Just starting

amtravln

I started logging in about 10 days ago. I have met my calorie goals (to lose 2lbs/week)plus have over 4K additional calories burned by exercise. I weighed in first thing this morning and have GAINED four pounds. Any thoughts? Comments?

janejellyroll

Your diary is set to private, so it's going to be difficult for anyone to know exactly what is going on.

It could be a logging issue. It could be water weight related to increased exercise, sodium consumption, or even your time of the month (if you are a menstruating female).

amtravln

I have made it public. Lmp ended 9 days ago

janejellyroll

Are you weighing all your solid food? I think 10 days is too early to get concerned, but your logging could be tighter. It looks like a mixture of weighed food and food measured in cups. You're also choosing some database entries that could really be inaccurate (homemade spring rolls, things like "1 bagel").

Is there a reason why you are going so far under your calorie goals and also not eating back any exercise calories? It doesn't look like you are setting yourself up for success.

JeromeBarry1

janejellyroll wrote: »

Are you weighing all your solid food? I think 10 days is too early to get concerned, but your logging could be tighter. It looks like a mixture of weighed food and food measured in cups. You're also choosing some database entries that could really be inaccurate (homemade spring rolls, things like "1 bagel").

Is there a reason why you are going so far under your calorie goals and also not eating back any exercise calories? It doesn't look like you are setting yourself up for success.

Ditto. I see no way for your recorded diary to cause a 5lb gain. Did you weigh at different times of day? Did you have the scale on a firm surface both times? Were you wearing the same clothes both times? Have you changed your strength or cardio training routine?

Did you use the recipe tool to create your homemade spring roll?

janejellyroll

JeromeBarry1 wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

Are you weighing all your solid food? I think 10 days is too early to get concerned, but your logging could be tighter. It looks like a mixture of weighed food and food measured in cups. You're also choosing some database entries that could really be inaccurate (homemade spring rolls, things like "1 bagel").

Is there a reason why you are going so far under your calorie goals and also not eating back any exercise calories? It doesn't look like you are setting yourself up for success.

Ditto. I see no way for your recorded diary to cause a 5lb gain. Did you weigh at different times of day? Did you have the scale on a firm surface both times? Were you wearing the same clothes both times? Have you changed your strength or cardio training routine?

Did you use the recipe tool to create your homemade spring roll?

No, it wasn't formatted like an entry from the recipe tool -- it's a selection from the database.

harrybananas

I don't see anything wrong with gaining 4 pounds.

amtravln

Should I be eating back the exercise calories? I will add my recipes. Been working all last week and just tried to shortcut it through the data ase

maidengirl_

How did you get an additional 4,000 cals back from exercise?? And how are you calculating this number? If it's from a FITBIT device, please don't rely on steps counted as "calories burned". And as others have suggested, you need to weigh all your food. Yes, everything. And be as accurate as possible. You eat it, write it down.

janejellyroll

amtravln wrote: »

Should I be eating back the exercise calories? I will add my recipes. Been working all last week and just tried to shortcut it through the data ase

If your calorie goal comes from MFP, it's designed for you to eat back at least some of your exercise calories. But 4,000 sounds like a really high burn, so it's possible that however you are determining your burn is an over-estimate.

If you're using shortcuts in your logging, I think it's important to get a handle on how much you're actually consuming. Without accurate logging, your calories in is just going to be a guess and that can make it difficult to see the results you want. When you use "generic" or "homemade" entries in the database, you have no way of knowing how the person who created that entry prepared their food.

nordlead2005

There are most likely 3 things going on.

1) You aren't weighing/measuring your food properly, and therefore entering the wrong amount
2) You aren't using the right entries for the food you are eating (for example, not all spring rolls are created equal)
3) You aren't logging everything you are eating.

All 3 of those tend to lead to eating far more than you think. I doubt you gained 4lb of fat (maybe a lb or so), but you definitely didn't lose much/any fat either. If you said you lost 0lb over 10 days then I'd say give it another week and see what happens, but it isn't likely that you went up in water weight and down in fat over the first 10 days of starting a diet.

Pick a smaller deficit (say 1lb/week) and actually stick to the calorie amounts and you'll see results.