Weight gain on low calories?

bronwenmahardy

Hi everyone,

I hope I am posting in the right area. I started on my fitness journey to maintain my current weight (it was 115 in October, I don't have a scale and have no means of weighing myself since.)

I've been feeling discouraged lately. I feel as though I've gained a lot of weight (judging by how my clothes feel).
I am feeling discouraged because I started doing ~1 hour of pilates everyday on top of walking 6,000-10,000+ steps a day and doing 15 minutes of cardio/day, I started the pilates and cardio at the end of October and have made it a lasting habit. I added these to my day just to tone up and stay healthy.

I try to eat around 1,200 calories a day, however during the holidays I did eat a bit more on average per day (I did consume more chocolate than I should have) . I follow a vegetarian diet, and eat 98% vegan and 98% gluten free. Even on the days during the holidays that I ate more than normal, It was never more than 1600 calories. I try to make the calories I consume healthy and whole foods calories. I have also returned to my pre-holiday diet of 1,200 calories/average, and have been for over a week.

According to my estimations I should be able to eat up to 2,000 calories a day with my activity levels and maintain my current weight.
I've also started drinking more water everyday. I'm not forcing it, but I've upped my water intake by 3-4 glasses a day... making my daily intake 4-5 glasses.

I've noticed I have a bit of a muffin top and my stomach is feeling really large and full, and I'm feeling squeezed into my clothes.

What can I do? I'm finding it hard to believe that a week or two of over indulging (upped calories to 1,600) would cause this weight gain. Have I messed up my metabolism? Am I not eating enough calories generally? Am I eating too many?

jennegan1

For that amount of activity you are eating too few calories. Your body needs fuel and with too small of a deficit and too much working out your body can and will hold onto any weight that you are trying to lose. I suggest start easy start upping your calories about 50-100 for the next week and of course do it healthy eating fiber enriched foods veggies fruits ect but I think for that much activity it should still be more then 1300 but like i said start small and work your way up

jcolier

What exactly do you eat? Also, the holidays were only about a week ago, might take a while to lose the weight!

Also - have you been only eating 1200 calories for a long time? Sometimes our bodies get used to lower calories. Try upping to 1500 calories for a while, see what happens. Still a 500 calorie deficit, if you can eat 2000 and maintain.

Mr_Knight

You can start by opening your diary.