Plateau Weight

chagdud
chagdud Posts: 1 Member
in Introduce Yourself

I have a goal to get back to 195, I am currently 2 weeks into a fairly strenuous multi exercise workout 3x a week and always over 10k Steps daily. I know this is 5 pounds or so of water weight because my body went into conservation mode with me new routine.

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  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 37,831 Community Helper

    Hello, and welcome to the Community! I see that you appear to have joined MFP back in 2015, a few months before I did, but this seems to be your first Community post, or at least first in a long while.

    Water retention sounds like a good explanation, but I'd say the reason is that a new or increased exercise load means triggering more need for muscle repair, and the body needs extra water retention to make that repair happen.

    Yes, if that's the case, it's not fat and therefore not worth worrying over. If fat loss is happening in the background, just masked for now by that extra water retention, you should see that fat loss outpace the water retention in a couple of weeks or so - maybe less - and see the scale start dropping again. (For women, it could take a full menstrual cycle.)

    I'm not sure I'd call that "conservation mode", though.

    If new exercise is overdoing for current fitness level, that can cause subtle fatigue, so that we burn fewer calories in daily life activity than we would normally. That's technically called "calorie compensation" or "energy compensation". Some people exhibit that effect more than others. For those who are more "energy compensators", the net calorie burn from the exercise is less than expected, because the fatigue reduces all-day calories, loosely speaking.

    As long as you're not overdoing for your current fitness level, exercise is great and positive for both fitness improvement and calorie expenditure. If a person is overdoing, it's counter-productive for both those things, because of fatigue and under-recovery. (Recovery between exercise sessions is where the magic happens, the body rebuilding better than before.)

    The sweet spot for exercise is a manageable challenge that doesn't generate excess fatigue, under-recovery, or much energy compensation. If someone is overdoing - which I'm not saying you are - they should back off total exercise load, and phase it in gradually. Total exercise load is a combination of duration, intensity, frequency, and exercise modality.

    To the extent water retention distorts the scale for a while, no big deal - you're right.

    Best wishes for long-term success!

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