Could a couple of days hard excersize effect weight loss?

ashleebussey

So I've been loosing really well the last few weeks, I tried extra hard this week as I wanted to boost myself with a big loss, stuck to 1500 calories or less all week, but I get on the scales and I've not lost anything. In terms of food there's no reason why I shouldn't have lost and I'm wondering if it could have been due to doing some really hard gardening work (dug an entire pond) 2 days this week and potentially building muscle mass (2 days later I'm still limping because my muscles ache from it) could this be why? I always assumed you have to work really hard and repetitively to gain muscle mass but now I'm not so sure because I can't see any other reason why I didn't loose weight this week. Should also probably add I'm usually very sedentary.

Lietchi

Gaining muscle mass is something that happens slowly over months, not something you'll notice in a weeks time.

However, exercise can cause water retention to repair muscles, which is especially likely since you mention being sore and usually sedentary.

elfin168

could be water retention

jenring3

Bingo for those who said water retention. That's typically what it is, especially if you're sore and your body just worked extra hard. Breaking down muscle requires an influx of what amounts to fluids to repair and build. And as already stated, you do have to work repetitively over time to gain muscle mass incrementally. Drink plenty of water, eat well and keep moving forward.

AshHeartsJesus

Yep water retention due to muscle fatigue. It takes a but to gain muscles.

AnnPT77

Ditto to the above.

I think you might find this article helpful, for more details:

https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations

It takes some of the mystery out of scale weight weirdness during weight loss.

cwolfman13

ashleebussey wrote: »

So I've been loosing really well the last few weeks, I tried extra hard this week as I wanted to boost myself with a big loss, stuck to 1500 calories or less all week, but I get on the scales and I've not lost anything. In terms of food there's no reason why I shouldn't have lost and I'm wondering if it could have been due to doing some really hard gardening work (dug an entire pond) 2 days this week and potentially building muscle mass (2 days later I'm still limping because my muscles ache from it) could this be why? I always assumed you have to work really hard and repetitively to gain muscle mass but now I'm not so sure because I can't see any other reason why I didn't loose weight this week. Should also probably add I'm usually very sedentary.

It's not muscle mass...you are sore which means you have inflammation which means you are holding water.

kshama2001

ashleebussey wrote: »

So I've been loosing really well the last few weeks, I tried extra hard this week as I wanted to boost myself with a big loss, stuck to 1500 calories or less all week, but I get on the scales and I've not lost anything. In terms of food there's no reason why I shouldn't have lost and I'm wondering if it could have been due to doing some really hard gardening work (dug an entire pond) 2 days this week and potentially building muscle mass (2 days later I'm still limping because my muscles ache from it) could this be why? I always assumed you have to work really hard and repetitively to gain muscle mass but now I'm not so sure because I can't see any other reason why I didn't loose weight this week. Should also probably add I'm usually very sedentary.

Yay gardening! Like others have said - water retention.

I foam roll, especially my hamstrings, after intense gardening. Makes a huge difference in decreasing soreness.

I started with cheaper Gold's Gym ones from Walmart but they died quickly.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0040EGNIU/