Gaining Weight

HayleyGonzales

Gaining weight and not sure why?

Backstory I weighed about 165lbs about 4 years ago, lost the weight (30lbs) and have kept it off. Mostly lost the weight by healthy eating. I started back at the gym about a month ago and doing weight training because I had really really slacked over the last few years and the flab was catching up.

Do you think the weight gain is from weight training? I have gone from 132 to 138 in a month? I can feel it! Pants are tighter and belly feels fuller.

kimny72

Are you tracking your food? Increased exercise can subtly increase your appetite. 6 lbs could easily be a bit of water weight plus a very small calorie surplus you might not even notice if not logging accurately and consistently.

newhopeind

It’s easy to get discouraged by this but as long as you are still in a caloric defecit, then you are in fact losing fat. Don’t get demotivated by what the scale says. I was in the same boat, had been losing weight, added in strength training, scale suddenly stops. So, asked a couple personal trainers and nutritionists, and one suggested getting an actual body fat reading (not a scale, I’m talking the full gambit). Sure enough, I was losing fat, and adding muscle.

Having said, it’s not a 1:1 ratio of fat to muscle. The reality is that since you started strength training, your muscles are soaking up as much as they can for energy. And what is the best source? Oxygen. And what is the purest form of oxygen you can put in your body? Water.

If you’re like me and have gone through your food diary over and over trying to find where “weight gain” is coming from and can’t find it, the reality is the scale is “lying” to you. You’re losing fat, building muscle, and your muscles are soaking up as much water as they can to repair/build new muscle.

Just remember that the goal is losing fat, not a number on a scale.

Lolalikeslolagets

Training inflammation?