Hitting my Macros and gaining a LOT of weight.

DrWesner

I need some help here guys. So I started at 240 lbs. I have done a pretty solid job over four months and dropped down to 207. However, in the last week, I have had a turnaround that I cannot explain. I am hitting my macros every single day just like normal. I have been working out 3 x per week as well (60 minutes of weights followed by 60 minutes of cardio). According to my faithful Apple watch, I am burning about 258 calories doing weights followed by another 500 via cardio. So, if you do the math, I am burning about 750 calories per workout day, again doing 3x per week.

So what is the problem? The problem is I am gaining weight. I am working at a consistent calorie deficit every day (about 400 calorie deficit) and hitting macros like clockwork. BUT...the problem is I am gaining...a lot. I have gained five lbs. in the last five days.

And it gets worse from there. Looking at my chart I did gain a little muscle 2lbs, but I did not lose ANY fat at all. In fact, I gained it. My body fat percentage is increasing and I do not know why.

If you can't tell, this is freaking me out. Any help you can provide would be great.

Lietchi

So your gain is only the last 5 days? As a general rule, short term weight changes are changes in water weight and/or food waste in your digestive tract. You didn't suddenly eat 5 x 3500 calories over maintenance, so it cannot be fat gain.

Your bodyfat readings: if they are from a smart scale, they are very unreliable.

Any changes recently? New tips of exercise, change in intensity, air travel, constipation, high sodium food,...? Have you tried changing the battery on your scales? Are the scales on a solid surface?

SouthernMama404

Weight can fluctuate upward a fair bit when weight training. Your body will retain some water/have some inflammation as it's repairing your muscles. Have you increased your weight and/or intensity recently?
As someone who's weight fluctuates a fair bit anyway, I mitigate my panic by weighing every day first thing in the morning (post-bathroom and pre-food or coffee) then I use an app that puts it in a graph and shows my overall trend.

cmriverside

In addition to what Lietchi said, have you also recalculated your "deficit" based on that 40 pounds of weight loss?

Have you been weighing and logging all your food for this whole time? Even days when you don't want to?

Five pounds is still (in my opinion) within a normal fluctuation, all things considered.

This thread is one we link all the time, and goes into more detail about what may be happening. In the first post is a link to the original article:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1

DrWesner

OK. I want to clarify a couple of things. First, I do have a smart scale (a high end one) so the numbers should be good. What bothers me is that I have never seen five lbs of weight gain in a week. And considering that most of it is coming from fat, that is throwing me off. It is not water guys...it's fat.

Also, yes I log every single day. I never eat out, and I use my scale on everything. No changes in what I am eating either.

No travel or anything like that. I will change the batteries on the scale and see if that helps I guess.

Thanks!

yirara

Please, take a step back and listen to what the people say. It's physically impossible to gain 5lbs of fat in a few days. All those scales are rubbish because you stand with your feet on those pads and a tiny electric current is send up one leg, and down the shortest route, thus the other leg. basically all this thing is measuring is something in your legs and then intrapolating this to a standard body. Just a bit more water might show up as more fat, or a bit more dehydration, or lots of other things. All those scales just guess. And as gaining so much bodyfat in just 5 days is not possible and you don't seem to have overeaten by 5x3500 calories (over your maintenance and not deficit calories) then it's water or poor weight. It always is.

cmriverside

DrWesner wrote: »

OK. I want to clarify a couple of things. First, I do have a smart scale (a high end one) so the numbers should be good. What bothers me is that I have never seen five lbs of weight gain in a week. And considering that most of it is coming from fat, that is throwing me off. It is not water guys...it's fat.

Also, yes I log every single day. I never eat out, and I use my scale on everything. No changes in what I am eating either.

No travel or anything like that. I will change the batteries on the scale and see if that helps I guess.

Thanks!

Well, we are trying to troubleshoot with you.

I will be another vote for, "Don't put a lot of stock in those bioimpedence scales." If you do, you're going to get these weird inaccuracies that mean pretty much nothing. They're gimmicks, for the most part. If you recently did some new lower body workouts or more exercise involving your lower body in general, then it's possible your muscles are rebuilding and when they do that they are basically inflamed. Holding water. In your legs and lower body. Where your type of scale will see a change.

Try to just relax, it's not fat. Honest.

yirara

Here's something for you to consider: you've lost a lot of weight, right? 33 lbs in 4 months, nearly 2lbs per week on average. Why do you expect bodyfat to just pop up again out of nowhere and not just accept it as normal water or poop weight fluctuation? With your current weight this might very well be a certain point within your menstrual cycle (provided you have one) combined with a slightly more intense workout, with just sitting at a desk with the legs hanging down. To be honest, weight that goes up over 5 days from Monday to Friday always makes me think of desk worker waterweight: just a bit of oedema that gets a wee bit more every day of the week. So please relax. Go on with your life. All is fine, I promise.

Every bodyscale works a bit different, but you could play with it if you want to. Stand on it with your socks on. Wait for it to reset (some scales store the weight). Then stand on it barefoot. With slightly sweaty feet, after getting up, after drinking a glass of water and waiting a bit. Before a workout, and after doing a few squats or anything else for your legs. I'm sure the various measurements will fluctuate quite a bit, including the 'bodyfat' even though nothing has changed in that short time.

Anecdotal story: I once got a health checkup at work. This doctor brought along a body composition scale. It also included hand pads. My BMI was 23. This thing thought I had 42% bodyfat. Yeah.

kshama2001

Sounds like your Apple watch is not new. Has it always been synched to MFP?

Anything new in your workout?

What's your gender? If female, do you have a menstrual cycle?

AnnPT77

DrWesner wrote: »

OK. I want to clarify a couple of things. First, I do have a smart scale (a high end one) so the numbers should be good. What bothers me is that I have never seen five lbs of weight gain in a week. And considering that most of it is coming from fat, that is throwing me off. It is not water guys...it's fat.

Also, yes I log every single day. I never eat out, and I use my scale on everything. No changes in what I am eating either.

No travel or anything like that. I will change the batteries on the scale and see if that helps I guess.

Thanks!

Even the best bioimpedance scale is not that good. The method has inherent limitations. Four-point (with handholds) may be a little better than two-point (just stand on it, no hand contact), but still not great.

Don't give it too much credit just because it's technology. Technologies have an error factor, and BIA scales have a pretty high one. They send a small electrical current though the shortest path in your body between the measurement points, then use statistical algorithms to estimate body composition. That has multiple weak points.

As others have said, if you'd been losing pretty steadily, and suddenly stall or increase in weight, the only realistic possibility is water retention or digestive waste in transit.

Did you read the link:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1

If not, read it - especially the article linked in the first post - and take it on board.
.
Five pounds of fat is 17,500 calories of eating over maintenance calories (not just over goal calories), an equivalent amount of reduced movement, or a combination. If you'd done that over 5 days (or so) while measuring/tracking carefully, you'd know. If that didn't happen, it isn't fat. You're male (according to your profile), so you're not pregnant.

If your weight loss tapered off slowly, and gain happened slowly thereafter, you might have found your maintenance calories, and beyond. Yes, you need fewer calories as you get lighter. Does your Apple watch know your updated weight? That can be important, too. Some exercises burn fewer calories as we get lighter, because part of the work (in the physics sense of "work") is moving our bodyweight through space.

If you're retaining extra water, and there's no increase in exercise (or other water retention factors discussed in the link above), the mere fact of fast loss can eventually result in stress-related water retention. (Calorie deficit is a stressor. The longer or bigger the deficit, the more stress accumulates.) Another thing to consider would be this:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks/p1

Sure, change the batteries in your scale. That might make a difference. The technology still has inherent limitations.

Someone will probably come along here and tell you that you need to switch up your exercise or eating routine to "shock your body" because it's become accustomed to your routine. I've never seen any decent research backing up that idea. Mostly, it's nonsense pushed by fitness industry players to sell people new and different programs, exercises, machines, diets, etc. (See Beachbody and "muscle confusion". )

Other than that, you're getting advice here from folks who have been through this. We may not be academic experts, but we have some practical personal experience. (Yup, that has limitations, too.)

As long as your stall was sudden, my best bet would be that within a few (short) weeks, you'll see a sudden scale drop. It's possible, not guaranteed, that a refeed or diet break could speed that up a little. (The thread I linked above includes links to evidence about how/why that might actually be a real thing. It's about water weight.)

Don't let this get to you. Stress can increase water retention. Best wishes!

neanderthin

Take a break. I believe 16 weeks of dieting and working out needs a couple of weeks of rest and recovery with eating a little more to make your weight stable. It can invigorate your workout feeling refreshed and energized. Also, you didn't gain 5lbs of fat in 5 days, your just freaking out. My weight fluctuates that much over a 24 hour day and I'm around 190 lbs and male. Take a breath and take a break.

springlering62

I use the most popular electronic scale on Amazon.

The weight recording is quite reliable. Every other data point it records is laughable. I’ve put on a considerable amount of muscle in the last three years. According to this scale’s app, I’ve lost muscle. Huh? My guns, thighs and calves say otherwise, lol.

Otoh, my water % is going down, per the app. No way, Jose. I’m in the middle of the occasional pain cycle. Everything hurts, and as a result I’m retaining water to the point I swear I can feel the slosh.

Take it all with a grain of salt. It’s just a marketing gimmick, “added value”. You wouldn’t beleive how many people turn up here, chewing on these inaccurate readings.

If you want a relatively reliable set of numbers, pony up for a DEXA scan, and prepare to weep when you get a real insight into your body fat percentage.

ddsb1111

Any chance you’ll share your diary with us? No judgement either way, believe me.