Rapid unexplained weight gain

patheticshark

Hi all,
This is a bit of a pointless thread because I have been to the doctor and am waiting for blood test results, but would be interested to hear people's thoughts...

I'm female, 5'6 and usually between 130 and 140lbs, depending on how carefully I've been logging. I usually eat about 1400 calories a day, but I exercise every day (a mixture of cardio - running or spin classes, and I cycle to work every day) and strength (body pump or conditioning classes at the gym). I tend to eat some of those calories, sometimes all of them on the weekend. Anyway this has generally been working for me to keep things where I'm broadly happy but a couple of weeks ago the scales shot up over the course of a week from 141lbs to 152lbs (without me changing anything diet wise). I was a bit horrified by this so stepped up how carefully I was logging only to hit 154lbs by the end of the following week. Everyone is totally baffled by this - I tend to eat 45g of porridge oats for breakfast, a tin of soup or salad for lunch and a healthy dinner of meat or fish plus vegetables, without snacking in between, so this kind of weight gain is very surprising.

As I said I've been to the doctor and they sent me off for various blood tests including thyroid but I wondered if anyone had experience of weight gain like this, or anyone with diagnosed thyroid issues who experienced weight gain - did it appear over a short period like this or was it a slower increase?

I am a bit freaked out and also quite annoyed that I can't fit into any of my clothes!

Thanks for any advice.

Alatariel75

Do your blood tests include a pregnancy test?

patheticshark

They tested me for that at the doctor's - negative.

SCoil123

I gained 10lbs last time I was ovulating. Two weeks later my weight was normal. Women can fluctuate a lot around hormonal cycles.

patheticshark

I'd quite like it to be ovulation but don't think I'm ovulating - I'm pcos. Have been tracking (as far as you can with pcos) and never hit 'peak' this month.

Katiebear_81

Maybe rapid cyst growth? Hope it's nothing and that your weight goes back down.

mom22dogs

Did they check your abdomen? I agree with Katiebear_81. I had rapid weight gain and ended up with a 16lb ovarian cyst. I just thought I was eating too much. Have them do an ultrasound. You don't want to go through what I went though, trust me. Maybe it isn't, but rule it out.

patheticshark

No, I am a bit worried it's something like that. My mum had ovarian cancer so have family history. I'll ask about ultrasound when I get the blood results back, assuming they don't give me a concrete answer. Thanks everyone for replies.

trigden1991

Rapid weight changes are normally water. Or a medical condition (although this is highly unlikely).

ronjsteele1

I literally would gain 20#'s in a month when my thyroid tanked. Even now, if my armour needs adjusting up I can easily gain that in a month. Anytime I start seeing unexplained weight gain I immediately check my thyroid. The thing you have to watch is you can test your TSH and have it in the "normal" range but if it's above 1.5 it's too high. Unfortunately, finding a doctor to treat the symptoms and not the numbers is really hard. But your TSH should be between .5 and 1.5, Free T3 and Free T4 should be in the upper 2/3 of the lab range. If any of these are off (even if they're in the "normal" range), it's indicative of hypothyroid and you can (and probably will) gain some weight. All of my labs tested "normal" when I first had symptoms of low thyroid, but I had all of the symptoms of hypothyroid and I was gaining with no explanation. I went on armour and everything normalized, including losing the weight I'd gained (it was easier to lose then normal, but still took time). So if they say your labs come back "normal," I would recommend getting a copy of them and checking your numbers yourself against the lab ranges and where on the scale they are. If you have other symptoms of hypothyroid, I would put my finger on that as the likely culprit. If you don't have other symptoms of hypo, I would lean towards it being something else.