Extremely confused

bamagrad2004

Hey folks!

So I’ve been on a consistent weight loss journey for almost 2 years. I meal prep and exercise regularly. Run a few times a week, zumba for high cardio.

Now for some reason I’m gainjng weight. I’m not doing weight training so I don’t think that I’m putting on muscle. BUT I could be. I’m is very discouraging seeing the number go up rather than down.

I will say I am on the run a lot with work and community theatre.

Does anyone have any restart options to kick my body back in weight loss mode. I def don’t want starve myself.

My meal planning for breakfast and lunch is extremely regimented. Maybe it’s time to change those options.

Normally I do 3 Oz of egg whites and a few strips of precooked bacon or turkey sausage for breakfast. Occasionally will add a carb smart tortilla for a wrap.

Lunch is 5-6 Oz of baked chicken, 1/3 cup of cottage cheese, 2 Oz of Sharp cheddar, small green salad (1 Oz)

Dinner varies. I don’t eat late. Just need some help. I don’t cheat a lot during the week. Maybe once on the weekend. I do a modified keto diet and don’t eat more than 75 carbs a day.

So if ANYONE has any suggestions I look forward to getting some help. Thanks so much.

kommodevaran

Know this - if you're gaining weight, you're in a calorie surplus. If you're not gaining muscle, you're gaining weight. Apart from seeing a rising weight trend, you can only know whether you're in a calorie surplus if you track your food intake correctly.

You shouldn't try to lose weight by starving yourself. You just have to eat a little less (than you burn), but consistently.

Don't cheat, at all. Eat what you want, but log it. Eat when you want to.

Change up your diet if you want more variety. Not to kickstart weightloss. You don't restart or kickstart weightloss. You're either in an energy surplus, a deficit, or balance. Eating less - for real, that it- puts you in a calorie deficit.

kommodevaran

If you're not gaining muscle, you're gaining fat, obviously

TavistockToad

Either you're eating more than you think, burning less than you think or it's a normal fluctuation.

How much have you gained, it what timeframe?

WRLemmon

You need to take a look at your nutrition levels, eating just low calories is good to a point but if you are not getting a good balance of what your body needs it starts to slip into a starvation mode making it very hard to loose weight. Also while cardio workouts such as zumba and running are great for your overall health and heart, they don't really effect weight loss all that much, you need to so a regular weight training routine to maintain weight, fact is it takes more energy to power muscle.

LW3380

WRLemmon wrote: »

You need to take a look at your nutrition levels, eating just low calories is good to a point but if you are not getting a good balance of what your body needs it starts to slip into a starvation mode making it very hard to loose weight. Also while cardio workouts such as zumba and running are great for your overall health and heart, they don't really effect weight loss all that much, you need to so a regular weight training routine to maintain weight, fact is it takes more energy to power muscle.

Wow...too many woo's to mention

psychod787

bamagrad2004 wrote: »

Hey folks!

So I’ve been on a consistent weight loss journey for almost 2 years. I meal prep and exercise regularly. Run a few times a week, zumba for high cardio.

Now for some reason I’m gainjng weight. I’m not doing weight training so I don’t think that I’m putting on muscle. BUT I could be. I’m is very discouraging seeing the number go up rather than down.

I will say I am on the run a lot with work and community theatre.

Does anyone have any restart options to kick my body back in weight loss mode. I def don’t want starve myself.

My meal planning for breakfast and lunch is extremely regimented. Maybe it’s time to change those options.

Normally I do 3 Oz of egg whites and a few strips of precooked bacon or turkey sausage for breakfast. Occasionally will add a carb smart tortilla for a wrap.

Lunch is 5-6 Oz of baked chicken, 1/3 cup of cottage cheese, 2 Oz of Sharp cheddar, small green salad (1 Oz)

Dinner varies. I don’t eat late. Just need some help. I don’t cheat a lot during the week. Maybe once on the weekend. I do a modified keto diet and don’t eat more than 75 carbs a day.

So if ANYONE has any suggestions I look forward to getting some help. Thanks so much.

What is a modified Keto diet? 75 grams of carbs is enough to knock you out of Keto me thinks. Other wise, you are just on a high fat, high protein diet. Why Keto? Why not just a lower carb approach? Carbs are muscle sparing with adequate protein intake. If you are not in Keto, you do not get the effect of Ketones muscle sparing tendency.

fiddletime

How many calories in dinner? How many in your “not a lot” of cheats during the week? How many calories is your one cheat during the weekend. Time to tighten up on the unknowns. Your metabolism doesn’t get any faster as you age either .

VUA21

1. Tighten down on your logging, that is usually the culprit. Both what you eat and your workouts.
2. Take your measurements. If your waist shrinks and your shoulders expand, that's not gaining fat.

Francl27

Make sure you weigh your portions, and use correct entries (cooked chicken vs raw chicken).
Log everything, even your 'cheats'.

You're not saying how long you've been gaining weight for, if it's pretty recent, it could just be water retention, but if you've only gained weight in 2 years, either you're eating too much, or you should go see your doctor.

nxd10

I had similar problems after six years - gained 5 pounds for no reason and was slowly moving up on calories where I shouldn't have been. Because I was having other health issues, my doctor put me on the Whole30 plan. It's not really meant for weight loss, it's a paleo-style elimination diet you go on for 30 days to reduce inflammation. My calories and exercise didn't change, but my macros did- protein way up, carbs dropped to around 30-35%. I didn't target either, I just followed the food guidelines (1-2 palm sized protein portions a meal, no dairy, alcohol, grains, legumes, sweeteners). You are actually not supposed to log of weigh during the 30 days, but I did because I do.

Despite no calorie or exercise changes, during that month I dropped 10 pounds (which being very very very full) and my husband (who went on it with me) lost 12. We are both enjoying the diet so much and feel so much better physically, we are loosening up on some of the restrictions (I had a martini to celebrate finishing it), but will stay paleo for the foreseeable future. I expect my weight loss will stabilize.

Anyway, I would recommend it as a reset if you were maintaining successfully and suddenly aren't. There are lots of books around - I got it from the library. If you can't find it, any paleo book will probably do.

try2again

nxd10 wrote: »

I had similar problems after six years - gained 5 pounds for no reason and was slowly moving up on calories where I shouldn't have been. Because I was having other health issues, my doctor put me on the Whole30 plan. It's not really meant for weight loss, it's a paleo-style elimination diet you go on for 30 days to reduce inflammation. My calories and exercise didn't change, but my macros did- protein way up, carbs dropped to around 30-35%. I didn't target either, I just followed the food guidelines (1-2 palm sized protein portions a meal, no dairy, alcohol, grains, legumes, sweeteners). You are actually not supposed to log of weigh during the 30 days, but I did because I do.

Despite no calorie or exercise changes, during that month I dropped 10 pounds (which being very very very full) and my husband (who went on it with me) lost 12. We are both enjoying the diet so much and feel so much better physically, we are loosening up on some of the restrictions (I had a martini to celebrate finishing it), but will stay paleo for the foreseeable future. I expect my weight loss will stabilize.

Anyway, I would recommend it as a reset if you were maintaining successfully and suddenly aren't. There are lots of books around - I got it from the library. If you can't find it, any paleo book will probably do.

You say your calories did not change, but then also mention "palm-sized" portions of protein. Also, with only 2 servings of protein and no dairy, grains, or legumes, how did you make up those calories? (Not asking to be difficult... genuinely curious. Clearly you and your husband are happy with your WOE, and that's what matters.)

MegaMooseEsq

I've also been losing weight over a long period of time (about a year as of early May) and recently hit a stall/slight gain (as if early May). It's no mystery, though - I'm eating too many calories, partly because of various things perking up my appetite recently, and partly because I've lost 50 pounds and my body just doesn't need as many calories as it used to. You don't say how much you've lost, but remember that all else being equal (muscle mass and activity level primarily) a body that weighs less needs fewer calories to maintain that weight than a body that weighs more. If you want to keep losing weight at a consistent rate, you need to lower your calorie intake periodically or increase your output accordingly.

If you've been dieting for a long time, it might be a good idea to take a break for a while and maintain (this here happens to be the maintenance forum, so you're in the right place!). Just don't think that there's something wrong with you or that you need a reset or reboot or jump start or whatever. Your body isn't a car or a computer, and if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. Whatever it takes for you to do that, knock yourself out, but there's no big secret. There's nothing wrong with taking a break and regrouping, either - dieting is hard, and you've made a ton of progress!

As a side note, it takes a lot of work to gain muscle even if you're actually on a progressive lifting program, so unfortunately that's almost certainly not what's causing you to gain weight.

nxd10

try2again wrote: »

nxd10 wrote: »

I had similar problems after six years - gained 5 pounds for no reason and was slowly moving up on calories where I shouldn't have been. Because I was having other health issues, my doctor put me on the Whole30 plan. It's not really meant for weight loss, it's a paleo-style elimination diet you go on for 30 days to reduce inflammation. My calories and exercise didn't change, but my macros did- protein way up, carbs dropped to around 30-35%. I didn't target either, I just followed the food guidelines (1-2 palm sized protein portions a meal, no dairy, alcohol, grains, legumes, sweeteners). You are actually not supposed to log of weigh during the 30 days, but I did because I do.

Despite no calorie or exercise changes, during that month I dropped 10 pounds (which being very very very full) and my husband (who went on it with me) lost 12. We are both enjoying the diet so much and feel so much better physically, we are loosening up on some of the restrictions (I had a martini to celebrate finishing it), but will stay paleo for the foreseeable future. I expect my weight loss will stabilize.

Anyway, I would recommend it as a reset if you were maintaining successfully and suddenly aren't. There are lots of books around - I got it from the library. If you can't find it, any paleo book will probably do.

You say your calories did not change, but then also mention "palm-sized" portions of protein. Also, with only 2 servings of protein and no dairy, grains, or legumes, how did you make up those calories? (Not asking to be difficult... genuinely curious. Clearly you and your husband are happy with your WOE, and that's what matters.)

1-2 palm sized portions of protein per meal and lots of veg, potatoes, yams, avocados, nuts etc. Before this routine my macros were around 40% carbs, 15% protein, and 45% fat. After this routine it's 30% carbs, 30% protein, 40% fat.