Gaining weight on 1200-1300 calories, around 1lb a week.

ishkur

I am 5’7”, 147lbs, F and I work out 5 days a week. I have been a “heavy lifter” for 4 years, I lift 3 days a week and 2 days are hiking or biking 4-10 miles. This year I had some money issues and had to move so I was out of the gym for 6+ months. During that time I let myself balloon up 15lbs (136lbs) due to stress and just not caring. When the dust finally settled and I was in a good place, I started lifting again and doing my cardio to shed my fat that I accumulated. I started out at 1600cal thinking it was a good starter deficit as it would have been BEFORE i gained the weight. No change. Okay, thats normal, wait 3 weeks. Gained 2lbs. - - - Okay, so then I lowered it to 1400. Gained another 2-4lbs. Started panicking and lowered it to 1200. I’ve been eating 1200 for about 4 weeks now and I have gained ANOTHER 3-4lbs. So my starting weight was 136, and now I am 147.6lbs. As cool as it would be, that is not muscle folks. I already gained my noob muscle years ago, and muscle doesn’t pack on that fast. I don’t look any different in the mirror, but slightly more squishy. And before you say I’ve ate too much, I log every day and weigh every inkling of anything that goes in my mouth including that splash of almond milk into my coffee every morning. I also only weigh myself in the morning after emptying my “contents”.

What is going on.

janejellyroll

If you open your diary, we may be better able to help you troubleshoot.

RoxieDawn

janejellyroll wrote: »

If you open your diary, we may be better able to help you troubleshoot.

I am going with as well.

quiksylver296

If you truly use a food scale for everything, then I agree with "open your diary."

ETA a question: You always use the same body weight scale, right?

deannalfisher

if you legitimately gaining weight...is pregnancy a potential reason?

Nony_Mouse

Did you go straight back to that work out schedule when you restarted, and have you been increasing weights during that time?

If your tracking is on point, I think you are way under eating for the amount of exercise you are doing. Obviously that's not going to make you gain fat, but it could be causing an almighty amount of fluid retention from raised cortisol. You're already in your healthy weight range, and an aggressive deficit is going to cause your body to fight back hard. I would increase your calories again, possibly even higher that what you had initially.

Have a read of this, it talks about the effects of cortisol from too few calories and too much exercise. I don't necessarily think you're doing too much cardio, but if you jumped straight back to what you were doing before, in combination with the aggressive deficit it may well be the problem: https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html/

I plugged your stats into a TDEE calculator, and even taking your exercise as 3-5 hours of moderate (and I think you're doing more than that, it gives me ~2150 to maintain at your starting weight. Five to six hours at strenuous gives ~2450.

I'd consider doing a full diet break - https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-full-diet-break.html/ - then starting over with a less aggressive deficit.