GLP1 Week 4, gained weight ☹️

fierce_fab

I’m up 1.8lbs this week. I’ve been tracking food every day. Anyone else experienced weight gain while on GLP1s?

neanderthin

I'm sure the data will show some do have fluctuating weight gain/loss. Wait and see what happens and if you continue to gain weight over the few weeks or a month, see your doctor.

AnnPT77

During any method of weight loss, most people are going to have ups and downs in scale weight. If the overall trend of body weight over several weeks is downward, but there are some jumps up in weight along the way, that's normal. GLP-1 drugs' weight loss isn't likely to be different.

Usually, it's about water retention fluctuations, and those are part of how a healthy body stays healthy. Our bodies know what they're doing, so we don't want to try to interfere with that. A human body can be up to 60%+ water, and that can shift by several pounds literally overnight. In contrast, even fairly fast fat loss is gradual. For example, 2 pounds of fat loss per week would be about 4.6 ounces - just a touch over a quarter pound - per day. The multi-pound water fluctuations can mask fat loss on the scale for a surprisingly long time sometimes. (My personal biggest overnight change was 6 pounds, and it wasn't 6 pounds of body fat. 😆)

On top of that, digestive tract contents also vary, often by more than that 4.6 ounces daily. An apple or the contents of a glass of water in my hand weigh the same in my digestive system until they're fully metabolized, which in some cases may take 50+ hours. Their calorie content is the main direct determinant of our body fat gain/loss, but that only shows up clearly in the multi-week trend. The weight changes within a day, or over a few days, even up to a couple of weeks or so, are more about water and digestive waste on its way to the exit, not about fat gain/loss.

One common thing, in women of the relevant age/stage, is water weight fluctuations from hormonal changes related to menstrual cycle. It's not the common pattern, but some women here have reported only seeing a new low weight once a month, at a particular point in their cycle, even when losing fat reasonably well.

As a rule of thumb, I figure multi-pound shifts over a day up to maybe a couple of weeks are about water/waste. (It could be up to a month in a woman with those cycles: I'm in menopause.) Fat gain/loss shows up in the overall trend - average weekly loss - over 4-6 weeks or at least one menstrual cycle. Absent some truly dire health condition, changes in muscle mass are going to affect scale weight very gradually over many weeks to a few months or more.

If you'd like to understand more about this sort of thing, this - especially the article linked in the first post - is a good thread:

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

Don't worry. High odds you're doing just fine. Hang in there, it'll sort out, I predict.

fierce_fab

thank you for your comment i appreciate the support

j_coburn66

@fierce_fab I just started my GLP1 journey on 03/07 and have found myself with similar issues. My provider let me know to expect an adjustment period as my body starts to respond. She reminded the scale is only one tool and to not let myself get too caught up in the numbers as the first four weeks might not yield any kind of loss or there could be some minor fluctuations.

Stabilization is what has been happening for me after the first two weeks and going up about 1.5 lbs. Since my second injection on 03/14, the scale evened out to my starting weight and this morning I'm down 1.2 lbs (I've decided to weigh on Thursdays since my injections are on Fridays). I'm definitely not as interested in food, and I'm feeling full much sooner than I expected without the need to snack in between meals.

I'm very happy to have found this thread and I agree with @AnnPT77 about hanging in there. We're all unique and our journeys are equally so. 🤗

totameafox

You have to learn to take the scale with a grain of salt. It is normal to celebrate when it goes down and hard to not worry about it when it goes up or doesn't move. I usually weight myself every day (not this week. I had a bad day monday and don't want to see the scale as I work to mitigate it. ) But I only keep the week weight.

If we look at my progress. I have no explanation as to why I lost 5 pounds the first two weeks. I would have had to not eat anything for that to be muscle or fat. Week 5 I gained 1.4 pounds. I did not over eat that week. I should have lost weight not gained. Then the following day I dropped over a pound. The day after that I dropped 2 pounds. so over 3 pounds loss in 2 days. Day 3 I gained 1.4 pounds. I was probably dehydrated after only drinking soda for a couple of days.

Week 9 I had no change from week 8. My bowl movements aren't daily. that might have been the reason. The next day I lost over a pound. If we remove the first two weeks I've lost an average of 1.15 pounds. This is inline with my goal.

I would only worry about weight gain if you gain multiple weeks in a row. Otherwise keep going and trust the process.

AnnPT77

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48535381#Comment_48535381

A fairly common pattern seems to be to see a big-ish scale drop in the first week or two, most of which is a change in water retention and waste (the latter because we're eating less), then to have some rebalancing of water retention after that. The way that can look on the scale is a big initial drop, then a stall or even regain, before a general loss trend resumes - still with some ups and downs, typically. Not everyone sees that pattern, but it seems like many do.

One of many weird patterns, which is why it's so common here to see people suggest paying more attention to the 4-6 week trend, or full menstrual cycle trend.