Starting to work out = rapid weight gain?

stargazerscribe

Hello all!

I started a gym membership right before thanksgiving and was going about 3 days a week. Around Christmas, I took 2 weeks off to go see family. When I came back, obviously I'd gained a few pounds, but not much! So I went back to the gym! But suddenly, I gained close to 10lbs within a month. I can feel it and see it, and I can't get rid of it.
I've been going 3-4 days a week, (15-20 minutes upper body, then 20-30 minutes of cardio). I consume roughly 1300 calories a day, sometimes a few hundred more. I eat fairly decent; I try to eat veggies at lunch and dinner and drink enough water every day, but this weight has stabilized and only fluctuates UP, not down. The only thing that had changed is my exercising. I hate that my jeans are tight and that I look different in the mirror. I've heard that you gain weight when you start exercising, but this is ridiculous. When will this start going back the other way? Am I doing something wrong?
Any and all advice is appreciated!

L1zardQueen

At 1300 calories you should be losing!

How accurate is your logging? Do you pick the right entries from the database? Do you log the fats you cook with and all drinks with calories? Do you use the recipe builder or someone else's entry?

ETA. do you use a food scale to weigh everything?

cathipa

stargazerscribe wrote: »

Hello all!

I started a gym membership right before thanksgiving and was going about 3 days a week. Around Christmas, I took 2 weeks off to go see family. When I came back, obviously I'd gained a few pounds, but not much! So I went back to the gym! But suddenly, I gained close to 10lbs within a month. I can feel it and see it, and I can't get rid of it.
I've been going 3-4 days a week, (15-20 minutes upper body, then 20-30 minutes of cardio). I consume roughly 1300 calories a day, sometimes a few hundred more. I eat fairly decent; I try to eat veggies at lunch and dinner and drink enough water every day, but this weight has stabilized and only fluctuates UP, not down. The only thing that had changed is my exercising. I hate that my jeans are tight and that I look different in the mirror. I've heard that you gain weight when you start exercising, but this is ridiculous. When will this start going back the other way? Am I doing something wrong?
Any and all advice is appreciated!

How often is "sometimes"? And agree with @Tiny_Dancer_in_Pink - if you arent weighing your food and logging everything you could be consuming more than you think.

aeloine

Make sure to weigh your food. I agree with @cathipa - you could easily be killing your deficit with improper logging.

quiksylver296

Food scale. Get one. Use it. Log everything. No skipping, forgetting, or cheating.

Check out this thread.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1

aeloine

Traditionally, you DO gain weight when you start to work out, and it can take as much as 6 weeks to lose some of that water retention, but it sounds like you're past that point.

Get a food scale, tighten up your logging, and keep up the hard work! You've gotten this far and your body thanks you for letting it work out!

quiksylver296 wrote: »

Check out this thread.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1

QFT

stargazerscribe

Hello all! Sorry for the late post, I apparently don't have my notifications set up on here.

I knew that you would gain weight at the beginning, but mine is taking an awfully long time to start going the reverse way. Finally this morning, it looks like I've dropped a few and my belly looks slightly smaller.

I have a food scale packed up somewhere, but I need to find it and start using it. It is likely that I'm not tracking calories as well as I should. My sometimes overage in calories is about once a week, sometimes twice if I'm out all weekend.

I do log everything I eat and drink with calories in it, and I don't usually log cooking oils because most of what I eat is baked, steamed, or fresh (with the exception of my occasional junk food excursion) and my pan seared fish with canola spray oil.

If food is what I need to focus on, I'll try harder with that. I thought maybe I wasn't spending long enough at the gym or something like that.

HoneyBadger302

10 pounds is a lot, but I know I put on about 5 when I started working out regularly again (coming back from an injury that had me out of the gym for the better part of a year). I lost about 2 of those pounds, but the rest are holding steady.

That being said, I've increased the intensity of my workouts pretty dramatically as my bad leg (and body) were able to handle it. Current program (in week 2 of that one) is pretty intense. My body hasn't really had time to adjust to the workouts before I bumped them up again.

My measurements, however, have slowly but steadily been headed in the right direction. Progress photos show progress as well. Scale hasn't budged.

I'm focused more on the fitness and while I'm eating at a slight deficit, it's not a big one as I need to fuel my workouts first, losing fat is a side bonus right now.

stargazerscribe

You sound really driven, working out hard after an injury! Impressive!

My weight has started to go back the other direction, annoyingly slow, and same as you, I still have about 5lbs refusing to be lost. I haven't taken any progress photos of late because I've been so discouraged, but I wonder if maybe I could see a difference there too?