No weigh loss but muscle gain

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Bluntmomma
Bluntmomma Posts: 3 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi. I work out in the pool 5 days per week now. I am a large woman of 430 lbs, so I need to use the water to do my workouts.

Last week I lost a total of 4 lbs, which I was very happy with. This week however, I didn't lose a single pound! I worked even harder than last week! Is it possible the muscle growth equaled the fat loss? I can tell my muscles are stronger and I see areas of weight loss, soooo what exactly could be going on here?

Replies

  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
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    It is highly unlikely it is muscle gain. This is the case for a couple of reasons.

    First, the physiology of the situation is that is a woman, you will gain .5 to 1 lb per month under optimum conditions and that would be resistance training. You can get some newbie gains just from starting exercise but not a huge amount in a week and not that much from swimming. While swimming is good for muscle conditioning and overall health, it is not a great muscle builder.

    No one, man or woman can grow muscle as fast as they can lose fat. It is just not physiologically possible.

    What exactly is going on? Weight loss is not linear for a multitude of reasons. Simple as that. Working harder at exercise doesn't equate to a lot more overall calorie burn. Dietary calorie control is the key to fat/ weight loss.

    You could be retaining water weight because you worked harder exercising. You could be retaining water weight because of your monthly cycle or because you ate some high sodium foods. Or just because your body is going to try to maintain homeostasis (darn those nasty survival mechanisms!!).

    Trend your weight over time and don't get crazy about 1 week as long as you are hitting your calorie targets and are accurate with your weighing, measuring and logging.
  • ccsernica
    ccsernica Posts: 1,040 Member
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    Weight loss isn't linear. Some weeks we'll lose more, some we'll lose less or not at all. Some weeks we'll even appear to gain. None of that matters. It's short-term. The goal is weight loss over the long term. If you're eating a calorie deficit that should result in a 2 lb/week loss, that will be your average rate of loss across a number of weeks, not your expected loss each and every week.

    So don't worry about it too much, and just keep on keepin' on.
  • ChesKrieg
    ChesKrieg Posts: 24 Member
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    mmapags wrote: »
    ChesKrieg wrote: »
    How many calories are you eating a day? Willing to bet, too many.

    How uninformedly judgmental of you. I'm guessing at their weight and with losing 4 lbs, they have their calorie in a weight loss zone. But, they didn't really say. So, I don't really know. Rash assumption on your part though.

    Seems a valid question to me? CICO applies to anything and their diary is private, so no real way to see. It's hard truth for most people to accept, but if your diet is not where it should be, regardless of what you do, or when you started, there will no change.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    ChesKrieg wrote: »
    mmapags wrote: »
    ChesKrieg wrote: »
    How many calories are you eating a day? Willing to bet, too many.

    How uninformedly judgmental of you. I'm guessing at their weight and with losing 4 lbs, they have their calorie in a weight loss zone. But, they didn't really say. So, I don't really know. Rash assumption on your part though.

    Seems a valid question to me? CICO applies to anything and their diary is private, so no real way to see. It's hard truth for most people to accept, but if your diet is not where it should be, regardless of what you do, or when you started, there will no change.

    We're talking about a single seven day period. It's possible that OP isn't in a deficit, sure. It's also possible it's a number of other things.
  • VUA21
    VUA21 Posts: 2,072 Member
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    Weight loss isn't linear. Because of water retention, and the once a month reminder that we're not pregnant... Week to week, and even daily fluctuations are perfectly normal. Remember to look at the overall trend over a long period of time. I've have month long plateaus, then dropped 8lbs in a few days. Now, I know it's impossible to lose 8lbs of fat in a few days without surgery. It was just what I call the "woosh effect" after a plateau. It still averaged out to almost 2lbs a week, which was what I was going for.
  • ChesKrieg
    ChesKrieg Posts: 24 Member
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    janejellyroll wrote: »
    ChesKrieg wrote: »
    mmapags wrote: »
    ChesKrieg wrote: »
    How many calories are you eating a day? Willing to bet, too many.

    How uninformedly judgmental of you. I'm guessing at their weight and with losing 4 lbs, they have their calorie in a weight loss zone. But, they didn't really say. So, I don't really know. Rash assumption on your part though.

    Seems a valid question to me? CICO applies to anything and their diary is private, so no real way to see. It's hard truth for most people to accept, but if your diet is not where it should be, regardless of what you do, or when you started, there will no change.

    We're talking about a single seven day period. It's possible that OP isn't in a deficit, sure. It's also possible it's a number of other things.

    All I did was ask the daily calorie intake before offering any idea's or things to try, unlike everyone jumping to their own conclusions before having all the information. Wouldn't you agree that giving advice and things to try without actually knowing the specifics cause more issues than solve? I understand trying to help, but if you are coming to a forum asking for help some stuff needs to be provided, we don't know them.

    No ill intent meant.
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
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    janejellyroll wrote: »
    ChesKrieg wrote: »
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    ChesKrieg wrote: »
    mmapags wrote: »
    ChesKrieg wrote: »
    How many calories are you eating a day? Willing to bet, too many.

    How uninformedly judgmental of you. I'm guessing at their weight and with losing 4 lbs, they have their calorie in a weight loss zone. But, they didn't really say. So, I don't really know. Rash assumption on your part though.

    Seems a valid question to me? CICO applies to anything and their diary is private, so no real way to see. It's hard truth for most people to accept, but if your diet is not where it should be, regardless of what you do, or when you started, there will no change.

    We're talking about a single seven day period. It's possible that OP isn't in a deficit, sure. It's also possible it's a number of other things.

    All I did was ask the daily calorie intake before offering any idea's or things to try, unlike everyone jumping to their own conclusions before having all the information. Wouldn't you agree that giving advice and things to try without actually knowing the specifics cause more issues than solve? I understand trying to help, but if you are coming to a forum asking for help some stuff needs to be provided, we don't know them.

    No ill intent meant.

    I think it's the second part of your post ("Willing to bet, too many") that generated the responses that you got, not simply asking about the calorie goal.

    I agree that we shouldn't be jumping to conclusions and that includes betting that OP is eating too much. I think it's certainly something that is possible, but would I be willing to bet was happening after just seven days and OP losing 4 pounds the first week? No.

    Exactly. It wasn't the question that was offensive. It was the editorial comment. Very negative based on very little information.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,996 Member
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    ChesKrieg wrote: »
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    ChesKrieg wrote: »
    mmapags wrote: »
    ChesKrieg wrote: »
    How many calories are you eating a day? Willing to bet, too many.

    How uninformedly judgmental of you. I'm guessing at their weight and with losing 4 lbs, they have their calorie in a weight loss zone. But, they didn't really say. So, I don't really know. Rash assumption on your part though.

    Seems a valid question to me? CICO applies to anything and their diary is private, so no real way to see. It's hard truth for most people to accept, but if your diet is not where it should be, regardless of what you do, or when you started, there will no change.

    We're talking about a single seven day period. It's possible that OP isn't in a deficit, sure. It's also possible it's a number of other things.

    All I did was ask the daily calorie intake before offering any idea's or things to try, unlike everyone jumping to their own conclusions before having all the information. Wouldn't you agree that giving advice and things to try without actually knowing the specifics cause more issues than solve? I understand trying to help, but if you are coming to a forum asking for help some stuff needs to be provided, we don't know them.

    No ill intent meant.

    Sure, but there are nicer ways to ask :)

    My stock question is, "There are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings "

    I'm a lazy typist so keep this and all my other frequent comments in a doc so I can just copy and paste. That one is the first on the page.

    Also, because I know new exercise programs can lead to water retention, not to mention a woman's cycle, I tend to ask a lot of questions before concluding that a person is simply eating too much.

    Someone made this helpful flow chart to cover these issues:

    cs17oe75dcn0.jpg

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