Question about initial exercise weight gain

ShoshanahM

For those of you who may have experienced this (or are fitness-savvy), how long is it reasonable to expect weight gain from exercise (running about 2 mile distances and strength training 3x a week)? I have been back on the wagon for a month, and have gained 4 lbs. During past exercise endeavors, I usually gained about a pound, and then quickly started losing weight a week later. I have kept the food diary, and the days I have gone over, it was not by much, and should still put me in the .5 lb/week zone. I have noticed that I am building muscle, but the clothes are not looser yet.

I am 28/F about 5'5 1/2 and as of this morning, 156 lbs. I do not need to lose a ton, since I am only on the border BMI of healthy and overweight I mainly just want to be fit, and stop the expansion of my waistline, so when I moved out of my usual 145ish zone to 152, I knew I needed to get back to exercising. I suspect that my body type allows me to gain a lot of muscle in my legs quickly.

The only thing I'm wondering about my diet is that my protein has been somewhat lower than MFP suggests. My husband is a vegetarian and I have to eat gluten-free (we are the Dinner Guests from Hell.) I eat meat once or twice a week, usually on our date night at a restaurant. Dinners are often something like quinoa salad w/ beans, g/f pasta with cheese, nuts & roasted veggies, or BBQ tofu with greens and sweet potatoes. I usually have eggs and toast for breakfast and dinner leftovers for lunch. My vice is usually a couple glasses of wine on Friday and Saturday nights. I don't eat many sweets or snacks.

Should I increase protein (buy more meat/up the tofu or protein shakes) and ditch the wine for a while? Should I just be patient? The scale is just making me freak out a bit! I'm not used to gaining so quickly. Has anyone else experienced this?

rella_1003

I'm going through this aswell. I think your supposed to stick to an exercise routine for 4 weeks to see what difference it makes not only to the scale but also to your inches lost

davert123

To start with I would also ask what deficit have you set ? are you weighing all of your food and booking everything very accurately or guessing, are you guessing at activity level. If it were me I would ask these questions to see if my predicted weight loss was accurate to the best of my ability. Good luclk

ShoshanahM

I have my program set to lose 1lb a week, so it is about 1520 a day. I am pretty careful about measuring and tracking serving sizes, and I often use a food scale or measuring cups for more calorie dense foods, like chicken and rice., but I guess I could be even more careful. I initially set my plan to lose .5 a week, which was about 1640, and that seemed to be more than enough food for me, so I wanted to challenge myself a little more. (And I felt impatient to lose that weight again.)

I have lost weight a couple other times before without counting a single calorie. I made healthy food (and even baked cookies on Mondays!) and focused on improving in running. Granted, I am approaching my 30s now, so my metabolism is slowing, and I will also need to be mindful of portion sizes, but I'm thinking about just logging exercise and monitoring for improvement there, since I only really have about 10 pounds that I *should* lose and maybe another five that I would like to lose. I think all this logging drives me crazy, and I'm probably not too great at it. (I did it Jan-June last year, and only started losing late May, when I was running longer distances for half marathon training)

acogg

I have read that it lasts about two weeks. Embrace the gain, it means your body is healthy and normal! My doctor told me that water acts as a cushion for our cells. Just imagine that the body can provide it's own cushion when called on. I am always amazed at how adaptive our bodies are.

Skarlet13

Does anyone know if the water weight gain is just for weight training or does it include cardio as well? I plan on starting cardio tomorrow so would like to know what to expect scale wise. Also, how long does the increase last?

dbarnese

I'd recommend not eating back your exercise calories until you start to lose.

000Linda000

I used to be a competitive skater and this happened quite often. The two weeks before a competition I would almost double my training (to about 30hrs a week) and I'd gain about 2-3lbs. My diet was closely monitored, I didn't dare deviate from my meal plan.

What happens is that you're muscles will retain more carbs and water to keep up with the extra physical demand. It's completely normal. What's important is that you're burning fat, and that's the weight you want to loose.