Gaining weight

luciahope

I've recently lost 20 lbs last month due to a very high level of stress in my life. I've been wanting to lose for a while and so I'm trying to keep it up with logging my food no more than 1200 calories a day and also drinks 4 liters of water, I also started 40minutes of cardio this past week. I weigh my self once a week and noticed I'm putting weight back on! Am I doing something wrong? Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

diannethegeek

How much weight have you gained and over what period of time. There are only two likely answers (outside of other medical concerns): either you're retaining water (very common with stress, new exercise routines, or hormones) or something is off and you're eating more than you realize (usually through eyeballing portion sizes or choosing bad entries in the food database). If it's water retention, then it will go away soon on its own. If not, you may need to take a look at your logging and see what's up.

luciahope

5pounds in a week.

KrisiAnnH

Weight can fluctuate by as much as 5lbs a day, due to water weight fluctuations. Chances are you haven't actually gained 5lbs in a week (as that would mean you'd need to have eaten 17500 calories OVER maintenance during the week).

It's likely just water weight, either from particularly salty foods the day before or any number of other reasons (that Dianne mentioned above).

Are you logging everything accurately and using a food scale? And do you eat your exercise calories back- if so how do you estimate your burns?

luciahope

Yes I'm logging daily.

luciahope

Sorry pressed send when I wasn't done. I try to stay within my 1200 calls daily.