How soon does strength training increase metabolism? How should I track weight training?

neldabg

I'm a little worried. I've been keeping a close watch on my weight, and everything seemed okay until these past two weeks. As of today, I am officially 4.4 lbs UNDER my goal weight, and based on current trends, I'm pretty sure I'm still losing weight, unfortunately (weights posted below).

Basically, I'm trying to figure out where I went wrong, and how I should proceed from here:

1) I *do* err on the side of caution when estimating calories and I do eat slightly under what Fitbit calculates as my TDEE most times, but even after calculations from my Fitbit Charge HR, I should've been no less than 2 lbs under my goal weight doing all of that.
2) Since March, I began doing 10-50 min. strength training YouTube videos three days a week in addition to daily 10k+ steps, with four weekends where I got really competitive in challenges and walked 25-31k steps a day, but I didn't see much progress (probably because I overdid it on the cardio (?)).

My Fitbit Charge HR has been recording a burn of 50-175 calories depending on which video I did and my heart rate readings seemed to match, so though I did read that Fitbit would not calculate strength burns well, I thought the numbers I was getting seemed reasonable.

Do you guys think my Fitbit and I are more so underestimating too much, or has that strength training already increased my metabolism?

This summer, I'm getting serious, and I plan to cut back a lot on the cardio and follow a structured strength program. It's not StrongCurves, StrongLifts, The New Rules of Lifting for Women, etc., but something simple I found on building-muscle101.com.

If my metabolism isn't the issue, and Fitbit really isn't tracking my strength sessions as well as I thought, how should I log my sessions?

My stats:

5'2 on a good day
College-aged
Goal range of 108-114 lbs, with UGW of 110.

nordlead2005

You didn't lose 3lb of fat in 6 days, so the answer is this is water weight fluctuations. You were 110lb as little as 19 days ago (one could argue even 4 days ago since 109.6 is close enough and does round up).

Anyways, as for muscles and metabolism, adding 10lb of muscle may burn an extra 50-100 calories (I don't know the figure, but it is a small amount). If you think you are trending down (which I don't), then add 100 calories/day to your diet. As for tracking, realize that tracing CO is a rough estimate at best and many things are impossible to track and just have to be lumped into "general activity"

If you want to solve this problem quickly, go grab your favorite snack, eat a lot of it, and then weigh yourself again. At least, that is what I'd do

TavistockToad

I didn't read it all, but if you're still losing weight you're not eating at maintenance, eat more.

bioklutz

In the past week have you been eating lower carbs or lower sodium? Did you recently just finish having your period? I am usually lightest a few days after my period has ended.

I would track your weight for another week before making any assumptions. If it is still low, up your calories.

neldabg

nordlead2005 wrote: »

You didn't lose 3lb of fat in 6 days, so the answer is this is water weight fluctuations. You were 110lb as little as 19 days ago (one could argue even 4 days ago since 109.6 is close enough and does round up).

Anyways, as for muscles and metabolism, adding 10lb of muscle may burn an extra 50-100 calories (I don't know the figure, but it is a small amount). If you think you are trending down (which I don't), then add 100 calories/day to your diet. As for tracking, realize that tracing CO is a rough estimate at best and many things are impossible to track and just have to be lumped into "general activity"

If you want to solve this problem quickly, go grab your favorite snack, eat a lot of it, and then weigh yourself again. At least, that is what I'd do

Lol xD

bioklutz wrote: »

In the past week have you been eating lower carbs or lower sodium? Did you recently just finish having your period? I am usually lightest a few days after my period has ended.

I would track your weight for another week before making any assumptions. If it is still low, up your calories.

Thanks for the reply, the two of you!
Ahhh. So that's the rough figure of extra burns for muscle gains. That's good to know.
My carb and sodium intake haven't been much different at all, and no; Aunt Flo ended her visit a little over two weeks ago.
I realize now that I may just be worrying over nothing. I'm going to go ahead and keep track for another week, eating ALL of my estimated calorie burns, and if I'm not at least at the 108.2 lb mark, I'll be upping my intake.