Gained weight?

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utz2119
utz2119 Posts: 34 Member
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
I started working out a little over a week ago and I've gained 4 lbs since. How?!?! Like I knew I've been a little hungrier but how is that possible?

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  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,128 Member
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    It's classic really, new exercise often causes water retention for muscle repair. You didn't eat 14000 calories over maintenance, I presume (you would have noticed!), so you just need to be patient.
    Taking measurements and progress pictures might help too, the scale isn't always the best judge of progress.
  • utz2119
    utz2119 Posts: 34 Member
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    @Lietchi could it really hold on to 4 lbs? How long till it goes away??
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,128 Member
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    It's very individual. It could stick around until you stop working out (increased gisteren in the muscles), or go down after a few weeks. 4 lbs is certainly possible, I've heard worse 🙂
    I would keep an eye on your food intake too, it's easy to eat more than you burn through exercise, since you mention being hungry.

    What kind of 'working out' are you doing?
  • utz2119
    utz2119 Posts: 34 Member
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    @Lietchi at home workouts like squats, push ups, leg drops, Russian twist, crunches, lunges, ect. That just blows my mind that it can hold that much. Might start counting today just to make sure I'm not over eatting. Not trying to lose or gain weight
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,128 Member
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    Resistance training, yup, definitely not surprising then to see an increase in scale weight 🙂
    Strength training doesn't burn a ton of calories (compared to for example running) so monitoring your intake is definitely a good idea, some people definitely have excessive hunger cues when doing resistance training.
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 13,270 Member
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    In addition to the great information offered above, keep in mind that one week is a blink. Take the long view.

    My weight can go up and down over five pounds in one day. I weigh daily, and I mostly ignore the number and instead look at trends. It can take six weeks or more to see a trend develop.

    Also, by all means, DO track your food. It's been said around here "You can't outrun the fork." Log your exercise too. You might be sad to find out how "few" calories you burn doing strength/resistance training. It's still good for you to do it, but it's a low burn.

    Track how much you fuel your body and how much you burn. Follow the weight trend for a few weeks, and then you will have good information to further adjust your intake. Everyone has slightly different results, and you need a little trial and error to see how your body fits with the population average.

    The MOST IMPORTANT thing is don't quit. Be one of the few who STICKS TO IT.
  • utz2119
    utz2119 Posts: 34 Member
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    @mtaratoot I weigh everyday as well. And I've noticed the scale going up fast. Today I just had it and had to ask. I work night shift so I dont think programming what I eat in the app would work. I've been programming my workout on here everyday as well just not what i eat. I'm going to start measuring tomorrow. (Would have done it today but woke up and drank water)
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,195 Member
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    utz2119 wrote: »
    @mtaratoot I weigh everyday as well. And I've noticed the scale going up fast. Today I just had it and had to ask. I work night shift so I dont think programming what I eat in the app would work. I've been programming my workout on here everyday as well just not what i eat. I'm going to start measuring tomorrow. (Would have done it today but woke up and drank water)

    Logging what you eat is important if you really want to know how your eating is affecting your body weight, even if you only do it for a few weeks to get things under control. It doesn't matter how you align your day with an MFP diary day, just use a consistent practice and you'll be able to see what your daily average is over time. There are people here on night shifts, rolling shifts, all kinds of crazy schedules who use the food logs successfully for weight management.

    Usually, if the scale is going up fast, but you haven't had big changes in activity level (exercise or daily live decrease) or eating (calorie increase) to account for it, it's some combination of water retention and digestive contents on their way to becoming waste, neither of which are something to worry over.

    You'd need to cumulatively eat 3500 calories above maintenance to gain a pound, or move that much less, or a combination. You should have some feel for whether that's possibly happened in a short time horizon. If your routine didn't change that much over the time period, but your body weight did, it isn't fat.

    If you haven't read the "fluctuations" thing linked above, do so. It should be calming.

    Me, I gain some pounds every time I resume strength training (which is seasonal for me), and hang onto it until I stop progressive training again. It's just water retention for muscle repair, I expect it and have zero worries about it. It isn't fat, doesn't matter.

    When it comes to water retention, our bodies know what they're doing. It's a natural part of how a healthy body stays healthy - it would a bad idea to try to short-circuit it via diuretics or other silly interventions.
  • utz2119
    utz2119 Posts: 34 Member
    edited January 2023
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    @AnnPT77 so that means just the scale number will go up but I wont physically get any bigger right? And the workouts I'm doing are building muscle and not just burn calories correct?
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,195 Member
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    utz2119 wrote: »
    @AnnPT77 so that means just the scale number will go up but I wont physically get any bigger right? And the workouts I'm doing are building muscle and not just burn calories correct?

    Mostly yes to both, but with some subtleties.

    There are various reasons for increased water retention (did you read that linked article yet?). Different things may hold water in different places.

    Some is kind of all-over, or mostly internal to the body, so you won't be noticeably bigger. Some kinds are mostly localized to one body area, so you might notice being a little bigger in one area. Think about it: If you get some kinds of minor injuries (bruise, insect sting, etc.), the area swells up. Some of that will essentially be water retention in that area, so you could be bigger there, right? If it's related to muscle repair from exercise, the muscles could even look bigger or more defined - this sometimes helps people imagine they've gained new muscle mass when they haven't. Sometimes women who feel bloated at particular times in their menstrual cycle find that their pants feel a little snug from the retained water.

    You're very, very unlikely to get enough bigger that anyone else will notice, from routine healthy water retention changes.

    As far as muscle gain: Even the fastest gain is pretty slow. Think months to years. You have to be doing the right exercises in the right way, and getting adequate calories and good overall nutrition, in order to get the best results (fastest version of slow muscle gain). Age, gender, and genetics have an influence on muscle mass gain.

    Generally (oversimplifying), our bodies will first gain strength through neuromuscular adaptation - better recruiting and utilizing existing muscle fibers. That can happen fairly fast, for someone new to strength training or resuming after a long break. When that contribution from existing muscle is maximized, still oversimplifying here, then the body is more triggered to start adding new muscle fibers. That happens slower.

    On the nutrition front, for strength or muscle gain, it's especially important to get adequate protein, but other things are essential or useful: Micronutrients, fats, carbs.

    Once again, I'd encourage you to log your eating, because that will be a major help if you have any kind of weight goals (gain, maintain or lose). As a bonus, logging will help you make sure you're getting the nutrition you need to best support strength/muscle gain.

    So, at a more detailed, accurate level, there's a lot that goes into how much your exercise routine is building muscle vs. just burning calories.

  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 1,640 Member
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    You can not gain 4lbs of anything except water in a week. Fat and\or muscle would be a surplus of 2,000 calories a day which would be very difficult
  • bobshaw_ca
    bobshaw_ca Posts: 1 Member
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    Stay the course. As you recently started exercising your body is currently going through some changes. It is common for some people to gain weight when they first start exercising due to water retention and muscle building. Muscle weighs more than fat. As you have started exercising, your body is most likely burning more fuel, so therefore you may feel a little hungrier than usual.

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