HELP! Can't stop GAINING weight??

sashabee25

I'm an 19 yr old female and I'm trying to lose 10 pounds of fat. I've been trying to lose this amount for the last 4-5 months. However, nothing I do seems to be working. I've tried OMAD for the first month with 1-2 hours of training a day. I then tried decreasing my fasting window to only 16:8 the second month because I didn't want to mess up my health (which led to me gaining weight the second month). Afterwards, I took a diet break to boost my metabolism and gained an additional 5 pounds. Now, I have started running 1-2 miles every day, and drinking a lot more water (about 80-100 oz a day), and no surprise, I gained 3 pounds seemingly overnight. My diet is extremely clean, made up of only whole foods. I track and measure my food too, and I eat around 1500 calories a day. Still, nothing is working for me. My best guess at the moment would be due to a hormonal imbalance, as I got my period almost a month late. But other than that, I have no clue why I'm not responding to any of this. Any ideas or tips?

PAV8888

Current weight, height?
Does that include your 3 overnight lbs?

What do you do during a typical day?

sashabee25

I'm 128 lbs (was 125 last time i checked) and 5'5.
I wake up at 8am every morning to run 1-2 miles, and then walk until i hit my 10000 steps. Afterwards I do some additional ab exercises and some HIIT if I feel like it. The rest of the day I work at a desk (but I try to move around every hour). I eat whole foods at a deficit and drink tons of water throughout the day.

MelanieCN77

With those stats your loss is necessarily going to have to be incredibly slow and there's little margin for error.

sashabee25

That is true, I expect to have slow results but I definitely did not expect to GAIN weight...

hipari

Calm down. You mentioned your period was almost a month late. This is a huge warning sign. Is this usual for you, or have you been regular before? Especially if being that much late is new for you, it sounds like your hormonal imbalance and period irregularities happened BECAUSE of these drastic changes in diet and exercise patterns. Based on your stats you’re already normal weight and losing 10 pounds would send you close to underweight BMI.

You’re 19, and screwing up with your hormones and menstruation cycle could mess them up for years, or even for a lifetime, causing fertility issues and even inability to have children. My advice in this situation is to return to what you did before starting to try lose weight, in terms of both food and exercise. Then, while doing that ”old normal”, log everything without any weight loss ambitions and see where you’re at. Wait for your period to normalize, and if it doesn’t, consult your doctor.

Once your period is back to normal, take some time to review those food and exercise logs, and see where you could make small sustainable changes you can stick with for the rest of your life. You’re already normal weight and losing those 10lbs in a way that’s healthy, sustainable and fat instead of muscle will take a long time, and you will not be able to do it if it’s through a regimen that feels like it takes work to keep up with. Alternatively, if you do lose the weight but the diet and/or exercise isn’t something you want to keep up with, guess what? You’ll gain the weight back on.

lgfrie

I'm gonna suggest something completely different. I think you would benefit from a reset and clean-up of what you've been doing.

Ditch the OMAD, IF, and all that kind of stuff for now. You can always return to them later if you want. They are not working for you, not now anyway. All you need is strict calorie control and reasonable exercise. So ...

1. Go to the MFP Goals tool above. Enter the stats it asks for - age, height, weight, etc. Tell it your goal is to lose 1/2 lb per week. It will spit out a calorie number. Eat that amount of calories every day, never less, and do your level best not to eat more. Measure your foods carefully. It is quite possible that your current imperfect results have been due to imperfect food measurement, which is common, so really drill down on that for a while.

My guess is that the caloric number MFP is going to give you will be right around 1350. This will be supplemented by eating back your exercise calories, so don't panic.

For six weeks try to be really rigorous about that calorie target. Don't take cheat meals or off days, don't binge, don't eat anything that doesn't end up in your food diary, just focus on hitting MFP's number day in and day out.

2. Any exercise you do will be additional to that. Eat all the calories from the exercise. However, if you think a number that whatever tool you're using to estimate the exercise is too high, then feel free to reduce that by 25 or 50 %. So for instance, if you are getting 300 cals per day of exercise but believe it's really 200, then eat an extra 200.

3. Try to be patient. Give it six weeks. You will get the right results if you do this. Once you have dispensed with all the faddish stuff like OMAD and transitioned to strict calories in-calories out, you will be operating in the realm of physics and chemistry, which always works and will get you to the desired outcome.

OMAD, IF, water, whole foods - none of this stuff affects weight loss. Focus on the calories. That's how you will get this done.

hipari

lgfrie wrote: »

I'm gonna suggest something completely different. I think you would benefit from a reset and clean-up of what you've been doing.

Ditch the OMAD, IF, and all that kind of stuff for now. You can always return to them later if you want. They are not working for you, not now anyway. All you need is strict calorie control and reasonable exercise. So ...

1. Go to the MFP Goals tool above. Enter the stats it asks for - age, height, weight, etc. Tell it your goal is to lose 1/2 lb per week. It will spit out a calorie number. Eat that amount of calories every day, never less, and do your level best not to eat more. Measure your foods carefully. It is quite possible that your current imperfect results have been due to imperfect food measurement, which is common, so really drill down on that for a while.

My guess is that the caloric number MFP is going to give you will be right around 1350. This will be supplemented by eating back your exercise calories, so don't panic.

For six weeks try to be really rigorous about that calorie target. Don't take cheat meals or off days, don't binge, don't eat anything that doesn't end up in your food diary, just focus on hitting MFP's number day in and day out.

2. Any exercise you do will be additional to that. Eat all the calories from the exercise. However, if you think a number that whatever tool you're using to estimate the exercise is too high, then feel free to reduce that by 25 or 50 %. So for instance, if you are getting 300 cals per day of exercise but believe it's really 200, then eat an extra 200.

3. Try to be patient. Give it six weeks. You will get the right results if you do this. Once you have dispensed with all the faddish stuff like OMAD and transitioned to strict calories in-calories out, you will be operating in the realm of physics and chemistry, which always works and will get you to the desired outcome.

OMAD, IF, water, whole foods - none of this stuff affects weight loss. Focus on the calories. That's how you will get this done.

This plan is sensible and great for losing safely once your period issues are sorted out. However, I’d like to take a moment to emphasize this: you are already at a healthy weight (based on your stats, I’m not your doctor). If your menstruation cycle is affected by your weight loss attempts, that’s a health concern, which your weight is not. Focus on normalizing your cycle first, and only then start with a steady science-based weight loss plan like this one.

ahoy_m8

lgfrie wrote: »

OMAD, IF, water, whole foods - none of this stuff affects weight loss. Focus on the calories. That's how you will get this done.

QFT

kimny72

OP, it looks to me like there are several things going on. First, you are aiming for the bottom of the healthy weight range for your height. It's quite possible that is simply not a healthy weight for you personally. Regardless, with so little to lose, you should be aiming to lose 0.5lbs per week, and that little fat loss can easily hide behind water weight fluctuations on the scale for weeks at a time.

But on top of that, it sounds like when you don't see an immediate loss on the scale, you are over restricting to try to force it. Adding a pretty aggressive workout schedule on top of that, you are putting an unhealthy amount of stress on your body and screwing up your hormones balance.

Just to add, you said 5 lbs were gained during a diet break, which was probably a combination of a boomerang effect where you ate too much and too differently after over-restricting plus water weight. And gaining 3 lbs after adding even more exercise is perfectly normal water weight gain.

You need to take control of this before you set yourself into a lifetime of bad habits and hormonal issues for years to come. You are a healthy weight right now, there is no emergency or need to rush.

My suggestion would be to take 3-4 weeks to just give your body a break. Eat your maintenance calories, and ease off the workout regimen a little. Take at least one rest day per week. Understand your water weight will normally fluctuate up and down several lbs sometimes daily due to water weight fluctuations. You don't need to react everytime the scale moves.

Then consider why you want to get to such a low weight. Its quite possible that maintaining your current weight while following a professionally designed strength program will do far more for your shape than losing more weight will. Perhaps someone can link to the recomp thread and the lifting program thread, I think both might help.

Please take a deep breathe and be patient. You are pushing your body really hard and it might just be trying to tell you to back the heck off

nooshi713

OP does NOT need to lose weight.

Wendyanneroberts

OP you need to consider your health. Especially as your bmi is already at the lower end and your 18, or just turned 19. I am only saying this out of concern for you. It seems to be already having a negative impact.

You have had 3 or 4 posts over the past couple of weeks. Some asking about extreme weight loss methods of water fasting.

Have also been given some great advice, by some great mfp regulars who know what they are talking about.

You also need patience and to learn the difference about weight fluctuations. I'm sure links were posted before.

kimny72

Here are links to the helpful posts that have been mentioned:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat/p1

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p1

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10084670/it-is-unlikely-that-you-will-lose-weight-consistently-i-e-weight-loss-is-not-linear/p1

Wendyanneroberts

Thanks, I wasn't sure how to repost links.