Muscle vs Scale in Weight Loss

aeh818

So I’ve been at this for over a year now, consistently I might add. I lost 50-60 pounds last year and at that point got a personal trainer. So over the last six months, the muscle mass I’ve put on seems to have made me pick up 40 lbs from before but I’m still a size and a half down.

Any tips to overcome and any encouraging words? I know I should feel GREAT about where I’ve come from but that number on the scale is killing me.

RoxieDawn

I have been trying to think this through. So here goes.

IF you were at goal weight when you lost the 50-60 pounds where you trying to maintain weight or bulk by being in surplus calorie intake when you hired your trainer?

Since you gained weight, you were in a surplus, so if everything was on par with diet and training you could have built about 6-8 pounds. The rest you put on is fat. Did your trainer do any body fat testing or other ways ways to gauge your progress like trending your weight, taking progress photos, etc. from when you started to now? How do you feel about your weight and progress?

I would go back and look at your eating/logging, protein intake and your lifting regime to determine just how much muscle you could have built.

Packerjohn

You didn't gain anywhere near 40 pounds of muscle in 6 months. MAYBE 10 if really working hard.

Check your calories in.

jseams1234

Do you really think you packed on 40 pounds of muscle in six months?

DancingMoosie

Seems to have made you pick up 40lbs? I'm confused as to what this actually means...

melissa6771

I'm thinking the 40 was a possible typo?

rose2_0

And I've been training for years for 6 lbs of muscle...what am I doing wrong?

jseams1234

melissa6771 wrote: »

I'm thinking the 40 was a possible typo?

Yeah, I'd hope so but I don't think it was a typo. When I told a coworker how much weight I had put on during my last bulk they said something along the lines of "wow, that's a lot of muscle!" and looked confused when I told them that "lol, no - half of that is just chub. Now I have to cut to get rid of it". The idea that you gain both seems foreign to a lot of people. They think you just gain one or the other.

sijomial

If you have gained 40lbs in 6 months, little of that would have been muscle by the way, then you have been massively overeating - about 770 cals/day.
Even if you were deliberately bulking as a female that is far too high a surplus which will result in a whole load of fat gain.

Why did your intake change from deficit to large surplus at the time you got a personal trainer? I do hope it wasn't due to following your trainer's eating recommendations?

It's great you are still under last year's start point and you have also learned a valuable lesson that both exercise and food intake matter.

Keep up the exercise but rein in your eating and you will get back on the path to success.