Gaining weight while reverse dieting

Musclegainzforthewin

Hi everyone,

I was eating at a deficit (1350-1450 cals) for 6 weeks and went from 140.6lbs to 133.8lbs (I'm 5'5 for reference). I started a reverse diet on June 1st starting at 1450 and am currently eating 1550 by adding around 50 cals per week. I am very disciplined and do my best to be consistent but you know life gets in the way and I got off track one day because of a buffet that I couldn't avoid. As a result I gained 1.8 lbs that week (it was on the June 7th) and afterwards I just went back to the cals that I was normally eating (1500 for that week). This week I increased my cals to 1550 and have noticed an increase in my weight. The only other thing that I've changed this week is that I'm lifting 5 pounds heavier than last week. As of this morning I weigh 137.2lbs. The point of this reverse was to maintain and not get back to where I started at 140lbs. I'm not sure if this increase in weight gain is from fat or muscle or water weight. I thoughtthe buffet water weight would have gone down by now. My maintenance cals is supposed to be around 2100. I do strength training 4x and cardio 1-2x per week. Should I stay at 1550cal this upcoming week or increase to 1600cals or lower to 1500cals? I was hoping to go into a cut after this reverse and staying on maintenance cals for a while. My goal is to increase my metabolism and be able to cut at higher cals and my weight goal is 125lbs and 20 in around my thighs (currently 22.5 in). I have a naturally slim upperbody and tend to gain fat in my lower body.

heybales

Always do the math to see if even possible to be fat.

lbs change x 3500 / days for change = calorie difference to maintenance

So for the first 140.6 to 133.8 in 6 wks for instance:

6.8 x 3500 / 42 = 567 cal deficit from maintenance.

If you had very accurate food logs, add 567 to see what maintenance was.


1.8 x 3500 / 7 = 900 cal over maintenance if that was fat weight gained.

Did you eat 900 cal over maintenance each and every day?

Then water weight.

Due to scale not being the best at telling the whole story - measure where you gain fat first - for most the waist.
Not on food bloated days either - no need counting water weight, no need counting air measurement.

heybales

How do you figure the calories burned from the strength training?
since trying to do maintenance and 4x weekly is good amount you don't want to not count them.

Great goal though - always easiest and most benefit from dieting at high as you can, rather than playing how low can I go.
Crashing into the ground never good.

Musclegainzforthewin

I'm not really sure. Some people use their apple watches to track the number of calories they burn during their workout sessions, but I'm not sure how accurate that is. Especially since with strength training your body burns calories during the workout and continues to burn more calories hours after your workout session. My strength training sessions are typically 45-50 min doing lower body 2x and upper body 2x per week.

As for the calories consumed that week, I did not eat 900cals above maintenance everyday. I went to the buffet on a Monday and that was all I had that day since I overate and then the rest of that week I consumed 1500cals each day. Doing the math 1.8 lbs of fat would mean that I would have had to consume 6300cals above maintenance the day I went to the buffet right? I don't think I could have consumed that much, but who knows? Buffet food is very calorically dense. I'm just not sure if this upcoming week I should remain at 1550cals or continue my reverse diet and increase every week by 50cals. I'm not sure if the buffet probably messed up the process. I've heard of a lot of people that continued to lose weight when reverse dieting (just at a slower pace) because technically their still in a deficit until they reach their TDEE. When I calculated my TDEE, my results were 2100cals.

heybales

That's a good amount of time then, and sure counts.

Most HR-based trackers use HR-based calculations - there are a few that will use a better study based amount per min, because HR-based will be inflated. (wrong usage scenario)

If you want to see where Apple is in the scheme of things, use MFP database which uses the best estimate, don't need to log it, just use the database and lookup Strength Training (weight lifting) for the minutes done and compare the totals.

The EPOC calorie burn after the workout is minor, food label inaccuracy accounts for more than that.
That EPOC can be thrown into the noise of other daily calorie burn not accounted for. (like standing with no steps is given a sleep rate of calorie burn, obviously not true)

Yes you should continue to lose increasing so slowly to maintenance.
Some people even reach a point where body becomes very unstressed finally getting enough food, you get a whoosh of water weight drop.

Which is probably what you are dealing with now, not only from the big sodium increase that buffet day, but workout inflammation, ect.

50 cal is within the realm of label inaccuracy though in food logging even if you weighed everything exactly right - that's going to take forever.

If all the weight loss was fat, then add 500 cal to how much you ate during that 6 weeks and just rip the bandage off and eat your week at maintenance, and then go back into a diet. Appears that would be 1450? +567 = 2000 about.

If you can redo the math for just the last 4 weeks of weight loss though, skip the first 2 which includes big water weight drop from starting a diet. Water weight of course doesn't have 3500 cal/lb in it, so best to leave out if possible. Just as it doesn't count when gained fast. Fat is slow gained or lost.

Take that new figure and add it to how much was being eaten on average during that same time - call that maintenance.
Eat that for a week, then go back into a diet for whatever lbs you really need to lose. May look in the mirror and decide not much.

Yes you will gain water weight - more carbs stored in muscles for the type of workout you are doing - anaerobic.
Won't be that much though.

You weren't in a diet that long, you didn't take an extreme deficit - I doubt your body felt so much stress to adapt and slow down that a slow reverse diet is needed. Unless your body is under a lot of other stress from something.
You want the diet break just to allow hormones to reset.
Do you have more loss you were going for?

During that reset week, trying to increase your lifted weight - great time to. But don't add workouts that would put you back into a deficit.

AnnPT77

I 100% endorse what heybales is saying above. He's *excellent* at analyzing this kind of situation. (He's right about strength training, too: Calorie burn meaningful, but small, including the EPOC, no matter what the gee-whiz blogosphere may say. Still worth doing. Don't use a heart rate based estimate for it.)

I want to add this, more on the psychological side: I fear you're overthinking, and overstressing.

Whether you add 50 calories this week or next week very likely doesn't matter at all, except in so far as how it affects your mood. Physiologically, meh, not much difference. You're still below rationally estimated maintenance calories based on your own weight loss history. Most of us have more than 50 calories of food estimating error daily, probably. (I'm not saying that's a reason not to 'reverse diet' the way you're doing it, BTW. If you're going to do it, that way is fine.) Your personal goal is to increase gradually. 50 calories this week, next week, the week after: Whatever, IMO.

The slower you're losing, the more likely water weight weirdness (or waste temporarily in transit through your system) will hide body fat changes on the bodyweight scale, and hide it for longer. Recently, I went through a period of well over a year, intentionally, losing weight super slowly. Effective deficit was around 100-150 calories a day. Even without menstrual cycles (I'm too old for that nonsense), there was at least one month where my weight trending app (Libra, in my case) said I was maintaining at best, maybe even gaining, when I knew I wasn't, because I trust my process. There were other, shorter, periods where Libra was confused. There were other and *longer* periods where my own subjective view of daily scale weights would've been seriously misleading, had I paid any attention to that. I don't.

Because you didn't have a lot of weight to lose, and weren't losing for a huge long time, you don't have a lot of experience with body weirdness or water weirdness. Trust me, it's very, very weird. (I'm your height, lost from class 1 obese (183lbs) to 116 (overshot goal) back in 2015-16 at age 59-60, went back up to goal range (lower 120s), gained a few pounds over 4 years (to upper 130s), and super slowly lost it again over 12-15 months. Now age 65, I'm back in the lower 120s (123.4 this morning). Weirdness happened the whole way, I've learned to trust my process, and ride it out.)

Like I said, I fear you're stressing, when there's no need.

Guess what? Stress is dysfunctional. It feels icky, and can literally increase water retention (if extreme). Find a way to understand fluctuations, and trust your process. Some things that might help:

1. This article:

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

2. A weight trending app, if you don't already use one. The main choices are Happy Scale for iOS/Apple, Libra for Android, Trendweight (requires a free Fitbit account, but you don't need a device), Weightgrapher, or you can make your own spreadsheet, if you have good spreadsheet-fu (rolling averages or time-weighted averages are the thing). These can still mislead: It's just statistical smoothing, not a magic crystal ball. With a trending app, daily weighing gives you more data points, if daily doesn't put your stress needle into the red zone.

3. As a rough rule of thumb (with heybales' "did you eat enough calories" math a better guide): Multi-pound weight changes over a day or few, up to a week or small numbers of weeks (depending on things like loss rate & menstrual cycles), are almost certainly shifts in water weight or digestive contents, or some combination. Over multiple weeks to months, changes in the trends are more about body fat. Changes in muscle mass are more like months to years to outweigh either of those prior things, when it comes to scale weight. You're in a game of patience, now. Best be good at patience, eh? 😉

Overall, you're doing fine. Keep doing what you're doing - working out, gradually increasing calories, ideally getting good overall nutrition in those calories - and things will continue to be fine. Expect weirdness. It'll still be fine.

Best wishes!