Weighing all food and gaining weight

kokonani

Please please don't continue eating and excersise the way you are.. very unhealthy for you to eat only 600 Calories and work out 2 hours! I don't know where you even find the energy. Please input stats into MFP and it will give you a much better plan. Good luck.

usmcmp

Fast food isn't evil, it's just calorie dense and easy to overeat. There are lower calorie options at most fast food places.

jayemes

Nothing wrong with fast food - just make better choices. Hamburger instead of double bacon cheeseburger. Grilled chicken sandwich instead of fried chicken. Baked potato instead of large fries. Water instead of soda.

Silentpadna

usmcmp wrote: »

It's water weight from exercise and initial rapid weight loss.

You need to eat way more than 600 calories per day especially if you are exercising for two hours per day. Starving yourself and over exercising is a great way to destroy lean mass (including your internal organs). Not to mention there's no way your meeting your body's vitamin and mineral needs on 600 calories. Plus, if you don't get adequate dietary fat your hair will start falling out and your joints will start having problems. You'll also negatively impact your bone density.

This advice is spot on and should be given to everybody who comes on here and wants to do above and beyond the recommendations.

Some generic constants you should know about:

1. Faster is not better with respect to fat loss.
2. Weight and fat are not the same thing.
3. You are doing this to reduce fat and fat is one a several components to weight.
4. You are attempting to lose fat in order to be healthier, so trying to lose it faster than healthy merely creates other problems and does not give you the result you are looking for.
5. Fluids fluctuate at 2x-3x your weekly "weight" loss goal over the course of a single day. It has always done that and always will, regardless of what your trying to do with your weight. Learn to live with fluctuation. You can easily have lost 2 pounds of body fat in a given week and weigh 3-5 pounds more.
6. This will take time.
7. You cannot short cut #6 without creating other health problems.
8. If you exercise, eat the calories to support it.

@MelonColleyMom, at 278 pounds or so, you are doing yourself no favors if you truly are eating 1000 and as low as 600 calories per day.

Lastly - a week is not a plateau, fluid variation is totally normal, the process works for everyone who does it right, and time is your friend.

clicketykeys

Chances are really good that if you've significantly increased exercise you're retaining water as your body deals with the increased workload you've given it. BE PATIENT. Trust physics and biology. Eat at a reasonable deficit and keep exercising (again, reasonably). Effective loss takes time.

misnomer1

MelonColleyMom wrote: »

My goal is 1200. At least 4 days this week I was under 600. By the time I got home (ridiculously busy with kids and school etc) I was more tired than hungry and went to bed. It wasn't intentional. Plus exercise calories, which again I don't eat.

So for 4 days you ate 600, and did exercise which you didn't eat back? So net 0 intake. Not good. You're retaining water.

smellywelly1234

Basically not eating enough for your size. You have to eat enough or your metabolism will shutdown and in the long term you will gain weight. To get lean stay clean.

Complex carbs
Fresh veg
Fruits
Proteins
Plenty of water

Myself I tend to have my carbs in the fist two meals as it works for me. It's not a race you need to do this properly. Good luck

lorrpb

You are eating 600-1200 calories and not eating back your exercise calories? That's not much for 279 lbs and unhealthy, in that it can lead to fatigue, hair loss, brittle nails, and a host of other health issues.

Starting a new exercise routine can lead to water retention because water is needed to repair the muscles. So this might account for a recent gain, as would TOM or ovulation.

janejellyroll

smellywelly1234 wrote: »

Basically not eating enough for your size. You have to eat enough or your metabolism will shutdown and in the long term you will gain weight. To get lean stay clean.

Complex carbs
Fresh veg
Fruits
Proteins
Plenty of water

Myself I tend to have my carbs in the fist two meals as it works for me. It's not a race you need to do this properly. Good luck

No. Not eating enough will cause health problems and OP should focus on getting sufficient calories. But your metabolism cannot shut down (unless you die).

dbanks80

OP this is good sound advice you're getting.

Nony_Mouse

usmcmp wrote: »

MelonColleyMom wrote: »

So- in terms of not having enough. I hear what you are saying, but doesn't that primarily matter for smaller people? When I go to bed sans enough calories, my thought is that I *was* going to have a gastric sleeve. If I had, my caloric intake would be what I've had some days or less. It isn't magically safer for someone with a sleeve, so I thought that because I'm morbidly obese it was okay?

People who have weight loss surgery are medically supervised and required to follow a special diet with specific supplements to reduce possible damage. A friend of mine just went through it and she still had negative side effects. Our body can only use a certain amount of calories per pound of body fat per day. The estimate is between 4 and 6 calories per pound of body fat (the estimate used to be 10). Everything else is going to come from lean mass. So let's say you have 200 pounds of body fat your ideal deficit is between 800 and 1200 calories below your maintenance calories.

Damn, that's sobering. Obviously I knew we could only use a certain number of calories from body fat per day, but hadn't crunched the numbers any time recently, esp not with that lower figure. Time to start practicing what I preach and drop my deficit to 250! Thanks @usmcmp

kshama2001

MelonColleyMom wrote: »

Started 60 days ago. Plateau was just over a week, then dropped suddenly. Then have been gaining about .4 to .8lbs a day, some days losing part of what I gained the day before. That's been going on for about a week. The scale read 279.8 this morning. I started working out a week ago, which is much more than I was doing before. I'm training for a 5k and then doing other cardio. Today I have my intro to the weight machines. My starting weight was 305.

My scale went up 7 pounds when I started working out:



That's the big spike late Oct/early Nov.

Most of the other spikes represent ovulation and being premenstrual.

kshama2001

MelonColleyMom wrote: »

Started 60 days ago. Plateau was just over a week, then dropped suddenly. Then have been gaining about .4 to .8lbs a day, some days losing part of what I gained the day before. That's been going on for about a week. The scale read 279.8 this morning. I started working out a week ago, which is much more than I was doing before. I'm training for a 5k and then doing other cardio. Today I have my intro to the weight machines. My starting weight was 305.

MelonColleyMom wrote: »

I'm really not intending to under eat. My go to food in the past has been fast food. I've done my best to eliminate that, but am not always able to replace it. I am a full time nursing student, part time teacher, mom and foster to puppies. I just bought an instant pot. I'm hoping that will help me get more quality calories in.

Also, you are over exercising, under eating, and have a very busy life, all of which is stressful, so no doubt your cortisol is increased, which also causes water retention.

https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html/

...In any case, dieting in general is a stress. And of course training is a stress. And the more extreme you do of each, the more of a stress occurs. And I suspect that a lot of what is going on when folks try to combine excessive caloric deficits with massive amounts of activity is that cortisol just goes through the roof (there’s another issue I’ll come back to at the end that relates to this). Simply, you get these massive chronic elevations in cortisol levels.

...chronic elevations in cortisol can cause a lot of bad things to happen.

MelonColleyMom

Thanks everyone for the knowledge. I got some crappy sodium filled frozen meals (though I did get the newer "natural" ingerdient ones) to make it easier to get dinner eaten. I ate more today, and am planning on a snack but am having horrendous gas pains so idk if it will happen.

Went to the gym today, got my active Trax set up. I plan on doing my couchto5k program every other day, and following the weight routine set out by the program. I'm still going to avoid the fast food. I definitely have an addiction to food and it's hard for me to make good choices there. But I also bought some protein bars and packs of nuts to keep with me to snack as needed. I think my concern with the numbers on the scale is mostly because I joined a diet bet- and that only cares about numbers. I really don't want to lose! This will be my last one (I'm actually in 4, 3 4 week long and one 6 month). I may stick with 6 month ones because they are 10% in 6 months which is more reasonable than 4% in 4 weeks.

Again thank you to everyone that took the time to reply.

Silentpadna

MelonColleyMom wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the knowledge. I got some crappy sodium filled frozen meals (though I did get the newer "natural" ingerdient ones) to make it easier to get dinner eaten. I ate more today, and am planning on a snack but am having horrendous gas pains so idk if it will happen.

Went to the gym today, got my active Trax set up. I plan on doing my couchto5k program every other day, and following the weight routine set out by the program. I'm still going to avoid the fast food. I definitely have an addiction to food and it's hard for me to make good choices there. But I also bought some protein bars and packs of nuts to keep with me to snack as needed. I think my concern with the numbers on the scale is mostly because I joined a diet bet- and that only cares about numbers. I really don't want to lose! This will be my last one (I'm actually in 4, 3 4 week long and one 6 month). I may stick with 6 month ones because they are 10% in 6 months which is more reasonable than 4% in 4 weeks.

Again thank you to everyone that took the time to reply.

It's good to see you reading the advice here. I'm always one to caution against the betting type stuff - not because losing weight and staying on plan isn't a good thing - it is. But if the plan incentivizes doing something unhealthy, like faster than healthy weight loss, it's not a worthwhile plan. A 10% plan over 6 months looks very reasonable. Just remember that if you accelerate that, you might win the bet, but lose the health benefits that a slower loss would give you. You're in this for life, not just the end of the coming 6 months!