Why Am I Gaining Weight on this Meal Plan? I want to maintain.
SaraBrinksey9
Posts: 21 Member
Hi. I am 19 and 5'5 and 118 pounds. I would like to maintain this weight. I have crash dieted over the years, and I am trying to find my body's "set point." Before reading this, it is important to note that I am sedentary (desk job during the summer and don't take anytime to exercise). I increased from 1200 calories to 1700 calories within the past three weeks. About 3 weeks ago, I weighed 113. As I increased and ate 1700 on a daily basis, my weight has increased 5 pounds. If I eat less than 1700, I am moody and irritable and tired. Here is what I have been eating:
Breakfast:
1/2 cup egg whites, broccoli, salt, and pepper
EITHER 1 slice ezekiel bread (80 cal) OR bagel thin (110 cal)
1 tbsp light cream cheese (40 cal)
About 2 cups worth of strawberries/raspberries (110 cal)
coffee with fat free cream and Splenda (40)
Snack:
1 1/2 cup of plain roasted spaghetti squash (120 cal)
Lunch:
Tomaro's low carb wrap (60 cal)
4 oz grilled chicken (120 cal)
100 calorie pack of almonds by Blue Diamond.
Snack:
1 Danon Light & Fit Greek Yogurt (80 cal)
Dinner:
Usually about 5-6 ounces of lean meat (grilled chicken, salmon, swordfish, tuna, cod, pork tenderloin, etc).
A lot of vegetables - usually 1 large summer squash and broccoli (130 cal)
About 2 small spoonfuls of sweet potato (60 cal)
Snack:
1 cup Golean cereal (160 cal)
1 cup of Light Vanilla Soy milk (70 cal)
Do you think that I am overeating? Should I restrict? I just don't understand how this is too much.
Breakfast:
1/2 cup egg whites, broccoli, salt, and pepper
EITHER 1 slice ezekiel bread (80 cal) OR bagel thin (110 cal)
1 tbsp light cream cheese (40 cal)
About 2 cups worth of strawberries/raspberries (110 cal)
coffee with fat free cream and Splenda (40)
Snack:
1 1/2 cup of plain roasted spaghetti squash (120 cal)
Lunch:
Tomaro's low carb wrap (60 cal)
4 oz grilled chicken (120 cal)
100 calorie pack of almonds by Blue Diamond.
Snack:
1 Danon Light & Fit Greek Yogurt (80 cal)
Dinner:
Usually about 5-6 ounces of lean meat (grilled chicken, salmon, swordfish, tuna, cod, pork tenderloin, etc).
A lot of vegetables - usually 1 large summer squash and broccoli (130 cal)
About 2 small spoonfuls of sweet potato (60 cal)
Snack:
1 cup Golean cereal (160 cal)
1 cup of Light Vanilla Soy milk (70 cal)
Do you think that I am overeating? Should I restrict? I just don't understand how this is too much.
1
Replies
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Have you set MFP up for maintenance? is 1700 what it gave you?
Weight gain when you up your calories is very common, as you're replenishing glycogen stores which will cause additional water weight. With your stats and history I wouldn't drop your calories at all.8 -
If you increased your calories by 500 over maintenance this would equate to a 3 pound weight gain.
Can be over eating your calorie goals and some of this can be water weight gain from more calories, dietary changes (more carbs/sodium), more food in your system, how hydrated you are, time of the month, etc.
Are you using a food scale? Are you using correct entries from the food database?3 -
Unless you are extremely small-boned (like some Asian women are), your ideal weight is probably closer to 120-125. A basic formula is 100 lbs for 5 feet, and then 5 lbs per inch (for women; for men, it's 7 lbs per inch) over 5 feet. When I check those weights in a BMI calculator for people of different heights, the formula weight usually ends up right smack in the middle of the normal/health range--equal distance from underweight/overweight. So, perhaps you are gaining precisely b/c your body needs a few extra lbs. If you don't like the way it looks, change that weight from fat to muscle-recompositioning, as it is called here.
The number on the scale is only 1 measure of fitness--and you are wise to notice that eating too few calories affects your mood and energy. Don't let some arbitrary number get in the way of good health. Try to figure out a way to make some time for exercise (google "strength training throughout the day") and focus on over-all health, not just the scale. Good luck, whatever you decide to do.10 -
Have you set MFP up for maintenance? is 1700 what it gave you?
Weight gain when you up your calories is very common, as you're replenishing glycogen stores which will cause additional water weight. With your stats and history I wouldn't drop your calories at all.
How much real weight gain do you think could actually result? Why am i 5 lbs heavier?0 -
Have you set MFP up for maintenance? is 1700 what it gave you?
Weight gain when you up your calories is very common, as you're replenishing glycogen stores which will cause additional water weight. With your stats and history I wouldn't drop your calories at all.
Also my BMR is 13110 -
If you increased your calories by 500 over maintenance this would equate to a 3 pound weight gain.
Can be over eating your calorie goals and some of this can be water weight gain from more calories, dietary changes (more carbs/sodium), more food in your system, how hydrated you are, time of the month, etc.
Are you using a food scale? Are you using correct entries from the food database?
Do you think my maintenance calories are 500 less than what I am eating now? I am well-hydrated.0 -
Unless you are extremely small-boned (like some Asian women are), your ideal weight is probably closer to 120-125. A basic formula is 100 lbs for 5 feet, and then 5 lbs per inch (for women; for men, it's 7 lbs per inch) over 5 feet. When I check those weights in a BMI calculator for people of different heights, the formula weight usually ends up right smack in the middle of the normal/health range--equal distance from underweight/overweight. So, perhaps you are gaining precisely b/c your body needs a few extra lbs. If you don't like the way it looks, change that weight from fat to muscle-recompositioning, as it is called here.
The number on the scale is only 1 measure of fitness--and you are wise to notice that eating too few calories affects your mood and energy. Don't let some arbitrary number get in the way of good health. Try to figure out a way to make some time for exercise (google "strength training throughout the day") and focus on over-all health, not just the scale. Good luck, whatever you decide to do.
I know but I personally feel uncomfortable at a higher weight. Do you think if I were 120 I would maintain or gain on this meal plan?0 -
SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »Have you set MFP up for maintenance? is 1700 what it gave you?
Weight gain when you up your calories is very common, as you're replenishing glycogen stores which will cause additional water weight. With your stats and history I wouldn't drop your calories at all.
How much real weight gain do you think could actually result? Why am i 5 lbs heavier?
Nobody can really say. If it were 100% fat, you would have needed to eat 17,500 calories over maintenance.
As for BMR, that's just what your body burns to live. Set MFP to maintenance and it'll tell you how much to eat.5 -
Meal plan is irrelevant.
Calories are what count here.
If you are gaining then that means you are eating above your maintenance.7 -
SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »If you increased your calories by 500 over maintenance this would equate to a 3 pound weight gain.
Can be over eating your calorie goals and some of this can be water weight gain from more calories, dietary changes (more carbs/sodium), more food in your system, how hydrated you are, time of the month, etc.
Are you using a food scale? Are you using correct entries from the food database?
Do you think my maintenance calories are 500 less than what I am eating now? I am well-hydrated.
I think that your weighing and logging of your calorie intake is your issue. Gaining weight is caused by over eating your maintenance intake. I pointed out 500 over maintenance would be 3 pounds weight gain in 3 weeks, also some water weight gain from eating more, etc.
If want, open your diary, experienced folks can look at your diary and tell you what you need to do from a weighing/logging calorie intake aspect.7 -
SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »If you increased your calories by 500 over maintenance this would equate to a 3 pound weight gain.
Can be over eating your calorie goals and some of this can be water weight gain from more calories, dietary changes (more carbs/sodium), more food in your system, how hydrated you are, time of the month, etc.
Are you using a food scale? Are you using correct entries from the food database?
Do you think my maintenance calories are 500 less than what I am eating now? I am well-hydrated.
There are many factors in that post that you didn't address. Are you weighing regularly? Did you switch your calorie intake and then notice a change in the weight right away? Close to TOM? Logging accuracy is usually one of the biggest culprits.2 -
It says 18000
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100_PROOF_ wrote: »Meal plan is irrelevant.
Calories are what count here.
If you are gaining then that means you are eating above your maintenance.
But im saying do you think 1700 is above maintenance for someone my stature? BMR is 13112 -
SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »If you increased your calories by 500 over maintenance this would equate to a 3 pound weight gain.
Can be over eating your calorie goals and some of this can be water weight gain from more calories, dietary changes (more carbs/sodium), more food in your system, how hydrated you are, time of the month, etc.
Are you using a food scale? Are you using correct entries from the food database?
Do you think my maintenance calories are 500 less than what I am eating now? I am well-hydrated.
I think that your weighing and logging of your calorie intake is your issue. Gaining weight is caused by over eating your maintenance intake. I pointed out 500 over maintenance would be 3 pounds weight gain in 3 weeks, also some water weight gain from eating more, etc.
If want, open your diary, experienced folks can look at your diary and tell you what you need to do from a weighing/logging calorie intake aspect.
do you think 1700 is above maintenance for someone my stature? BMR is 13111 -
SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »If you increased your calories by 500 over maintenance this would equate to a 3 pound weight gain.
Can be over eating your calorie goals and some of this can be water weight gain from more calories, dietary changes (more carbs/sodium), more food in your system, how hydrated you are, time of the month, etc.
Are you using a food scale? Are you using correct entries from the food database?
Do you think my maintenance calories are 500 less than what I am eating now? I am well-hydrated.
I think that your weighing and logging of your calorie intake is your issue. Gaining weight is caused by over eating your maintenance intake. I pointed out 500 over maintenance would be 3 pounds weight gain in 3 weeks, also some water weight gain from eating more, etc.
If want, open your diary, experienced folks can look at your diary and tell you what you need to do from a weighing/logging calorie intake aspect.
do you think 1700 is above maintenance for someone my stature? BMR is 1311
I honestly do not know what your maintenance is or should be in your real day to day, but I did run it through this calculator and its around 1575, but this is just an estimate.
http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/
eta: additionally if you ate 125 calories over the number I gave you above, this is still not 5 pounds gain in 3 weeks. So your logging is off (your are eating more than 1700), add in possibly some water retention, etc.2 -
Hi Sara- If you are gaining at 1700 then it is too much, unless your are not measuring correctly.
All of our bodies are different so the exact number for you will be different.
As long as you know you are measuring and counting your caloric intake correctly I suggest dropping a couple of hundred calories. If you start losing you can increase it 50 calories at a time until you get it right. If you are still gaining go the other way 50 calories.
You will find what works.2 -
Your weight will go up and down for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with fat gain. Mainly, these are fluctuations in water weight. Water weight fluctuations are part of how a healthy body operates. Since they aren't fat gains, there's no need to worry about them.
Some possible reasons one's body may temporarily retain extra water: Healing from an injury or surgery, repairing muscles after a new workout, a minor disease or infection that involves inflammation, extra sodium or carbs eaten (more than normal, even if a perfectly healthy amount of either or both), various stages of a pre-menopausal woman's menstrual cycle. (I'm sure I've forgotten some.)
Yes, for someone your size, 5 pounds is a possible water-weight fluctuation. Some women routinely gain and lose that much or even more over the course of a menstrual cycle. Other things on the list of potential causes can add up to 5 pounds, too. If you didn't eat 17500 calories more than your maintenance - and I'll bet you didn't - you didn't gain 5 pounds of fat.
It's correct as stated above that when you go to maintenance, glycogen replenishment (perfectly normal and healthy) can cause a little water weight gain. It isn't fat. Also, if you start eating 500 more calories of food every day, the average in-transit contents of your digestive system are simply going to weigh more, and that will show up on the scale. It isn't fat, either.
If MFP says you should eat 1800 to maintain, eat 1800. Eat that for 6 weeks, and see how your weight behaves over that time period. (At about your height and weight, I maintain at a calories above that, and I'm over 60 years old). Even if it's an over-estimate, you can only gain a tiny, tiny amount. The 1800 is more likely to be accurate, or even under-stated, but you'll never figure that out unless you eat at that level through a whole menstrual cycle plus a couple of weeks, and see how things average out over time.
If this is freaking you out, one option would be to start at a calorie level where you've been losing weight, then add 100 daily calories every day, jumping that much up once every week or two, until your weight stays more-or-less stable for a full month (there will still be water weight fluctuations!). This gradual add-back strategy, though, will tend to hide any glycogen replenishment & higher average digestive contents in a very slow rate of continuing fat loss, so there's less drama on the scales because of that. Some people also find that a gradual add strategy helps them become gradually more energetic in daily life, and restore some of the calorie burn lost to adaptive thermogenesis (the thing people call "metabolic damage" that isn't really metabolic damage), if there was some.
Best wishes!9 -
Do you think less than 1800 is normal for maintenance3
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SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »Do you think less than 1800 is normal for maintenance
Read through the posts here on this thread about your logging and maintenance.2 -
SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »Do you think less than 1800 is normal for maintenance
Read through the posts here on this thread about your logging and maintenance.
I did and nobody has given me a straight answer3 -
SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »Do you think less than 1800 is normal for maintenance
Read through the posts here on this thread about your logging and maintenance.
I did and nobody has given me a straight answer
I ran your stats through a calculator and it gave you an estimated maintenance of 1575.
Maybe work with that number and see how things work out for you.2 -
SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »Do you think less than 1800 is normal for maintenance
Read through the posts here on this thread about your logging and maintenance.
I did and nobody has given me a straight answer
We can't give you a straight answer. Put your stats in MFP and instead of setting it to lose weight, set it to maintain weight, That should get you a close estimate as to how many calories you should eat to maintain. Watch your weight for a month, if it goes up, cut 100 calories and try for another few weeks. Whether or not 1700 or 1800 calories are appropriate to maintain totally depends on how much activity you do everyday. It may or may not be enough or too much.7 -
If you're gaining weight, you're eating too much. It's really that simple.4
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SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »Do you think less than 1800 is normal for maintenance
Read through the posts here on this thread about your logging and maintenance.
I did and nobody has given me a straight answer
And I took the time to add up your calories from above meals (plugged in 200 cals for the meat since you did not add that), and it comes to 1370-1400 calories. You are eating more than you think.
It looks like you just setup your account in MFP today? So you are not weighing and logging here?10 -
I put your stats in MFP and it gave me 1650 to maintain according to your height, weight, age and gender.
If you aren't using MFP to correctly track your calories, you probably are eating more than you think. Accurately track for a month and see what happens.0 -
SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »Do you think less than 1800 is normal for maintenance
Read through the posts here on this thread about your logging and maintenance.
I did and nobody has given me a straight answer
It's just not that simple. If you won't give more information, then all answers are nothing more than a guess (some are very educated guesses, but guesses, none-the-less).3 -
SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »Do you think less than 1800 is normal for maintenance
Read through the posts here on this thread about your logging and maintenance.
I did and nobody has given me a straight answer
Because it's not as simple as yes or no.
Are you logging right?
Are you understanding that weight gain when going into maintenance is normal?
Those are the factors you need to address first.
1 -
SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »Do you think less than 1800 is normal for maintenance
Read through the posts here on this thread about your logging and maintenance.
I did and nobody has given me a straight answer
No one can tell you what your maintenance will be, exactly.
The best estimate would be based on your own logging data during weight loss. You could add the calories represented by your weight loss in the last couple of weeks to the calories you actually ate in that same time period, and that would let you calculate your maintenance . . . approximately, because none of us do exactly the same things every single day, so we don't burn exactly the same number of calories every single day, just approximately the same. It would be pretty close, if your logging had been accurate during that time.
The next best way to estimate your maintenance calories would be to let MFP tell you how many calories to eat. You've done that; it said 1800. None of us can give you a better estimate than that. It could be inaccurate, because we're all unique individuals, and it gives the same estimate to anyone who's the same size/age/weight who claims the same activity level. It won't be exact. So, you try it for around 6 weeks, then adjust. That's the best information we can give you.
We're not hiding anything. We're not being evasive. We don't know the answer. You have to try it out to find the answer.
For those of us who are in maintenance (like me), one of those methods above is more or less what we did . . . or gradually start eating more systematically, until our weight stabilized . . . or set a maintenance weight range, and when we hit the top of it, cut calories until we dropped down again (letting weight cycle up and down). There are only so many options. None of those options are "someone tells you the exact answer". That's not possible.7 -
SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »Do you think less than 1800 is normal for maintenance
Read through the posts here on this thread about your logging and maintenance.
I did and nobody has given me a straight answer
And I took the time to add up your calories from above meals (plugged in 200 cals for the meat since you did not add that), and it comes to 1370-1400 calories. You are eating more than you think.
It looks like you just setup your account in MFP today? So you are not weighing and logging here?SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »Do you think less than 1800 is normal for maintenance
Read through the posts here on this thread about your logging and maintenance.
I did and nobody has given me a straight answer
And I took the time to add up your calories from above meals (plugged in 200 cals for the meat since you did not add that), and it comes to 1370-1400 calories. You are eating more than you think.
It looks like you just setup your account in MFP today? So you are not weighing and logging here?
Thank you for this insightful response! You said you added it up and it came out to be roughly 1400 cal, so I was confused by what you meant when you said Im eating more than I think (I counted it as 1700/1800). Yes I just joined today; I have been in recovery from anorexia for 5 1/2 years and took a break but I’m really motivated and wanted to seek out reassurance because my eating disorder is convincing me otherwise.1 -
SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »Do you think less than 1800 is normal for maintenance
Read through the posts here on this thread about your logging and maintenance.
I did and nobody has given me a straight answer
And I took the time to add up your calories from above meals (plugged in 200 cals for the meat since you did not add that), and it comes to 1370-1400 calories. You are eating more than you think.
It looks like you just setup your account in MFP today? So you are not weighing and logging here?SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »SaraBrinksey9 wrote: »Do you think less than 1800 is normal for maintenance
Read through the posts here on this thread about your logging and maintenance.
I did and nobody has given me a straight answer
And I took the time to add up your calories from above meals (plugged in 200 cals for the meat since you did not add that), and it comes to 1370-1400 calories. You are eating more than you think.
It looks like you just setup your account in MFP today? So you are not weighing and logging here?
Thank you for this insightful response! You said you added it up and it came out to be roughly 1400 cal, so I was confused by what you meant when you said Im eating more than I think (I counted it as 1700/1800). Yes I just joined today; I have been in recovery from anorexia for 5 1/2 years and took a break but I’m really motivated and wanted to seek out reassurance because my eating disorder is convincing me otherwise.
then seek further help for your disorder first and foremost. you were given good advice and maintenance is an estimate. nothing when it comes to weight loss,gain or maintenance is going to be an exact number. like the calculators say my BMR is 1400-1500+ but its not its actually a little over 1200 from all the data I have collected over the past few years.
it says my mainteanance is 2100-2300. I maintain on about 1900 calories and I burn quite a bit of calories a day. so everything is an estimate. so you will have to eat at a certain amount of calories and do that for awhile and see what happens. your weight also fluctuates every hour every day. so fluctuations are normal0
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