Fitbit flex tracks your sleep, it started out with a pathetic 60-70% efficiency but for the past week or so it's actually been in the 90s range. I'm happy about that - and surprised. It still shows I wake up/am restless a dozen times a night but for shorter times like a minute or two. I'm usually only conscious for two or three.0
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What has your weight done over the past 4 weeks, in weekly increments if you have it
How long have you been seeing the trainer for? Do you lift other days, or just the days you see him/her?
How much running do you do a week - approx. how may hours?0 -
My last loss was to 213.4 on 5/30.
I weigh in once a Sun-Sat calendar week - different day depending on work schedule - don't want to jump on after a night of working, eating and puffy ankles.
6/2-8 214.2
6/9-15 214.6
6/16-22 215.8
6/25 216.2
I've been seeing the trainer (him) once a week since the end of January. I have some smaller weights at home and am not consistent with it.
The running (or in my case jogging like a turtle in the mud) is consistent with the C25K program.
Week 3 was approx 27 mins total for the three days
Week 4 48 mins total for the three days
Week 5 51 mins total for the three days
Week 6 60 mins total for the three days.
I haven't done running outside of the program yet. I will walk 1-2 miles on probably two other days in the week.
Thanks0 -
Sorry for all the questions. What did your weight do, in weekly increments if you have it, in the 4 weeks before 5/30?0
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I'm happy for all the help.
Looking at the weights - I messed up the date, the weight was stuck at 213.4 since 6/3 not 5/30. Sorry
5/1 222
5/6 219
5/14 217.4 stayed there until
5/31 214.8
6/3 213.4
Other time it got stuck was 4/10 224.4 until 4/25 222.20 -
Tagging0
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Hello again,
Sara (<--- that's pronounced Sorrah and not Sarah, for anyone who is interested) and I had a chance to discuss this and we'd like to point out the following along with a recommendation.
In June your calorie average was over 1700, but in May you averaged 1511. Your carbohydrate intake averaged about 205 in June and around 180 in May.
This would partially explain the difference in weight loss between the two months but of course not entirely.
Having said that, we would like you to set your intake as follows and we are lowering your carb intake since you have PCOS. You will likely have better results on this:
1500 kcals
120 protein
60 fat
120 carbohydrate
Please let us know if you have any questions and please follow up with us via PM in 1 to 2 weeks, or immediately if you have any issues. Since this is a significant reduction in carbohydrates you may want to pre-log a few days to get an idea of food selection and how to hit those targets.0 -
Just saw this.
Okay, settings changed. The scale did move down a bit yesterday to 211.6. I will give these new numbers a go and report back in two weeks. Going to NYC in 2 weeks - need my hometown fix - the walking should offset all the good food.
Thanks for the help. :bigsmile:0 -
Hello again,
Sara (<--- that's pronounced Sorrah and not Sarah, for anyone who is interested) and I had a chance to discuss this and we'd like to point out the following along with a recommendation.
In June your calorie average was over 1700, but in May you averaged 1511. Your carbohydrate intake averaged about 205 in June and around 180 in May.
This would partially explain the difference in weight loss between the two months but of course not entirely.
Having said that, we would like you to set your intake as follows and we are lowering your carb intake since you have PCOS. You will likely have better results on this:
1500 kcals
120 protein
60 fat
120 carbohydrate
Please let us know if you have any questions and please follow up with us via PM in 1 to 2 weeks, or immediately if you have any issues. Since this is a significant reduction in carbohydrates you may want to pre-log a few days to get an idea of food selection and how to hit those targets.
Not this:
Phonetic Pronunciation #1: SAIR-ruh
Audio Pronunciation: http://inogolo.com/audio/Sara_816.mp3
This..
Phonetic Pronunciation #2: SAR-uh
Audio Pronunciation: http://inogolo.com/audio/Sara_4407.mp30 -
Locking so we can track active threads. Please PM either myself or SideSteel when you are ready to update us and we will unlock so you can. Please also include a link to this thread in the PM.0
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Unlocked at OPs request0
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Thanks for the quick unlocking. And the correct pronunciation of Sara - knew someone with the same name.
Okay, it's been a little over two weeks, so I'm updating as requested. Probably not the best two weeks for me to do this - two parties at work, July 4th and a Penis Party (work in a delivery room) with everyone bringing food. I had to quick add some calories but tried to make good food choices and keep to only a tablespoon or so of the various dishes. And I just went to NYC this week - I'm a transplanted NYer and need to visit. My favorite NY foods are bagels and pizza so I made the conscious choice to have them since there's no where else in the world where they taste this good. I had to quick add what I couldn't log - wrote notes on the various days. I ended up walking 12 miles in two days in a heat wave.
The scale since my last post.
7/2 211.6 (the plateau broke)
7/13 211.0
7/20 210.8 - so much for the 12 miles of walking :noway:
I tried to lower the carbs, wasn't always successful in hitting 120 but looking at the reports, it's lower than it was previously. Carbs are a definite weakness but I will continue to pay attention and make every effort to decrease them. When I started doing this, I was more focused on getting protein in.
My questions/concerns - you suggested dropping the daily calories to 1500. MFP has my BMR at 1534. Every other post in the forums says not to eat below your BMR. Should I then be eating back the exercise calories? I've tried not to go over the 1500 (minus the fun in NY) but am concerned about the net calories since my doing the C25K runs usually burn 550.
Again, thanks for the help and I look forward to your feedback.0 -
We will take a closer look at your recent reply but just to get this out there:
There's nothing automatically bad or wrong about eating below BMR in specific situations/contexts. It is not arbitrarily bad or necessarily dangerous.
IMO, the general forums are wrong in this case (and many others).
Also, 1500 is only under what a calculator says your BMR is. Online calculators are estimation devices that are to be used as a general guideline to point you in the right direction.0 -
So, it really hard to make additional tweaks due to the slightly patchy logging and quick adds. Also, when looking at your diary, I noticed a few entries that had calories but no macros. When you add items try to make sure that you check that the entry looks accurate. It is a really annoying part of the database that anyone people can enter things into the database and a lot of the times they are wrong.
Obviously, it was a hard week or two to be very accurate due to what you had going on, which is going to happen every now and again. Life should not stop just because we are trying to lose weight. That being said, it makes it hard to make further recommendations. However, even with them going on, you still lost about a pound. (The walking may cause some water retention so it is possibly a little more).
With all that, you should stick with the original recommendations for another two weeks. Keep logging as accurately as possible and try to hit the macros. We can assess then to see if further tweaks are needed.0 -
Okay, I will. I'm homebound for now, so it'll be accurate.
Thanks again to both of you.0 -
Locking again - please PM one of us when you are ready to update us and we will unlock the thread.0
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Reopening OPs request.0
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Hi again - updating.
Last update was 7/20 210.8 I put more effort into getting the carbs to 120 as recommended. Not perfect but a lot better. Got the scale to move to 209.0 on 7/30. I will continue to pay attention to the carbs. I do find I'm having trouble getting them that low without sacrificing calories. According to Fitbit my average intake for the past 30 days was 1383.
My other concern is on the days I actually break a sweat and run (finished C25K but am trying to run 30 mins 2-3 times per week) I am burning approximately 500-550 calories per Fitbit and my Polar HRM. Fitbit has my TDEE as 2422. Should I be eating back any of these calories? It seems like it's a big drop netting 1000/day on those days, and even the days where I'm burning 200-300 doing other things.
Again, thanks in advance. :flowerforyou:0 -
bumping so I can keep it on my "My Topics" page0
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Updating again -- the scale is up 1.8 lbs today to 210.8. I did go over on the carbs yesterday but dang ... There's also so many times I can tell myself it's muscle and/or water retention from exercising.0
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Hi! Sorry for the delay. We are hoping to get caught up on threads today/tomorrow.0
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*sigh* Going through the slightly older threads to see if anything fell through the gaps, and a few did. Sorry :flowerforyou: We will get to this one asap.0
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Hi!
We will be chatting tomorrow and so will discuss your thread. Could you give us an update so we have the most up to date information. Thank you for your patience with this.0 -
Since my 209 weigh in on 7/30, the scale has gone up 5 lbs. I have made a dent in the carbs from the higher numbers in June, not always hitting the 120 you guys suggested, but definitely lower than June. I find to keep the carbs in check, the total calories tends to suffer. You two suggested 1500. I was also concerned with if I should be eating back the exercise calories, because some days the net calories is way too low. Thanks0
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Hi!
- we addressed the low net earlier.
- to clarify, your weight was at 214lb last weigh in? When was your last weigh in?0 -
Friday morning. I don't record the gains on MFP. So it was 7/30 209, then 8/16 214. There were increases each week. I've been working three 12 hour night shifts this weekend so I don't get on the scale until I have a normal night off, I'll try it again on Tuesday.0
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Friday morning. I don't record the gains on MFP. So it was 7/30 209, then 8/16 214. There were increases each week. I've been working three 12 hour night shifts this weekend so I don't get on the scale until I have a normal night off, I'll try it again on Tuesday.
Poop - sorry for missing the follow up on this. We should get back to you shortly.0 -
Hi
Trying to identify a trend here so please bear with us re the questions as, based on your diary, this is a bit of a head scratcher.
What has you weight done since 8/16? Have you changed your activity levels? Could the increase be cycle related water retention? You mention night shifts - is this new and how is your sleep?0 -
It's still hovering around there since 8/16. It was 213.8 this morning.
I don't think my activity level has changed much. I see a trainer once a week for strength training. I've slacked off doing it on my own due to a recent work project, but will be getting back on track asap. I joined a new gym with lot of new toys. I finished the C25K a while ago and have been running twice a week, 2-3.1 miles. I try to get out and walk on other days as well, did 2.5 miles this morning. The exercise definitely needs to improve, I realize that.
I've been on nights for 13 years. The schedule is always different, I work 7P-7A and frequently do Fri/Sat/Sun since it's $10/hour more. It's hard to get exercise in. I will do something on Friday before work, but then I'm pretty much done until Monday after a nap. If it's quiet at work, I try to walk laps around the unit and at least get some steps in, but we've been slammed lately so that doesn't happen often. But there are weeks when I'm working one or two shifts in a row and it's easier.
The sleep is the same. I've been waking every few hours for years, if anything it's a little better lately with me getting up to four hours in a row.
I'm still working on keeping the carbs low. It's hard to not go over 120, but I'm keeping them lower than they've been in the past.
Just getting tired of people telling me "it's muscle." :huh:0
This discussion has been closed.