I've gained weight

Iron_Feline

Hi,

Muscle weighs more than fat. If you are working out you are gaining muscle.....measure yourself since you are likely losing inches as you gain muscle mass. Also check your carbohydrate intake. I've had weight loss surgery so it's different for me, but as a normal person you should keep your carbs under 100g a day. I have to keep mine around 40g or less or I literally gain. Carbs are evil and since they turn to sugar which makes the body produce insulin....it can make us get hungrier, sooner than we should Try eating high protein, and low carb!!! See if that helps and definitely measure yourself so you won't feel so down when the stupid scale goes up! Hang in there. You're doing great!!

Janine Alfke

NO

Carbs are not evil.

You need to track correctly with a food scale no more guessing and estimating. And don't drop the weights. Your body will thank you for it when you reach your goal with the majority of your lbm intact.

Iron_Feline

See the problem with my food entries is that I'm not sure what is going in my food. I'm currently volunteering with a Buddhist community and they provide my meals for me. Which are all vegetarian and made-from scratch. I usually get estimates from our chefs but they aren't exactly weighing everything themselves. The only thing that's in my control is portions portions and portions! And of course, what I eat....

Ok that makes it harder.

britzzie

See the problem with my food entries is that I'm not sure what is going in my food. I'm currently volunteering with a Buddhist community and they provide my meals for me. Which are all vegetarian and made-from scratch. I usually get estimates from our chefs but they aren't exactly weighing everything themselves. The only thing that's in my control is portions portions and portions! And of course, what I eat....

That's a very admirable thing to do, OP! So...yea...that makes things a little difficult. Do they provide every one of your meals, every day?

iarelarry

I recommend to do some fun reading on Metabolic damage, water weight retention and refeed meals (while on calorie deficit).

rachvale

They provide lunch and dinner Monday - Saturday. And I usually eat leftovers on Sunday.

hrtchoco

If you are gaining weight, it means you eat too much. Eat 25% less than now, and you should see a difference.

estielouise

loads of bad advice on here, loads of good advice too! that trainer who said quit weights is not very well informed, doing weights and lifting shreds fat and builds lean mass! my trainer says so! eat clean, allow yourself a treat or two each week, always eat at least 1200+ calories net (depending on your current height and weight you maybe need more! but never below). Change your workouts do several different things, cardio wise I do zumba, HIIT, yoga, swimming, etc then I do strength training once or twice a week. hopefully this should help a little - good luck. It is hard everyones different it takes time, I have lost 10lbs since January, I thought it would be more, but my IBS, makes it a little harder for me. I have been plateauing for a month now, and after reading mfp, and with help from people on here, this is the same advice I am now passing on to you

britzzie

They provide lunch and dinner Monday - Saturday. And I usually eat leftovers on Sunday.

I think that for as long as this will be the case, you should reduce your calorie goal by 100/200 calories per week and eat under/at it. Continue to log how you have been. I think that what you've been eating has more calories than your logging, but considering the situation that's not your fault. You will start to lose, eventually.

caseyljacobson

It can be tricky to track calories in homemade food from someone else, but if you can find out what they put in the food, and how much of each, you should be able to do some research on the internet (or use the recipe tool on mfp) to figure out how many calories are in each dish. Then it's a matter of portion control. I've even taken measuring cups to a frozen yogurt place just so I can see how much a serving size is.

A food scale is extremely helpful, especially with breads. Breads, rices, pastas, etc., are tracked most accurately by weight. The low calorie slices of bread have fewer calories because each slice weighs less, as the loaf is "proofed' more than the denser breads. But if you compare the calories by the weight of each slice, they are fairly similar.

Also look into how much of "2 oz dry pasta" weighs after it is cooked. (It goes up to about 5 oz.) And 1/3 cup of dry rice equals about 3/4 cup cooked.

It takes some time, and sometimes a lot of research, but once you get your food diary on track, you will start seeing results.

Good luck!

mamacoates

For the two writers above, think about what you two just said ... A pound of muscle weighs one pound. A pound of fat weighs one pound. Period.

However, a pound of muscle is denser so takes up more space, i.e. smaller in size. A pound of fat is fluffy and well, fat - and takes up more space.

Weight training increases the amount of lean muscle in your body, and thus increases your metabolism over the long term. Weight training also helps counteract the possibility of muscle loss experienced through calorie deficits. Cardio burns calories and uses up the glycogen in your body to help your body move into fat burning mode during your exercise session. Best bet is a combination of both. Find some weight training routines that combine exercises into "super sets" which keep you moving and keep your heart rate up, or routines that use a lot of body weight exercise which also keep your heart pumping. On non-weight lifting days, focus on High Intensity Interval Training followed by 15 minutes or so of steady state cardio.

Just remember that as you are burning fat, but also adding muscle, your body is replacing one for the other so you might not see the results on the scale right away ... Keep up the good work. You are reshaping your body from the inside out and eventually you will start to see the results of your hard work on the outside too!

LoosingMyLast15

They provide lunch and dinner Monday - Saturday. And I usually eat leftovers on Sunday.

i was going to start off by saying i was doing the same thing (estimating) then i bought a scale and lo and behold i was under estimating REALLY under estimating and i started to use my measuring cups to measure out everything that's when i quickly realized what a cup of something REALLY looked like vs what i was putting on my plate. i also started using the recipe feature to help me determine what the calories were for each food i ate. HOWEVER after reading you are volunteering in a buddist community i guess doing all this will be very difficult.

good for you for volunteering. i know you said you've asked the chefs but can you actually watch them cook so you can see what they are using/putting in the food. if you can't then you might need to either adjust your calorie intake or increase your exercising to balance out what you just don't know about the food calories.

britzzie

For the two writers above, think about what you two just said ... A pound of muscle weighs one pound. A pound of fat weighs one pound. Period.

However, a pound of muscle is denser so takes up more space, i.e. smaller in size. A pound of fat is fluffy and well, fat - and takes up more space.

Weight training increases the amount of lean muscle in your body, and thus increases your metabolism over the long term. Weight training also helps counteract the possibility of muscle loss experienced through calorie deficits. Cardio burns calories and uses up the glycogen in your body to help your body move into fat burning mode during your exercise session. Best bet is a combination of both. Find some weight training routines that combine exercises into "super sets" which keep you moving and keep your heart rate up, or routines that use a lot of body weight exercise which also keep your heart pumping. On non-weight lifting days, focus on High Intensity Interval Training followed by 15 minutes or so of steady state cardio.

Just remember that as you are burning fat, but also adding muscle, your body is replacing one for the other so you might not see the results on the scale right away ... Keep up the good work. You are reshaping your body from the inside out and eventually you will start to see the results of your hard work on the outside too!

Mama...saw you are a new poster, so just wanted to show you that when you want to reply directly to someone in the thread, it works better if you "quote" them (like I did to you) rather than reply. See how your post references mine and someone else's when that's not what you meant to do? I'm only helping you because I mostly agree with what you said and you seem to know what you're talking about. Always good to have smart people on the forums.

Well...I agree with MOST of what you said. Adding muscle is not as easy as some people make it sound. Bodybuilders eat at large surpluses and train intensely, and are often only able to gain 2lbs of muscle a week, max. You would have to be a genetic anomaly to be able to gain muscle mass without even really trying. I really don't think that's what's going on with OP. Remember that weight loss is 80% food and 20% exercise and that OP has a really sticky food situation here. IMO, too much food is causing her problem, not weight gain from strength training.

RGv2

For the two writers above, think about what you two just said ... A pound of muscle weighs one pound. A pound of fat weighs one pound. Period.

However, a pound of muscle is denser so takes up more space, i.e. smaller in size. A pound of fat is fluffy and well, fat - and takes up more space.

Weight training increases the amount of lean muscle in your body, and thus increases your metabolism over the long term. Weight training also helps counteract the possibility of muscle loss experienced through calorie deficits. Cardio burns calories and uses up the glycogen in your body to help your body move into fat burning mode during your exercise session. Best bet is a combination of both. Find some weight training routines that combine exercises into "super sets" which keep you moving and keep your heart rate up, or routines that use a lot of body weight exercise which also keep your heart pumping. On non-weight lifting days, focus on High Intensity Interval Training followed by 15 minutes or so of steady state cardio.

Just remember that as you are burning fat, but also adding muscle, your body is replacing one for the other so you might not see the results on the scale right away ... Keep up the good work. You are reshaping your body from the inside out and eventually you will start to see the results of your hard work on the outside too!

Weight training does not increase the amount of lean muscle in your body.

Weight training + Caloric deficit = helps maintain muscle mass and increase strength while you burn fat.

Weight training + Caloric Surplus = Helps add muscle mass (which is extremely hard) and increase strength as you get bigger, both from muscle mass and fat.

Alisha28

I prefer lean body rather than bulky so I do cardio till I get to a weight then tone up, its what has worked for me and many others. I have seen many women not like results from lifting and I do not mean 5 10lbs but sounded like she was lifting more. What works for one is not always for everyone! I am a pilates bootcamp step and taebo instructor and use little weight and I love the results I get from this I have also had 5 children and my stomach goes back too with this! Open minded people and you don't wanna gain when your trying to lose!

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

I suspect inaccurate logging, looking through your diary.

Enter your own recipes. Weigh everything except free-pouring liquids, and use measuring cups for those. Don't enter any generics from the database (vegetable spring roll for example, there could be a huge difference between entries). Look for entries without asterisks, because those have been checked against the USDA database. Search for "whole raw egg" instead of just "egg" or "scrambled egg." If you do make scrambled eggs, log it like this: 75 grams whole raw egg, 1/4 cup skim milk, 7.5 grams blue bonnet light margarine.

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

See the problem with my food entries is that I'm not sure what is going in my food. I'm currently volunteering with a Buddhist community and they provide my meals for me. Which are all vegetarian and made-from scratch. I usually get estimates from our chefs but they aren't exactly weighing everything themselves. The only thing that's in my control is portions portions and portions! And of course, what I eat....

Sorry I saw this posted while I was typing.

So what I would do then is learn how to eyeball. There are some visual cues you can learn-- 4 oz of meat is the size of a deck of cards, half a cup is the size of a tennis ball, etc,

That's going to throw off your logging inevitably so if you find that you aren't making progress you'll just have to try to eat a little less to compensate. I'd try lowering your goal by 200 calories and see how you get on with that.